Oakes Daylily Gardens 2020

Oakes Daylily Farm 2020 & Historic Corryton 

Kenny & Dana Koogler

Sunday July 28, 2020

Pictures are here starting with the current frame

(Gallery is a combination of two visits, the first images are taken during peak season of the daylily festival in 2018.  Second bunch are taken this year.)

Oakes Daylilies Info

  I ended up not making it to the open weekends at Oakes Daylily Farm this season.    They did not hold their festival, but still had open weekends like usual during June.   I reached out to them and requested permission to visit, and they sweetly said yes.   Told me to come on whenever it suited.  They warned me it was rather dry and the lilies were suffering some from the heat.  I went ahead yesterday and took a drive out there. Kenny went with me to get out of the house. He is recovering from surgery. 

 Downtown Corryton.

 Above: an abandoned business of some sort. Looks like it must have been a garage.

 Above: the historic depot in Corryton has been converted into their public library!  it sits by the railroad tracks. Below is a closer look at the neat red caboose!  I always loved waving to the conductor on the caboose as a kid. He'd wave at us from high on the tracks!

      It is a beautiful area of east Tennessee just north of Knoxville.
Kenny has a new truck and he is still learning to use all the fancy features on it.
We wrangled with the navigation on both that and the google maps.  It finally got us there.  I am not sure how many times we drove past the turn. I think twice.

     The first wrong turn had us end up in "downtown" Corryton.
He pulled over to try to get the navigation to speak to us.   While he was doing that I jumped out and used the opportunity to photograph some historic structures.  A few minutes later we were turning into Monday Road.. the proper road for the daylily farm.  The road was unsigned which was at least part of the reason we missed the turn the first time.

     Today was a beautiful day with bright blue skies filled with sunshine and puffy clouds.   It was ninety degrees today.  Very hot.  We got out and strolled around the grounds a little bit.   Despite the fact we do need rain and it is late in the season for lilies I still had a decent visit and got some nice pictures.
I won't ever wait this long to visit though when I know from before what I missed.  It is better to go when they are peak.

   

 Above: star gazer lilies

 Above: not sure the real name of these, but they are funeral lilies

 ruffled edge lilies not sure the real name

 beautiful red barn at the Oakes Farm

 Orange Tremor lilies

 The sparkling pond is scummy this time of year and smells funky.

 Gazebo and bridge and willows!

 Still a lot of color!

 I think these might be Autumn minaret.. they are very tall!

 Claudine's Charm lilies

  Above: Apache War Dance lily!


 

  Lots of beautiful things to see even if the season is fading.  I was glad I went and grateful for the generosity of the Oakes Farm family.

      I knew that the visit today was liable to be short lived because it was past peak and because of the heat.   It was rather short. I had a variety of other things picked out to include that did not get done.   One we did try was we headed out to Gibbs to get ice cream on this hot day.   On the way we stopped by a very old historic church for me to see it.

    Little Flat Creek Baptist church is one of the all around oldest in the state.  It was established in August 1797.  Post Revolutionary War!   I had seen some good photos of it and wanted to check it out.   It sits behind the current day, modern church!
Below is the modern church visible from the main road Hwy 331 East Emory Road. 
 

 Marker commemorating the origins of the church

 above: the charming log structure that is the original church!

Front view of the original church

    So my recommendation is to put the Oakes Daylily Festival on your dance card and make time to go to that or open weekends next season. It is too pretty to miss.  Many daylily display gardens I've noticed in outlying areas are going out of business. One I wanted to see in Kentucky is closing up shop after this year.

A comparison of the peak season to this years photos will prove it is better to go early!   

      Things that we did not go see today. 

• Pratts Country Store- closed on Sunday
• the Nicholas Gibbs cemetery and cabin historic site
• Savage Garden in Knoxville-- I could not find hours for it that I trusted completely, but it is behind a Montessori School. I think the only reliable days to go that are ok are Saturdays.  

      Below is a video about Summer loves by a famous area resident.. Kenny Chesney who was born Knoxville at St. Mary's and raised in Luttrell, attended and graduated from Gibbs Highschool. Love his music.