Daylily Season

In garden design, trees and shrubs are considered the bones of a garden.  In my gardens, the daylilies are the small bones.

When I revamped this garden last year, I only had the memories of the colors and heights as I designed the layout.  I love the way it turned out.  I was concerned about the fact that most of the plants in this garden have a spikey leaf form (hey, it's what I had on hand), but they differ enough to give some variety in texture.  The daylily flowers themselves add some texture from the open and rather sloppy habit of Prairie Moonlight (tall yellow on far left) to the tight double and clumping form of Frances Joiner (light orange far right).  I'll use this photo as a guide in my next garden.

While taking that photo, I discovered a surprise.

I have no idea what this is.  Don't remember buying anything like this.  It's behind Frances Joiner in the previous photo.  My best guess is that it's an unauthorized seedling of Frances Joiner x one of the nearby pinks.  Many years ago, I dabbled in hybridizing and used FJ quite a bit.  The double gene seems to be dominant.  I'll tag and pot this one for the move. It will need a name, too.

My most successful and only surviving hybrid is D. Lemontime, and this year it has proven itself as a keeper again.

This was a cross of Stella D'Oro x Ice Carnival.  Stella is, of course, the mother of all rebloomers.  Ice Carnival was my first "white".  Lemontime came out pretty much as I hoped.  Dwarf and early like Stella, light clear yellow and held above the foliage like IC, and it reblooms.  This year I realized it was much better than Stella.  Stella covers itself in blooms all at once early and then it's done until it reblooms later in the year.  Lemontime is still kicking out enough flowers to earn its place as a player in the peak season design.  That's it below Frances Joiner in the top photo, but Stella is nowhere to be seen.  In fact, I decided I'm over Stella, and won't be wasting time and a pot on transplanting it when I move.  I don't really care for that gold color anyways.  I much prefer the clear yellows.

Speaking of white, here is my whitest, Ruffled Parchment.

This is a fairly prolific bloomer when it gets going.  Definitely coming with me.  I want to get back into hybridizing when I get settled in my new home, and I'll try it with Frances Joiner.

Still trying to get the place ready to list.  I have a contracter lined up to do the necessary repairs to the outside of the house, and they keep pushing me back.  Grrr.  I've made a lot of headway inside the house and by the time they get that job done, I should be done inside.  I took a 3rd carload of junk to the dump this week.  Yeah, I'm still finding a lot of trash, but should be near the end of that.

Weather is still holding the unsouthernly coolth we've had all spring.  Some days in the high 80s but mostly less than that.  It has been humid, however, so it feels hot.

I have to say, it's a huge relief to not worry about rabbits in the heat.  I do miss them, especially baby bunnies, but not the worries and other negatives that went along with raising show rabbits.

Oh, by the way.  I have a new Facebook personal account for the gardens, and other things that interest me outside of rabbits.  I've posted more individual daylilies there.  Come on over and join me if you like.

tnt

Natureschild

A.C.

No, I'm not talking about air-conditioning.  In this case, A.C. stands for After Cat.

I told how I found a new home for Abby.  I've never been a cat person.  Until her, and her mother before her, my only experience with a cat was my mom's Siamese who was a real character.  I liked having yard cats, but Abby was such a good hunter, she was a serious threat to my beloved wildlife.  She was about 3 going on 4 years old, so I don't really remember what it was like B.C.  In those nearly 4 years, the landscape has matured a lot, and it attracts more wildthings.

Abby has been gone for about 2 weeks now, and I can really tell the difference.  The birds seem to know they are safe again, and there's more of them in the yard.  There's also bunnies.  Abby was known to snag young cottontails, but I'm seeing quite a few of them now.  I'm not completely deprived of the company of rabbits.

The Carolina Wrens are nesting somewhere I think.  Maybe in the bird house I hung on the porch a long time ago which was never used that I know of.  They investigated, but didn't seem to stay.  I love this chipper little bird.  I found some tiny blue eggs (sadly broken) on the ground under a crape myrtle but don't know what bird was nesting there.  Not a robin (the only bird I can think of right off hand that lays blue eggs), they don't nest here.  Robins only pass through here on their migration routes spring and fall.  I suppose I could do a search to figure it out, but I'd rather discover the nesters myself.  Maybe I'll catch them going into the tree if they use that nest again.

There is one other difference A.C.  I can hear mice (or rats) under the house again.  Ugh.  They can't get in, I stuffed wadded up chicken wire in all the cracks and holes under sinks.  Haven't had a mouse in house since.  The original tip was to stuff steel wool in such holes, but I figured a really determined rodent could figure out how to pull it out.  No way they can move chicken wire.  I had to resort to the old standby to cull the population a little...DeCon.  I shove a couple boxes under the house.  Nothing bigger than a rat can get under there so no other animals are in danger.  In that respect, I do miss Abby.

Still working at the dejunking and all.  Took another carload to the dump today.  The timeframe has slowed a bit.  The house I had fallen in love with was sold, and I don't have another at the top of the list yet.  There's still prospects but since there isn't one I'm afraid of missing out on, I'm back to a more organized approach to getting the place ready to list.  First get rid of all the junk, then declutter my stuff, and then the thorough cleaning.  I also have to put some money into a couple minor repairs to make it saleable, and that should be taken care of within 2 weeks.  I pled "need to sell ASAP" to the contractor so they'd put me on a priority list.  He came out this morning to scope the jobs, and will get the estimate to me next week, and said he should be able to do it the following week.  So I have that much time to continue what I'm doing inside.

