Around the House

Hello! Hello! Just thought I would share what's been going on around the house lately, especially with the flowers and the garden. I can't believe that today is July 1st! Once the 4th rolls around, the rest of summer will fly by I'm sure. So far the heat here has not been as bad as last year, thank goodness! This time last year it was hitting triple digits and not a drop of rain in sight. However, for the month of June we had six inches of rain more than the average, so that means lots of growth!

The garden is growing and growing with no end in sight. Brendan harvests about 6-8 squash and zucchini plants per day, so it's really starting to add up. The tomatoes are ripening, eggplants sprouting and beans lengthening as we speak. We even have some melons started on the trellises. One can really get lost in our garden! It is an oasis with all the vegetables and flowers growing and even the honey bees buzzing as they pollinate, but the mosquitoes tend to ruin the fun of it all.

Part of the garden

The zinnias growing in the garden

Our heirloom summer squash and zucchini

Our two year anniversary was a couple weeks ago on June 22nd (hard to believe) and Brendan got us some Adirondack chairs and table for the front porch. They came au natural, so we stained them an English chestnut color and then bought some shade plants and pots to create a relaxing setting for us. It was a very nice present, a surprise to me, and I absolutely love it all! We still need to poly the chairs and maybe find some artwork to hang on the house, but we are still enjoying it.

I've included several more pictures; one can never go wrong with pictures. And coming up soon will be more daylilies (lots!), a knitting project and even some dahlias!

Lime and Queen Red Lime Zinnias

Rudbeckia

Bachelor Button

Snapdragon

The flower on the bean plants, I thought they were pretty.

Daylily Catch-Up!

Well I gave you all one day of relief from the daylilies, but since we had a rainy day I thought I should catch-up with all of the daylily pictures on here. I have been slacking, I must say, as I just counted how many new ones there are and got 16, give or take a few! The weather hasn't been cooperating with us lately to take decent photos; some days they wouldn't be fully open before I left for work and then in the evening they would be so faded. Since there are so many new ones, it is hard for me to pick a favorite! Some that I really like are: "Chinese Cloisonne," "Noble Lord," "Picotee Rippled Ruffles," "Spacecoast Bold Buccaneer" and more and more and more...Plus there are still a lot more to bloom! Just a warning, there are lots of pictures in this post, so sit back and enjoy!

Chinese Cloisonne

Diamond Dusted Borders

Dixie Rhythm

Festive Art

Jamaican Me Crazy

Dreams Come Through

Indy Heart Stopper

Night Breeze

Only Believe

Noble Lord

Picotee Rippled Ruffles

Rainbow Candy

Spacecoast Bold Buccaneer

Spanish Sketch

Tetra Dragon's Eye

Mozart

You all have probably seen enough daylilies by now, so you are lucky enough that one of my calla lilies bloomed this past week. This one is called "Mozart" and is an apricot/peach color with red streaks. When it first bloomed on the plant, it was a light yellow color and since I cut it and put it in water it has darkened. It is pretty neat how some of the callas will change like that. So in a few days it may look different from these pictures! Unfortunately, after "Mozart" bloomed I had to dig it up because some of the leaves started yellowing and falling over, which meant the tuber/bulb was rotting. I think I saved it just in time though; it didn't hit the large part of the tuber. This isn't the first one of the callas that I have almost lost though. Last month the same thing happened to one called "Akela." I didn't notice it as early though and now only have two little tubers of "Akela" now. So sad. You may ask, "Why are they rotting?" Well, the soil here in our yard really sucks! It is just a nasty red clay! Even though we built up where the callas are planted, they are still sitting on the clay and it has rained so much here lately that the dirt isn't able to dry out. I just need to keep an eye on them. But here are the pictures of "Mozart" and the callas. Enjoy!

Mozart

Mozart

Mozart before cutting

All the calla lilies

Good Old Boy

Now that we have multiple new daylilies blooming daily, I will be posting more frequently to keep on top of the pictures. Also, it's hard for me to come up with a new name for each post every other day, so I decided that the name will be of my favorite bloom for the post. So for today, my favorite bloom is of the daylily "Good Old Boy." This daylily is yellow-gold with a black-purple center, which also outlines its ruffles. It is very unique!

