Daylily Haiku Thursday | Summer is Coming!

<posted 6/20/2013>

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What a difference a year makes... | Daylily Blog on WAITING!!

<posted June 19, 2013>  What a difference a year makes!  

Last year on this date, I had already exhibited in a show and my seedlings were almost all blooming.  

This year, I have two daylilies blooming and not a single seedling has bloomed yet.  And I think Im okay with that.  It allows me more time to focus on tasks that go by the wayside when bloom starts.  Things like edging, staking, pruning from spring growth.  I am also able to notice changes in the garden that I might not see if the daylilies were exploding, like how full the Cleveland pears have gotten in just a year, or how the hardy hibiscus look so pretty emerging from fresh wood.

Ive invested quite bit of time in the precariously placed robin's nests in my yard, too.  Today, the last baby left the nest we have been watching so intently for the last month.  She built this nest on my potting bench.

Wanda laid 4 eggs and all of them hatched.

It was special for us because the boys had never seen eggs or chicks or how protective and attentive the mother robins can be.  She sat on them during two near-tornadoes and several high-powered storms. Over the last month, one died leaving the nest, and I saw the other two Monday and yesterday  skittering about the yard and garden, hiding in clumps and perching on short sticks - learning to live.  

Here is the last remaining baby, yesterday, holding out for just the right moment.  This one stayed in the nest almost five days after the others had left.  Wanda kept feeding it and sitting with it at night, so we knew it was going to survive!

Today, this last baby bravely climbed onto the rim of the well-built nest and just flew.  

Wanda's nest is empty.

I'll miss them, but I'm glad to have my potting bench back.

You can see the start of Wanda's nest in this picture...I think Ill leave it there.

Here are some first pics of the earliest bloomers.  Not any of my earliest are yellows!  What do you think about that?!?

From top left, we have CHAOTIC EROTICA from Illinois hybridizer Martin Mayes.  Top right is Paul Owen's RUNNING FOR THE BORDER (which measured 8.5").  Bottom left is Michigan hybridizer Martin Kamensky's SHY PIROUETTE (which will rebloom until September) and bottom right is Nicole DeVito's FOREVER FASCINATED, blooming in a pot waiting for the Region 2 Summer Auction in Cincinnati at the end of the month.

 

C'mon, daylilies...

Gone fishin' | Daylily Haiku Thursday

<posted June 13, 2013>  This is my favorite pic of H. 'Siloam Olin Frazer.'

I had to let the sun set on this haiku today.  I am checking out of blogging deep thoughts for the next couple of weeks.  Daylily season is about to kick in to high gear and I don't want to spend it behind a keyboard!

I will still share a haiku each Thursday and will also post pics of my upcoming adventures quite often, but as for mind-blowing thought starters, don't count on it til at least August.

Please email me if you need anything...I'll be outside.

Dig deep, inhale even deeper and enjoy the summer!!  

We’ll stop when it looks cool. | Daylily Blog on GOING.

<posted June 10, 2013>  Roads trips are a part of my DNA.  My reckless restless spirit loves to run.   Daylilies give me the chance to travel away from places I cherish to places unknown and to people I love.

(photo) This is one view of Daylily World- literally.  The gardens of the incomparable David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss.

As a an only child of young, hippy parents we camped a lot, we went to friends farms for weekend trips and we sometimes spent the night in our own  basement just to have an adventure.  I learned how to read an atlas early and loved the free road maps you could get at the service stations from the stern man who would pump your gas.  My parents and I took random road trips to places like Colorado with no planned agenda.  No Internet.  No GPS.  No Expedia.  Definitely no cell phone.  Just the knowledge that Interstate 70 heads west, hits Colorado and our car takes regular gas - not unleaded.  I made blanket forts in the backseat, never wore a seat belt and my parents puffed Marlboro's from the front seat with the windows barely cracked.  Surprised I survived. Ah, capricious youth.

“We’ll stop when it looks cool.”

Throughout high school I relished debate team overnights, cheerleading events, and far away marching band competitions.  For college I went 1000 miles away to Florida to make some memorable moments that I revisit often.  After college I saw 46 states by car over three summers; those desert sunsets changed me forever.  My husband and I enjoy Mexico often, and we are trying to be less rigid about an agenda, thanks to a happenstance meeting and a perceived Haitian invasion while visiting the Dominican Republic.  Here's two shots of our recent trip to the east side of Mexico...

(Don't worry, the trip was pretty blurry to me, too!)

To kick off daylily season for 2013, I was a guest of the Cobb County Daylily Society and the Daylily Society of Greater Atlanta as a judge for their combined daylily show last weekend.  It was a pleasure to be invited back and they put on quite a show!  Over 300 scapes colored the atrium on the Cobb Galleria and I was thrilled to be a part of it.

