Lily ID # 3

The last lily in my garden has bloomed!

In the shade, the yellow in these lilies becomes much lighter. The fragrance is distinctly different than the other lilies, and frankly, this one is absolutely my favorite! I think it is named "Gold Band".

Lily ID # 2.5

I think I misidentified the last lily. I didn't realize I had two different dark pink lilies until I cut several and brought them into the house together. Then I got to looking more closely, and I realized one was a stargazer, and one was not.

The one on the left is the Stargazer, while the one on the right is currently unknown... Perhaps it is "Black Tie"? Any ideas?

New Daylily

So, my neighbor has a clump of day lilies growing at the fence corner, and it has spread through the fence. Dad cuts the emerging bulbs down with the weed eater, but this week he left them standing so I headed out with a shovel and collected two for myself!

I've no idea what the name of the day lily is, but it's got three layers of petals and a very lovely dark orange stripe on a lighter orange flower.

With this addition, I now have four varieties of day lilies.

I've been reading a lot about hybridizing your own day lilies by cross pollinating the ones you have in your yard and collecting the seeds.

Once my lilies get situated and a year or two more growth on them, I think I may give it a try!

I now have a good selection of size, shape, and bloom times.

Any idea what this orange one is named?

Lily ID # 2

The second lily to bloom in my garden was the Stargazer!

The flowers are much smaller than the Corsos, at perhaps 6 inches. But they smell much stronger, and the color is vivid.

I've got 4 Corsos and now 3 Stargazers; of my 12 pack, two aren't blooming this year and 7 are identified. That leaves three more lilies. I'm disappointed that the variety pack ultimately seems to have so little variety, but you get what you pay for. Maybe I can add some more specimens later. I particularly want a white and  a white/yellow lily.

Lily ID # 1.5

So I noticed that some of the Corso lilies had 7 or 9 petals. They were appearing on the same stems as your typical 6 petal lilies. I noticed that the ones with 7 petals looked malformed, but interestingly, the ones with 9 looked nearly double. All six petals that one would typically see were present, but in the center, mixed in with the stamens were three extra petals.

I wonder what causes flowers with 6, 7, and 9 petals to appear on the same plant... 

A Sale in the Garden Center

Means I get more plants...

So. I noticed that the store had marked packaged bulbs down to half off. Feeling that my frugality had been vindicated by the sale, I picked up a pack of iris bulbs (Miss Saigon) and a pack of day lily bulbs (El Desperado).

When I got to the register, the packs rang up at $1.00 each.

(For the sake of transparency, none of the images above are my own. Google image search, ftw.)

So after landing that kind of deal, I went back to the store. And I bought an Amaryllis, some calla lilies, more day lilies (I've been wanting those for two years), some mixed Freesia, and a pack of Dahlias.

I look like a crazy plant lady:

What I see in my head? The pics above. What I see under my carport...

Now I eagerly search the dirt every morning and every evening. A gardener's patience must be boundless.

Lily Type #1 - ID: Corso

The first lily has bloomed!

Date: 6/18/2013
Size: 8.5-9 inches wide
Name: Believed to be Corso; inner petals have raised, dark pink/red spots and are smooth edged; outer petals are ruffled. Light pink petals with yellow centers and a green throat.

Discoveries after the Rain

Some good, some bad.

Oriental Lily starting to open!

First bloom visible on Bell Pepper.

First strawberry runner reaching out.

Yellow pear tomato stem broken from wind.

Early June Update

In the Garden - 

I harvested the carrots before I left on vacation. 7 carrots. 6 oz. You cannot imagine the depths of my satisfaction and delight.

The peas are blooming, delicately purple flowers springing open on the many vines. And the tomatoes are getting taller and taller. 

 Among the Flowers - 

 

And a few shots of home - 

The Mystery Lily Blooms

So at last, at last. The mystery lily has bloomed, and it's very pretty! Mom had the idea to use a stick from the yard to hold up the stem, since it was leaning pretty far over. And just in time - it bloomed the day after she staked it up. No fragrance, unfortunately, but very lovely and a wonderful surprise that morning - 5/28/13

That Purple Thing, II

So, I wrote about the Purple Thing a while back, here. I speculated that what I had on my hands was an Aster. However... I think I need to reevaluate my diagnosis.

