Bob Faulkner's Seedling.

Hello Daylily Friends,

I've been showing some of the results from my conversion work, and I have to show you one fan of a seedling from our good friend, Bob Faulker.  Several years ago Diana and I took a road trip to Ohio, and one place we stopped was at Bob's garden.  This was on July 6, 2010, and I wrote a post about it: It was such an adventure!  We particularly enjoyed seeing Bob's pigeons, and then also seeing his daylilies.  I was particularly attracted to one diploid daylily that had circular rings in its eyes.  I pleaded with Bob to let me try to get it converted, and later that summer Bob mailed several fans.  I've grown it outside to try to get up to five fans, and I treated it last year, with no success, and this year I'm now down to two fans.  One fan is quite small, and so its success as a tetraploid is questionable.  The other fan, however, looks very, very good.  Indeed, I took a picture of the fan on December 26, 2012,  It was big and sturdy, but then on January 1, 2013, I deceided to cut it back for fear that rot might begin inside the fan.  It looks good now.

Inside the Greenhouse everything is growing fine.  I went out this morning and just snapped a picture so that I could show it to you.  The seedlings are growing well, the plants for hybridizing are growing well, and everything is fine.  The only problem is that I have too many gnats.  I'm going to have to spray with chemicals to get them back under control.  However, Diana and I are going to Dothan, Alabama, to speak to the Club this coming week-end, and so I will probably wait until we return to do the spraying.

I have to tell you about Little Lily Rae.  She was riding in a "shopping cart" with her Mother, Kelley Rae, and Kelley bought some apples.  Lily Rae saw the apples, and she reached for one to hold.  Kelley let Lily Rae hold the apple, and then in a few minutes she took it from Lily to put it back into the shopping cart.  Well, Ms. Lily Rae objected.  Everybody noticed.  Needless to say the apple was promptly returned to Little Lily Rae, and she continued to play with it all the way home.  Lily Rae is so knowledgeable, and now she speaks two languages: English and Baby Talk.  She's the best!

Well, as I've probably said before, here at our gardens we're waiting for spring.  Our wonderful cat, Sammy, is also waiting for spring.  In fact, I took a picture of Sammy sleeping on top of the couch.  Sammy doesn't like the cold weather, and he prefers to stay indoors and sleep during the day.  Last night, however, it was unusualy warm and Sammy wouldn't come in.  It was only about 58 degrees outside, and he just preferred to stay out.  I went outside to get him, but he ran away.  Then, this morning, at about 6:00 a.m., he wanted in the house, but I made him wait until 7:30 a.m.  There have to be consequences to unacceptable conduct, even for Sammy.

Bill