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?

Making Airplanes

I'm coming up to my first year anniversary (ha!) of having my grannie's Airplane plant. I got it late in the year last year, wintered it with surprising success, and now it's making little airplanes like crazy. The test case I did back on April 20th of this year looks great; it's making huge new leaves.

Time to do more.

I had recently saved a plant tray along with its pots from the trash at work, and I decided this would be the perfect use.

 

I think they're adorably cute in their little planting tray... In 2 months or so I'll worry about finding a home for them all.

Propagating Roses from Cuttings

So I had the great fortune to receive a cutting of the Peace rose from a family friend. I've been wanting to try to grow a rose from a cutting for a long time, and I've read tons of material on it, but I've never had the opportunity to before.

The cutting came to me at 9:30 PM Monday night; it had been cut earlier that evening. It appeared to be a hard wood cutting with softwood sprouting from the tip. I'm sorry to say I don't have any pictures from the procedure since I was in a hurry and it was so late at night.

I trimmed off all but the top most leaves, and I also pinched off some new growth forming lower down the stem. Then, with a very sharp knife, I scraped the bark off of half of the hardwood stem. I filled a four inch pot with fresh dirt, and planted the cutting in it.

I topped the whole thing with a gallon bag propped open with some paint stirrers, which will serve to create a mini green house for the rose cutting.

Peace rose cutting, 3 days old

So far, the leaves haven't wilted! I'm taking that as a positive indication of moderate success. I will definitely be keeping close tabs on this experiment.