Just Before Easter.

Hello Daylily Friends,

On "Good Friday" my good friend William Marchant came with his parents to visit the garden.  We talked and talked and talked, and then we arrived at a daylily that I started trying to convert for William three years ago.  It is EXOTIC GYPSY.  It is a Hansen plant from many years back, and William wanted it converted because he believed it would help him with his hybridizing.  So, I set about the task to get the conversion accomplished.  As it happened, the first bloom that I've ever seen on the plant bloomed the morning that William and his parents arrived.  We took the pollen and looked at it under the microscope.  Voila!  There it was: a complete 100% conversion.  I was so pleased.  I immediately used the pollen, and tried to set a pod on TET. EXOTIC GYPSY.  Then William and I walked back to the Greenhouse, and just sat as we thought about the possibilities in using TET. EXOTIC GYPSY in our hybridizing.  Thanks William for coming to visit and bringing your parents, thanks for bringing EXOTIC GYPSY, and thanks for being our friend.

This morning I got up early because I wanted to get to the Greenhouse and see what was new.  Then, to my surprise, there was a new bloom on my Seedling 11-279 that I just showed in my last post.  This time the bloom on 11-279 was much better and looked more like the outside bloom that I had from last summer.  After I had been in the Greenhouse for only about 20 minutes, Diana came in to also see the new blooms.  She agreed that the new bloom on 11-279 was closer to what we saw outside last summer.  Well,  I knew that we had to leave to go across the street and pick up Camilla, and go to the meeting of the Daylily Society of Greater Atlanta.  I took a quick shower, shaved, combed my hair, and we made it to Camilla's house in 20 minutes.  When we arrived David was working in his yard with his new daylily beds.  David has been busy for the past several months making the beds, and they are just wonderful creations.  Made with blocks, and filled with wonderful soil, and growing daylilies that will bloom within 6 to 8 weeks.  I'm showing a picture of David with his new daylily beds.

We left, on our way to Atlanta, and on the way I read the newspaper.  I sat in the back seat, while Diana drove, and Camilla sat in the front passenger seat.  I normally can't ride in a car and read the newspaper  at the same time, but I did it this time by basically just reading headlines, and looking at a few sentences.  We finally arrived at the meeting, and it was a wonderful get together.  President Bruce Kovich did a wonderful work in handling the meeting, and as a substantial part of the meeting, the "Maps plants" were auctioned.  The Maps program is where you do various things for the Club during the year, you receive "points" for the work, and then at the appropriate time you can use the points to purchase daylilies.  I took a picture showing the Maps auction as it took place.  At the meeting there was preparation for our "Daylily Show" that will take place at the Galleria Mall on Saturday, June 9, 2012.  Blue shirts were being shown.  Both the Atlanta and Cobb Clubs will wear blue shirts, but each Club will have its own "seal" shown on its shirt.  More about all of this later.

Well I'm looking forward to Easter tomorrow.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful Easter day!

Bill