Part 2: Curating Daylilies: Amador Flower Farm and Homestead Farms Nursery

For many years I worked most often as an artist/painter and and less frequently as floral designer/gardener. In the past few years that ratio has been reversed. I've noticed a word has been stolen from the art world vocabulary lately and applied in the marketplace to lines of clothing, household goods, socks, dog food, etc. The word is curated- often appearing alongside carefully curated. For an artist this little word plays an important part of your life because you are always submitting your work to be juried into some show or gallery (until you've Made It). The decider (curator) on the other side of the fence, looks at all the submissions with a theme in mind to put together an interesting and relevant curated show. 

So I went to Amador Flower Farm last week in the Sierra foothills to look at their collection of  nearly 1000 day lilies and try to bring as few home as possible. There is only so much space and so many more kinds of plants to plant. When I got home from that visit, I happened to stumble across another nursery online; Homestead Farms Nursery in Missouri. They offer over 1200 day lilies for sale. And frankly their collection was more to my taste, not to mention their website is very attractive. Their colors are more subtle. Amador is good for really brightly patterned and colored day lilies. First thought- Damn- I need a bigger garden!  Second thought- it appears that curating is also done in the flower growing/gardening world. But of course.

 

Why day lilies? They're beautiful, drought tolerant, their original versions are native (more on that another time) and they're tough. To date I haven't found any that work as cut flowers for events because they only last a day, but there are some rumored to be long lasting.

 You can decide for yourself here:
https://www.amadorflowerfarm.com/ 

http://www.homesteadfarms.com/fashion-bug/