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.

A Daylily and Some Knitting

Today we woke up to the bloom of the Pat Garrity daylily. It produces 5.5" flowers that are bright yellow with a dark red center. We shall see what it looks like later in the day though...

I have also included a picture of my knitting project (that has been on hold for a little while), 22 Little Clouds. The yarn is very pretty and so soft!

Pat Garrity in the morning.

My first shawl.

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.

Spring Update

The Hollyhock bloom. Unsure of which type it is right now.

Ahh yes, time to cue the generic "it's been way too long since I've posted" blog post. But I must say lots has happened since the last post. The garden is almost completely planted and everything seems to be settling into their new homes fairly well. Some of the annual seeds are sprouting, we have flowers on some tomato plants and we have our first bloom of the season on a hollyhock. As of this week, there were 42/45 dahlias and 8/12 calla lilies sprouting. Now that it has officially heated up down here, it's only a matter of time for everything to start blooming. Next week we may even see the first daylilies of the season. All of this growing just gets me excited to see all the color in the yard!

My February Sweater being blocked.

As for the knitting....I did finish my February Sweater, however, I still need to find buttons for it. I am pleased with how it turned out, but it ended up too long after blocking. A few weeks ago I started my first shawl; it is a free pattern on Ravelry called 22 Little Clouds. I am using some of my Malabrigo yarn, Rastita, for it and it is super soft! Too bad I won't be able to wear it until the fall now.

Most recently, I started a new job as a part-time cashier with a local garden center. It doesn't sound too difficult, but man it can be pretty stressful. The phone rings off the hook, lots of customers and too many plants to learn!  It is apparently their "busy season" right now, so I'm hoping it will get a little easier. One last bit of news, I have a new orchid! It is a beautiful all white one that Brendan's mom bought me last weekend when she was here. Quite a surprise!

 

Now I think I'm caught up! I will definitely try to keep up as the flowers start blooming! Here is one last picture I'd like to share with you all....this bird was absolutely stunning!

A visitor at our bird feeder, an Indigo Bunting.

Dahlia Planting and Orchid Surgery

Half of the dahlia tubers

I must say it has been an eventful weekend, so far! One big accomplishment that has been made is planting the dahlias. We have two rows dug out in the yard, about 65 feet long, to hold 45 different dahlia tubers. These plants are quite remarkable, they grow like potatoes (I am told), can grow to 5.5 feet tall and produce up to 14 inch blooms! I cannot wait to see how these flowers will turn out! Unfortunately, I have to wait until August and September to see them in action. After the growing season though, they should multiply and produce up to five more tubers. That means even more flowers next year! We ordered these tubers from Swan Island Dahlias all the way from Oregon. It must be a site to see their gardens! Now it's a waiting game to see who will pop-up first.

The names were stamped right on the tubers

Laying out the dahlias before planting

Sad news for one of my orchids...I had to cut-off one of its leaves and now it only has two left. A little while ago I noticed a black streak on the leaf, which could have been from too much direct sunlight or some kind of fungal disease happening. Well, I waited too long to try and do something about it and eventually the whole leaf started turning yellow. It was even progressing towards the stem. Yikes! So last night I finally got the courage to cut the leaf. I used a very sharp razor blade, sterilized it with matches before, made the cut and then covered the open wound with some cinnamon to prevent any bacteria from growing. I don't have any anti-fungal powder on hand so that is why I used the cinnamon. I hope this orchid will survive and that I didn't wait too long. Oddly enough it sprouted two new buds a few weeks ago, even though it was fully bloomed already. I may have to cut those off though so it will work on growing leaves instead.

The orchid after surgery

The new buds

The warm weather has found us! It reached 80+ degrees last week, surprisingly. Not a huge fan of the temperature jump though; it completely skipped the 60s and 70s! But with this warm weather we can now start planting the garden with our heirloom vegetables. The garden area is freshly tilled and planting rows are being made as I type, so it's just a matter of time before the tomatoes are planted. And the day is still young! Lastly for the weekend, I planted 11 bird's nest spruce trees in the backyard. Why may you ask? Well, they were from a landscaping job we installed and oddly enough the lady over-cared for her low-maintenance landscape that she wanted. With all the rain that we received in February and March, plus the watering she did daily was just too much for these little spruces. Eventually, the needles started turning red and falling off from all the water. So we kindly replaced all of the dying bushes with new ones and I ended up with 11 dying bushes. We decided to plant them in the back by all the trees to see if they would make a comeback. Sure enough, buds have started forming and sprouting. Looks like we're in luck! So like I said, it's been an eventful weekend.

Update: February Sweater

See...I said I'd be finished knitting the body soon! Now all it needs are some sleeves!