The show boasted over 300 scapes and the two clubs did a great job once again of coming together to put on a joint show.  There were five panels of three judges, and I was honored to judge with Dr. Scott Elliott (who is producing some of the best-scaped doubles I have EVER seen) and my sweet friend Rosemary Dixon.  We had great discussions, many laughs and enjoyed our time together.  I also got to meet Scott's charming wife and got to kid around with Joann Stewart, who I don't see often enough.

Here are two exhibits of Heidi Douglas' H. 'Papa Goose.'  First time Ive seen it exhibited!

I was most impressed by the color shown on the section winners.  Often, darker color flowers are harder to exhibit and you don't see head tables that are so "dark."  This was impressive.  I was also thrilled to see two Region 2 cultivars among the highest winners in this deep south show.  Jamie Gossard's introduction (large photo below) was stunning.  Love this one, Jamie - it has amazing masculine structure and is so intentionally white.  

Here are the winning faces from the head table at this show. 

(H.'Santa's Little Helper' and H. 'Blooming Beauty')

(H.'Free Wheelin'' and H. 'Everybody Loves Earnest')

(H.'Hats off to Sue' and the seedling winner from Bill Waldrop)

The height, branching and bud count on the winning seedling was spectacular (above, right).  I can only hope Bill Waldrop chooses to introduce that one.  I thought of some possible names for it on the flight home - finally settling on one inspired by a recent culinary adventure, "Pickled Blackberry Sorbet."   Maybe Bill will see this suggestion and consider adding it to his expanding line of sorbet-named daylilies.  LOL!

(H.'Virgil's Suspenders' and H. 'Grapesicle')

(H.'Brookwood Ojo Poco' and the head table of all winners)

The adventures I have travelling the country participating in gardening symposiums, daylily exhibition shows and daylily-centric garden tours are priceless.  My garden itself is becoming a living history of what I’ve seen and where I’ve been.  It’s like that for most romantic gardeners, I hear.  

H. 'Heavenly Snow White', hybridized by Jamie Gossard and expertly exhibited by Bill Waldrop.  This one has little purple highlights on the buds and bracts.  Very interesting!

So now I’m the parent of son who has an app to identify every constellation in the sky at the tip of his fingers; a boy who can ask Siri how far away Jupiter is from his location at any given moment.  One night when my husband was out of town I took our sleeping bags and pillows out on the back deck, where the view of the stars takes my breath away every night.  My son and I laid on our backs and used our SkyView apps to find all the planets (yes, Pluto is still a planet in my book) and even saw some satellites.  

He loves going.  Living.  Certainly his mother's son.

Thanks for another soul-feeding trip, Atlanta.  I always look forward to the next time I can run to you.

What's happening? | Daylily Blog about The Now.

<posted June 6, 2013>  I am trying to contain my excitement.  I am really trying to not take note of each new scape I see in the garden.  BUT IT IS NO USE!  

I have waited a year for this single gardening month and I cannot believe it's here.  For me here in west/central Illinois, peak bloom seems explode in June.  I have spent each day since last June having an internal conversation about "Next year..."  

"Next season I will be sure to get the Milorganite down earlier."

"Next year I'm planting that whole bed with zinnias."

"Next spring I've got to get those sages in peony cages earlier."

NEXT YEAR IS HERE RIGHT NOW!!!

No daylilies are blooming yet, but they are coming.  I expect peak bloom on near 400 cultivars to happen the last week of this month.  

I feel good about the 2013 bloom season.  Many tasks and projects that have been on the dream list since we moved in have been completed.  The pergola is finally up and the fire pit is down.

All the water features are reinstalled and are in perfect working order.  The water iris are even blooming in the front pond!

The hummingbirds have returned; they seem to especially love sitting on a piece of art that Dan Bachman made for me!  See?  They only sit on this spoke.  They'll fight over who gets it before they will sit on another.  Funny things.

The largest bed (seen below) only lost three daylilies and one "hardy" hibiscus.  I've given up on H. 'Pink Lacquer', H. 'Nicole's Plum Crazy' and H. 'Mapping Michigan.'  These never came up past an inch this year and their corpses are taking up some valuable real estate - out they go!

A robin decided that a great place for a home would be on top of the birdhouse that Duane Nickel made.  I planted the roof of it with sedum/succulents and set it on a potting bench this spring.  This nest was built and laid before I even saw it.  I thought they would go IN the house, not build on TOP of it.  It has been very interesting to have a bird's eye view of these eggs.  They have hatched now, and we enjoy watching them learn how to live from their fierce guardians.  

Life is beautifully strange.  

And fast.  

Hold on tight...next stop?  Summer!

P.S.  I'll be in Atlanta this Saturday, June 8, at The Galleria judging their daylily show.  From the Cobb County Daylily Society website, "More than 500 blooms of several hundred different cultivars will be on display for morning judging and afternoon viewing by the public.  At the same time, bareroot daylilies will be on sale at bargain prices, a great way to add these hardy plants to a garden.  A design competition using daylilies is always a must-see, also.  Experts from both clubs will be on hand to share what they know and love.  The show and sale is free and open to the public from 12:30 to 4:00 PM."   Get more details here.  Do come by and say hello!