Enjoy the adventures of one woman as she experiences the sites and sounds of Texas Forest Country. There's never a dull moment as each visit offers plenty to see and do, often with surprising twists!
Fields of Gold…and Orange and Pink!
WOW! Fields of color caught my eye this week as I was driving west of Center in Shelby County. On closer inspection, I discovered the bursts of gold were day lilies at Jack Carpenter’s Day Lily Farm. Breathtaking! Dazzling! Jack’s the grower behind the “scapes"—that’s the word to describe the stem these flowers bloom from. He’s a hybridizer. He takes this lily and that lily and makes a new more incredible one. It’s child’s play - when you consider that Jack crossed his first two lilies in sixth grade. His grandmother gave him the plants. When they bloomed in eighth grade he was hooked. Walk the four acres under cultivation and let Jack dig up some lilies from his pool of about 300,000! You can buy them and take them home! Visiting just one field of gold wasn’t enough for me. I had to check out a mother-daughter endeavor in Angelina County. It’s Lillie Lu’s Garden on Landrum Road in Lufkin. Delightful. Seeing is believing this piece of paradise. These early summer cultivars are at their peak! By mid June they’ll start to wilt like the rest of us!
So hightail it to one of these farms or visit any of a number of growers in Texas Forest Country!
The Day Lily Farm
7725 Hwy 7 West
(12 miles west of Center)
Open May 15 through June 15
Hours: 9:30 am to 1:30 pm
936.598.7556
Lillielu’s Garden
580 Landrum Road
Lufkin, Texas
Open May 20 through June 20
936.404.2211
Where’s your favorite day lily farm? Weed out the best and share your comments below!