Wonderful Daylily Morning

Hello Daylily Friends,

When I got up this morning my cat Sammy wanted to go outside. So, I let Sammy out. In just a little while he came back in and had his breakfast. Normally, after his breakfast, Sammy goes and takes a morning nap. But this morning Sammy wanted to go back outside again. In just a short time I went to walk to the street to get our morning newspapers. Then, as I stepped out the side door, there was Sammy about 1/2 the way up a tree. I thought he must be after a bird. Then, up in the top of the tree, there was another cat. Sammy doesn't mind visitors to the daylily garden, but he will not tolerate the presence of another cat. He was going up that tree after the other cat. I had to coax him down and then bring him inside. Sammy really gets upset when other cats come to visit.

We were so fortunate yesterday to have friends come and visit from Chattanooga. So here is a picture of Lee and Jean Pickles, Steve and Karen Newman, and of course myself and Diana. It was particularly good to see friends from Tennessee and to talk about the Mid-Winter Symposium from this past February. I am always so pleased to attend MWS because I can then look forward to spring. Lee also invited us to attend his club's meeting in Chattanooga on Saturday morning, April 11, 2009. David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss are speaking. I am hoping I can make the trip.

Today I had a nice bloom from an unusual cross. Part of the cross came from my friend Larry. The cross is as follows: [(Mandalay Bay x J. T. Davis) x Winter Springs] x [(Leslie Renee x Angels Around Us) x (Leslie Renee x Angels Around Us)]. The seedling was numbered last spring, and is Seedling 8-114. It is 22" tall, 2-way branching, 11 buds, 5 1/2" flower. Two days before it bloomed, it sure looked like lettuce in a pod, but when it bloomed it was cream and ivory, with a beautiful and large chartruse edge. 8-114 is obviously short. However, we sometimes just have to work with short seedlings because they may produce daylilies that we want on tall seedlings. This is just one of those occasions. I crossed 8-114 with pollen from Seedling 9-11. Hopefully I will have a new pod in just a few days.

Oh, one other bit of news. This morning I found that I converted one of my seedlings. I'm showing a picture that I took with my Canon Power Shot A1000 camera. I simply put the lens on "flower," then held the lens close to the eyepiece of the microscope, and then snapped a picture. I regret that I do not have a better system of taking pictures from a microscope, but I did capture the size of the pollen. As you can see from the picture that I took, the pollen measures about a "fifteen (15)," using a one hundred power viewer on the microscope.

That is all for today.
Bill