After stumbling across a link, here, the phrase, "It's an osteo that doesn't close; its double blooms stay open all day and night.." really stuck out to me. I was never totally satisfied with labeling the purple thing as an Aster, as the bloom times were all off and the link didn't mention anything about the flowers closing like they do. 

So. There we go. I think I have an African Trailing Daisy, which is surprising because it's out of its hardiness zone. It only blooms in winter for me, but what a show! 

Flowers and Blooms

Just a quick update on the flowers and roses!

Look how big the oriental lilies have gotten! Most have 2-3 buds on them.

The mystery lily has gotten so big. The bud has pointed downwards and seems to be turning yellow. Perhaps I will have yellow flowers?

Finally! This is the last blooming rose in my garden. The Grandma Nacogdoches rose.

Lafter in the Garden

First Day Lilly - Stella d'Oro. Bloomed 4/29/13. Since then, I've had as many as 5 blooms open in one day, I just didn't have the presence of mind to snap a picture of it. I even had blooms last two days, thanks to unseasonably cloudy and cool weather.

Lafter rose; first bloom on largest Lafter bush. Bloomed 5/2/13

Another bloom on the largest Lafter rose. Bloomed  5/2/13

First bloom on the smallest Lafter rose. Bloomed 5/4/13.

Update on the Flower Garden

Roses

My Sarah Van Fleet roses have been blooming like crazy for the past week or so. In fact, we've had so many roses on the bush that, for the first time, we were able to bring in a bouquet of roses to sit on our kitchen table. 

Sarah Van Fleet on left; Lafter on right

 The rose cutting I was given is now a day or so shy of two weeks old. In the picture you can see there are no yellowing leaves on the main stem I've rooted (the yellow is coming from a tiny leaf branch I took a gamble on and stuck in the dirt too). Also present on the rooting are signs of new growth! I'm not sure if this is left over leaf budding utilizing energy from when it was attached to the bush, or if it's actually making roots, but I did pinch off all the visible unformed leaf buds still on it at the time of rooting, so these are definitely new.

Two week old rooting of yellow Peace rose

 And finally, the darling of my rose garden, my Don Juan Rose has opened up its first bloom. It's been open for about a week now, and as you can see, the color is wonderful. The petals are only now opening all the way out, and the fragrance is incredible. More buds are about to open.

First bloom on Don Juan climbing rose

 Oriental Lilies

So a week or two back I bought an assorted back of 12 oriental lily bulbs. They are now all sprouted! I think they're looking good.
Here is the first barrel with 6. Will definitely be watching these as the season progresses. I anticipate wonderful flowers... 

And here are the Walmart special, "Oriental Lilies." These are the ones mom and I bought last Easter. The research I did lead me to believe they were Stargazers, but after observing their growth and seeing more in the store, and with some subsequent reading, I believe they are in fact the Stargazer look-alike, the dwarf After Eight. All the impact of the stargazer... in a much smaller (read, 1/3rd smaller) size.

This clump started out as two. There are at least 8 now. Or more. 

Airplane Plant

So I adopted my grannie's Airplane plant last summer. If my rosemary was the second most root bound plant I've encountered, the airplane plant I retrieved from my grannie's house is the first-place winner. I couldn't get the plant out of its dry-rotted pot. I had to break the pot off of it, after which the whole plant sat on the ground and kinda went, "yea? And?" I stuck it in the biggest pot I had at the time, and it seems to like it so...

 I honestly can't take a stab at guessing how old this plant is. The dry-rotting plastic pot it was in leads me to believe... old. And when I was much younger (15+ years ago), my grannie gave me one of her airplane plants, and I'm absolutely certain those plants came from these. So. We're looking at a very... very matronly lady here.

When I got it, all of its airplanes had died and were a tangled mess, so I had to cut them all off. But late in the fall it made one or two more, and below you can see the oldest, from last fall. I decided to take a stab at planting it today.

The mother plant has about 13 more airplanes on it, and they look incredibly good. So this one will be my test case, and I hope to make some more pots for myself and others.

 

I checked the root growth on it and thought it looked good, so I snipped the stem attaching it to the mother plant, and pushed it gently into some potting soil. Then I gave it a good watering, and now it's sitting alongside my root cutting.

I've been wanting to give this a try for a long time, so we'll see how it goes!