I agree about taking photos early before the sun gets up high. Unfortunately they are not all open then.

I have made a few crosses, all with Smiling Cobra pollen on tets with strong rust resistance. My last Smiling Cobra bloom was yesterday's, so I read up on freezing pollen and tried it. I put a cotton ball in a old-style film canister and put the rest of the SC stamens in there. I have a few more crosses to try with it, but the plants aren't blooming yet.

I have some pods forming.

No time today to work in the garden. However when I took the dogs out early this morning I did notice scapes and color in a couple of buds on a Stella De Oro that is inside the dog yard. I included one in the Corner Bed and she is usually the first to bloom. All Stellas outside the dog yard have been thoroughly trimmed by deer. I may have a May bloom to post in a few days!

removed the first of the returning ditch lilies from my daylily bed. I am sure it won't be the last

Yep, that is an eternal task!

I only had time to dig five Daylilies in, from the NEDS club sale before I had to run to Boston to play a wedding. If there's time, I'll finish the rest tomorrow, but I have Mother's Day commitments.

I planted four plants from my Blue Ridge Daylilies. I ordered Buddy's Kristi, Alma's Smile, Rodeo Sweetheart, Frankly Dear, Navajo Curls and Eula Jo Shiflett. I received Hallmark Movie, Judi McDaniel Efland and Helena's Handbasket as bonus plants. Four down and five more to go!

Weeded for about 4 hours in the Dog Yard Big Bed today, stopped just a few minutes ago as my hands are cramping. Made a lot of progress though! Found several tags with no daylilies and one daylily with no tag - not sure how that happened. Hopefully if it blooms I'll be able to ID it. All of the plants I transplanted last Spring into early Summer are doing well. Some of the plants put in the ground later in the Summer into Fall are struggling however they are trying to grow. There are some that are doing pretty well - need to spread some Milorganite in this bed, didn't want to do it with the weeds growing so well. We have thistles of various varieties; they are two inches tall one day and two feet tall the next! While weeding I found that Lava Flow has two scapes, Pinhill June Sunrise has one, Stella De Oro has three. Did not see any more though have not gotten through the whole bed. Surprisingly my hibiscus are coming back. I thought they were gone for certain. It's a mixed bag with other plants - at least most of the kniphofia are up, as are most of the phlox. Lupine is blooming, a few other plants are as well - photos later. I need to check my spreadsheet to note where the plants that have not returned originated. If a lot of plants from a specific grower did not return I won't buy from that one again, especially if it's in the deep South. On the plus side every gap is a new daylily spot.

Got out early this morning. I had seen the weather forecast of cloudy and wanted to take full advantage of that. Deadheaded first, made photos of first blooms and pulled weeds as I went. Then I started on the edging, got it all done except around the big compost pile.
Then I took advantage of the cloudy day to collect pollen and spread it around some choice blooms that were opened today. Hopefully there will be a lot of pods forming in the garden over the next few days.
Then I worked on a seedling bed (I did not realize so many markers had gone missing). Got those all fixed, then moved on to redoing a lot of the bed markers that had faded over the past year. Then discovered some location errors caused by the bed markers being faded, the plants were in the wrong beds. Got that straightened out.
Then I worked on cutting up the flag tape markers to go on the bus plants and the sale table plants.
I really felt like I had a productive day, I will work on more of the flag tape markers tonight.

Seedfork said: Got out early this morning. I had seen the weather forecast of cloudy and wanted to take full advantage of that. Deadheaded first, made photos of first blooms and pulled weeds as I went. Then I started on the edging, got it all done except around the big compost pile.
Then I took advantage of the cloudy day to collect pollen and spread it around some choice blooms that were opened today. Hopefully there will be a lot of pods forming in the garden over the next few days.
Then I worked on a seedling bed (I did not realize so many markers had gone missing). Got those all fixed, then moved on to redoing a lot of the bed markers that had faded over the past year. Then discovered some location errors caused by the bed markers being faded, the plants were in the wrong beds. Got that straightened out.
Then I worked on cutting up the flag tape markers to go on the bus plants and the sale table plants.
I really felt like I had a productive day, I will work on more of the flag tape markers tonight.

Wow, Larry!

I dug in the last three Daylilies from the NEDS sale and did some light weeding. I've also decided to expand the Island Bed on the West side ( left when looking uphill) in order to accommodate this year's plants. As is frequently noted in these pages," Who needs grass?"

Finally got to transfer seedlings from my grow tent to outdoor seedling planters. Then move the next batch of seedlings from indoors to the tent to harden off. Now nothing is indoors aside from an experimental batch I am torturing.

I also have hundreds of seedlings a few months old to throw away. They were for variegation crosses and all those are green.

The joy of a cold May is lack of mosquitoes, even if the seedlings are grumpy with me.

Put recently received plants in water with a couple drops of Super thrive. Added grass clippings on top of cardboard along with leaves from last fall top with a light mix of top soil, garden soil and native soil. I will finish the area after I move out the gift daffodils.



Bitsy is the only Daylily blooming.

Everyone has been working hard! Mike, those beds look great. I should start saving cardboard. I was thinking of using some heavy brown paper I have been saving under the mulch this year.

