Wonderful Spring Morning

Good Morning Daylily Friends,

This morning I went down the driveway to get our morning papers, and the beauty was overwhelming. The Azaleas were blooming; light and dark pink flowers glistening as the morning sun came through the trees. I had to take a picture. How gorgeous to see such beauty, and be able to enjoy it for several weeks in the spring. We are truly blessed to have such beauty.

Got back to the house, and Diana was ready for a walk through the garden. So, we both took our cups of coffee, and slowly walked and looked at the plants. We looked at Diana's vegetable garden where she has strawberries, sweet potatoes, kinnebeck potatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers and okra planted. The cucumbers have sprouted, and the peppers were grown from seed. The squash and the okra should sprout in a few more days. For Diana's birthday I made several walking planks across her planted areas. This way she can walk across her garden without compacting the soil.

As we walked through the garden it was obvious that my Seedling 8-191 is the most vigorous seedling that I have. As I reported back on Easter Sunday (April 4, 2010), Seedling 8-191 is dormant, but it is easily the biggest daylily that I have growing on our property. Indeed, in the 18-19 days since Easter, Seedling 8-191 has eclipsed everything else that I have. I'm showing a picture of the foilage from this morning.

We eventually made it to the Greenhouse. I had about 10 blooms, and I'm showing one of the blooms. It is a cross between my seedlings 7-53 and 8-213. Seedling 7-53 is an evergreen, and it has a lovely red eye and red edge on its petals, but it is a softer evergreen. One parent is Tet. Peppermint Delight. I have found that although it will survive our winters, it is not what it will be in a more moderate climate. Seedling 8-213 is a dormant. By crossing these two seedlings I was hoping to produce a better daylily that would grow easily most anywhere. I'm showing a picture. The only thing that I do not particularly like about the daylily is that it is short. Still, I will mark it and grow it outside.

Have a wonderful day!

Bill