Good Old Boy

A funny thing happened to us today...we went out to see all the daylilies this morning and was expecting to see a bloom from "Copernicus," a light purple daylily. Once we saw it, it was definitely not the right one. We double-checked our list to make sure we had it in order, but came to the conclusion that the company that we bought the daylilies from sent us the wrong one. Instead, we now have a pastel apricot-peach with a red center daylily that produces double blooms. We believe we found the right one online and think its name is "Clueless." I'm not sure how I feel about the double ones, but it is very interesting looking.

Clueless

Another one that I really liked is called "Mister Lucky." I like this one just because it is such a deep red color.

Mister Lucky

Next up is one that we actually got to see last year, but I thought I would share it with you all now. It is called "Showmanship."

Showmanship

Another large bloom that we have and very similar to "Sea Swept Dreams" is a yellow daylily with bronze petals called "Seaside Sunrise."

Seaside Sunrise

One on the lighter side is "Southern Exposure." It is just a small one, about 4.5", but the center is purple and slightly silver.

Southern Exposure

"New Perspective" joins us with two different petal colors. The first of its kind that we've seen so far.

New Perspective

Lastly, I'd like to share another picture of "Festive Fall." It bloomed again today with two flowers and it just looks so pretty! I really like the bright orange.

Festive Fall

I am caught up with all of the new pictures (for now). I truly hope you all are enjoying the pictures as much as I am! However, I must say that the pictures don't do much justice for them as they are pretty remarkable in person.

The Daylily Craze Begins!

Even though I already posted about one daylily blooming, that was just a warm-up. This morning we woke up to not only one, but three new blooms among the daylilies! These ones are called Festive Fall, Killer Instinct and Sea Swept Dreams. Festive Fall's bloom was not up to par, so I need to capture another one. Killer Instinct's bloom is around 7" and it may look like two different flowers in the pictures, but it is just how much it faded during the day. My favorite from today is Sea Swept Dreams. Its bloom is almost bigger than my hand! Plus I like its ruffles and pearlescent petals, so romantic looking. Tomorrow there will probably be only one blooming, but not to worry, almost every daylily has a flower spike. So exciting!! We also had a few zinnias and cosmos bloom, but they're not as showy as the daylilies. Enjoy all the pictures!

Killer Instinct in the morning.

Killer Instinct in the afternoon.

Festive Fall

Sea Swept Dreams in the morning.

Sea Swept Dreams compared to my hand.

Sea Swept Dreams in the afternoon.

A Cosmos

The lime Zinnia

Moonlit Masquerade

The first daylily bloomed today! This one is called "Moonlit Masquerade" and produces 5.5" flowers. It is the first of many to come as almost every daylily we have has flower spikes growing. We also had another hollyhock bloom, it's a darker pink compared to the first one. Soon enough we should have some zinnias! And I replanted my hanging baskets for the summer and this year I used two kinds of sweet potato vine (light and dark), a coral verbena and a white calibrachoa or million bells. I can't wait until they fill in!

Moonlit Masquerade daylily in the morning; still had some dew on it.

Moonlit Masquerade in the evening.

Yesterday just wasn't our day with flowers...two of our dahlia tubers bit the dust. It's been raining too much for them and they just turned to mush. However, we did cut off the soggy part and repotted them to see if they will come back. Also...sadly to say, one of my orchids might croak. It's my dark yellow and pink, tiger looking one. About three of its leaves fell off yesterday and we took it out of its pot and a bunch of roots were rotted. So I had to cut off the rotten roots and repotted it into some different potting media. As of right now, it's still living and the flowers are still perky, so we'll see what happens. I think the humidity rose too quickly and I loved it too much (aka I over watered). For my other orchids, I've put them back in front of the living room window and now have a fan blowing over them to combat the humidity. I hope this helps!

My hanging baskets

The new hollyhock

More blooms on the old hollyhock.