The daylilies are hitting their stride.  Perfect timing.  I can tag the ones I want to dig up for the move.  I have a list of things to dig up, and I know where most of the daylilies are, but it helps to have confirmation when they bloom.

Speaking of house-hunting.  Mano, is broadband internet a big help!  My last move, I could only see a little remotely.  Now I can see almost everything I need to know before I decide to view the house in person.  Google Maps aerial views!   I punch in the address to see what's around a property.  Realtor.com and Zillow.com are my main sites, but I will visit individual realtors to see if they have more info on their website.  I eliminate a lot of houses using those tools.

Still don't know where I want to end up.  Could be SC, NC, or maybe even TN.  I don't really want to stay in this immediate area, but I'm open to possibilities in my state.  It would be easier to move within TN than going over the mountains, and it might be financially prudent to stay here.  I think TN has the lowest cost of living of the 3 states.  We'll see.

tnt
Naturechild

Busy weekend

Got so much accomplished this weekend!  First, there was the rendezvous in NC on Saturday where I delivered the last of the bunnies.  It was nice to see everyone, but I didn't stay for the whole day.  I still had a lot to do because people were coming for stuff Sunday, and then again on Monday.

Once the buns were gone, I could finish gathering up the rabbitry inventory for pick up on Monday. I had most of it packed up already, there were just a few things the rabbits were still using, so that didn't take long.

I concentrated on the furniture that was being picked up Sunday.  I had to get rid of some big excess items that I didn't want to move with me, and the only other option would have been to leave it behind which a new home owner might not appreciate.  Found an ad on craigslist for "free hauling".  Turns out the guy really wanted scrap metal (big business around here), but when I described the furniture, he said he could use it.  So I had to hustle up and get the stuff that was on the furniture off.  It was a nice young couple who were just starting out and needed a lot of things.  They took quite a bit of small stuff off my hands as well, so I don't have to haul that to Goodwill.  They even offered to move anything around that I needed.  I played the "old and no longer strong" card (mostly true) to get out of doing any more heavy lifting than I had to.  Same for the rabbitry stuff.   They couldn't get all the furniture on their truck, but said they could come back the next day.  I told him there was quite a bit of scrap metal that he was welcome to as well.  It's not a priority for me to deal with it (it's out back and out of the way), but he was so nice and helpful, I'm glad to help him financially in that way.

Then the gal who bought the rabbitry called and said she couldn't come Monday as planned but she could come that afternoon.  Sure, we can do that.  She didn't show up until 7 pm, but we managed to get her loaded up before dark.  She let slip that she was a single mom, and I warned her again that she needed to bring muscle to move that stuff.  She said no problem, her 14 year old daughter was strong.  She wasn't kidding.  That young girl was tall and efficient.  The family was pretty interesting.  At first, I thought she said she had 2 daughters, but a little later, 3 little boys piled out of the truck.  Oh my.  They lived a homesteading style of life, and utilized their animals.  She raised some heritage rabbit breeds for meat.  Turns out she's not a show breeder, she just had some dwarf breeds that could use the equipment, and a friend or two that would take what she couldn't use.  This passle of little kids were very well-behaved, and pitched in where they could.  Mom was very patient and never yelled at anyone.  She deserves a medal for raising that brood so well.

As they were tying down the truck and trailer, I stood on the porch to continue chatting.  It had started to rain again by then.  I was stunned to see the smallest boy do a face plant off the truck's tailgate!  It's almost like he did a cannonball (like into a pool) on purpose.  His face landed in the grass, but he barely missed smashing it on the driveway gravel.  His hands and knees hit the gravel.  He just got up like that was normal!  I wonder how often she has to visit the emergency room!

Now that all that big furniture and the shed is cleaned out, I can get back to the job of getting the house ready to show.  I have so much room now, I can actually see what I'm doing!  There were just narrow paths through the junk in the back bedrooms and it was hard to organize the piles into trash, Goodwill, and what I'm keeping.  Now I can.  A lot of it can go out in the shed.

I decided that getting the entire house ready to list wasn't going to happen as quickly as I wanted.  Now my goal is to get the main part of the house presentable so I can list this week, and continue to plug away at the chaos in the back rooms later.  Potential buyers will just have to look past that part.

Haven't had time to start digging in the gardens.  It's been raining for the last 4-5 days anyways.  After good soaking rains is the best time to dig so I'll try to do a little each day.  Oh yeah, and I have to drop everything to cut the damn grass again now that all this rain has been feeding it.  Need a dry day to get to that.

A friend gave some insight into downsizing as I'm doing.  It's liberating.  It really is.  Getting rid of all the unnecessary stuff in one's life is a good thing.  When I realized how right he was, I feel I can be even more ruthless about what I keep for the move.

Yes, I miss the bunnies.  And the chickens.  I'm sure once I get settled I'll want a pet rabbit.  No, I'll never breed again, but I'm a gardener, and every gardener should have a rabbit or two.  I already have a nice outdoor hutch being planned in the back of my head.  If my new home allows for it, I'll probably want a couple birds, too.

tnt
Natureschild