I have not gotten much done in the garden over the past few days--I visited Coastal Empire Daylilies which killed a morning (in a good way), went to the barn, and had a lot to do at church on Sunday. I made a few crosses. That is about it. I already have some pods developing. This year I actually bought some of those little string marking tags so I don't lose track of what I crossed with a particular plant. I am tryig to be selective, so I don't end up with thousands of seeds. I just don't have room for them all.

After lunch, mowed, then more weeding - another wheelbarrow full - and I am beginning to feel like I've made a decent dent in the weeds. Transplanted a Yarrow that DH thought was a weed and whacked. Enough left to move it into the Dog Yard Big Bed out of the Lamp-post Bed. Moving another Yarrow and some Iris out of there as well. Once it's cleaned up I plan to move more Stella de Oros into it. There will mostly be Baptisia, Stellas, and Echinacea in that bed, along with a Native Azalea and a Butterfly Bush.

In spite of being rained on twice (raining again now) I removed three more large wheelbarrows full of weeds from Dog Yard Big Bed and began planting some daylilies. Have a dental appt. tomorrow morning, hopefully it won't be raining in the early afternoon as the ground is the perfect moisture level to remove sod where I want to dig it out. This will expand the front part of the bed and was always part of my plan.

It rained this afternoon and when it was done, there was a large sodden box from Cottage Gardens. So I ran around like a maniac to get all the Daylilies in the ground before my 6 pm student showed up. I'm leaving for NY tomorrow morning and didn't want my order to wait until next week. I finished just in time! And it was a big order, too!

I did get some work done outside for a change today.

I am going to my 50th high school reunion up in Connecticut next week and will be staying with my younger brother in his new (to him) house. In a burst of inspiration, I thought I'd take with me some daylilies that really would like to go up north. I asked my brother if he would like some for his yard, and he said yes! I felt great about that. I guess this will be kind of a late housewarming gift.

I am taking 8 or so daylilies. I decided to take the ones that are struggling here but also a few that are healthy and that I have a lot of, ones that I know would grow well in his location. So here's what I'm taking (so far):

an unregistered yellow seedling that hardly ever blooms
Hush Little Baby
Mardi Gras Parade
Little Audrey
Prairie Blossoms
Siloam Tee Tiny
Frankly Scarlet (unreg)
Pandora's Box
Chorus Line

The last three are doing great here, and I have a ton of fans, so they need to be divided anyway. The others have bloomed seldom or not at all, and several are down to their last couple of fans.

Some of them occasionally show a little rust (mainly Chorus Line), so I will have to warn my brother about that. Most of them are very resistant, so I don't think he will have a big spread since they all have been living here in rust central and have been exposed for several years. And even if they show a little this summer, it will die in the winter, so I am not worried.

Today I dug up and potted Mardi Gras Parade, Hush Little Baby (discovered a few scapes starting on that one, but oh well), and Siloam Tee Tiny. In their places I put several I've had sitting around in pots, so it was a win-win. This afternoon I hope to pot up at least two more for my brother and plant a few more of mine.

Lucky brother! I'm down here in NY today, passed right through CT on my way down, including going past Wallingford where CT Daylilies is. I'm planning on visiting there later this summer and picking up my order from Rich.

I managed to do a little more weeding this morning and put one whole order of daylilies in the ground and out of their bucket! Mulched some of them, then daughter stopped by to get my opinion on the light fixtures she bought for the house she is building. Mind you, they only just broke ground on Tuesday and don't yet have all the permits! She has picked out just about everything, including the exterior paint colors, has some of the flooring, and lights. She wasn't sure about the color on the exterior light fixtures but I like them and think they will be fine. Ditto the lights for the kitchen. Nevertheless that put an end to working outside as the vet called and I had just enough time to change, take Tempe out potty, grab a bit of lunch and leave to get Maverick. Began raining on the way home and has rained ever since - 0.20 inches so far. Nothing more can be done outside today. Hope it isn't raining in the morning!

I helped my friend in Brooklyn do a little gardening. Then we ate dinner and watched " The Mule" which I've been meaning to watch since it came out. Beautiful day!

Well, I was out in the garden finishing a project most of the day. I will probably regret working so hard. My back and shoulder are sore, and it will probably be worse tomorrow. But it was a satisfying feeling to finish. Once I started, I had to keep going until it was done.

I made an extension on one of my beds. Over the past few days I have been digging tree roots out of it; today I finished that, and then I decided to just keep going. I've had a bunch of plants in pots since last fall, and they really needed to get into the ground especially since I will be out of town next week and will not be able to water them.

I looked up the heights of all the plants that had to go in and wrote them down on a piece of paper.

Next I weeded the bed and got rid of all the grass and weeds, especially that horrible rattlesnake weed. I am sure I missed some of the tubers, but I picked a ton out. Then I loaded three tubs of manure onto the bed and dug that in. Raked it smooth and then placed the pots and moved them around. Then I got a wheelbarrow and put about half a load of my homemade compost into it. As I planted each plant, I dug its hole and plopped some compost in, then planted the plant. I also moved three daylilies that had been getting no sun into this new bed extension. All in all I planted one native azalea, one flowering quince, one perennial called Fire Pink, and 17 daylilies into the new bed. I left a space for one Deryll is sending me. Watered everything. Put my tools away.

That job took most of the day. I came in, took a bath, and had a well-earned beer. It's a good feeling imagining those plants stretching their toes.