The first fall cool front slowly crept across the Houston area today. It certainly isn't a 'blue northern' but they seldom are this early in the season. I was able to enjoy being outside with moderate temperatures and much less humidity. One of the joys of gardening is just 'puttering' - taking care of little things and not working too hard (smile).

Seedling 14-033

Today's image is seedling 14-033. It only has a 5" bloom but it makes up for it with great performance. This year the scapes had over 30 blooms on 5-way branching. It comes from the cross EDWARDIAN CHARM x HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

Unlike recent days, yesterday I was able to spend a decent amount of time in the garden. The temperatures were not much different but the humidity was quite a bit lower. What a difference a lower dew point can make. We may get our first cool front of the season early next week. Yeah!

Seedling 12-070

Today's seeding is 12-070. It comes from the cross WINTER WAYFARER x PRISCILLAS SMILE. The 6" blooms open flat and it has a heavy gold piecrust edge on the petals.

Today's seedling is another that was not very impressive the first year it bloomed. In fact, it barely made it to the evaluation bed but I'm glad it made the cut. After a first year bud count of 10, it now has 28 buds on 5-way branching. It frequently opens multiple blooms and put out 3 sets of scapes this year. It has multiplied well making a nice clump.

Seedling 14-029

I am chomping at the bit to get out and work in the garden. Unfortunately, it has been too hot (mid 90's) with high humidity which limits my time in the garden. I weeded for about a hour before giving up and coming inside to enjoy the A/C.

Seedling 05-038

I have grown this seedling since 2005. It performs well with 5-way branching and a bud count in the mid 20's. The bloom is 6" and it opens nicely most of the time. It has a serious flaw however. Almost every year I end up with only one or two fans after it finishes blooming. Some of the fans can't handle the heavy blooming and simply disappear. I won't register a daylily with this trait.

The front yard bed redesign is almost finished. I didn't end up with as many new additions as I thought - only 8 instead of a couple of dozen. I decided I wanted to give them plenty of room so I increased the spacing from 18" to 20". That's still not a lot but I have a lot that I want to grow (smile). Next I need to figure out what I can do even before it starts to cool off.

Seedling 16-033

Seedling 16-033 is another that first bloomed this year. All the seedlings have similarities. It will be interesting to see how they compare after they have been growing in new beds for a couple of years.

I spent the morning planning out the changes to the front yard beds. One of my current beds is about 8" over the property line. I found this out when the house next door was sold. So much for building beds using the 'eyeball placement' method (haha). This fall I plan to relocate the bed to resolve this oversight. I'm also going to widen a bed along a walkway. When all is completed I'll have room for a couple dozen more daylilies than the current beds hold.

Seedling 12-049

Today's seedling only had a bud count of 5 the first year it bloomed. I usually pass over low bud counts but the wide edge peaked my interest so I kept it. The next year it improved to 20 buds on 4-way branched scapes so it turned out that keeping it was a good choice. It comes from the cross OPEN MY EYES x FACE PAINT.

When I first saw seedling 12-076 I got excited. I was thinking that the heavy pale rose and gold edge coupled with the pale rose eye presented some new possibilities for my hybridizing. Unfortunately, it bloomed mid to late season and the 90+ temperatures late in the season made it next to impossible to to set pods. I did get a few seeds using the pollen but never got anything noteworth from those crosses.

Seedling 12-076

12-076 was awarded a purple ribbon in our club's 2013 flower show.

What a difference a couple of years makes. Today's seedling first bloomed in 2014 with 2-way branching and 8 buds. This is a little on the low side even for my crowded seedling beds but the 6" blooms looked like the seedling had some potential. Two years later and now in an evaluation bed it had 6-way branching, 35 buds, and the bloom size is now 7".

Seedling 14-071

This comes from the cross DAYDREAM SPIRIT x PRISCILLA'S RAINBOW.

This is seedling 15-025. It comes from the cross DRAGON KNIFE x BELLA VITA. The bloom is very consistent. I compared it to last year's bloom and they are almost identical. I like a daylily that I can count on looking good just about every bloom.

Seedling 15-025

Today's image is seedling 14-045. It has a 6" bloom on 26" scapes and a bud count of 20 on 4-way branching. I'm hoping it will do even better once it gets out of its pot and into the ground.

Seedling 14-045

This comes from the cross RUNNING HOT x PRISCILLA'S SMILE.

Well, just as I had written off any more blooms this year, a new scape has popped up. So bloom season has not officially finished yet. Nice things happen when you get lots of rain. Speaking of which, we got 2" yesterday.

Seedling 14-030

This is seedling 14-030. It comes from the cross SPRINGTIME ROMANCE x EMERALD BAY. It is a pretty bloom when it opens properly but unfortunately it hangs too often when opening (or at least it did last year). I'll probably give it another chance because it performs so well with 23 buds and 5-way branching.

Bloom season is now over. I have no more scapes in the garden. It's now time to concentrate on the changes I want to make to my garden when the weather cools down. The first real cool front typically comes through in early October and I want to be ready to go.

Seedling 15-059

Seedling 15-059 is one that looks remarkably like it's pollen parent. The only noticable difference so far is that the pollen parent has slightly more distinct midribs. I decided to keep and evaluate 15-059 to see if it might end up with a higher bud count than it's parent once it gets established.

We had another nice shower this afternoon. It gave us a half inch of 'natural water' which is always better than 'city water'. It also brought the temperature down to about 80 degrees making it rather pleasant to be outside. So I spent about an hour and a half cleaning up one of my beds. Only one daylily was blooming today.

Seedling 16-111

Today's seedling is 16-111. It has a 5" bloom on 26" scapes.

There's still a lot more daylily pictures but I thought I'd post something a little different today. Back in May I noticed a spider lounging on a daylily bloom so I snapped a picture. As near as I've been able to determine it's probably a common grass spider. These spiders look very much like the Hobo spider but the Hobo is much less common in this area. That's good because the Hobo spider bite can be serious.

Grass Spider

The garden soil is soaked from all the recent rains. That made it easy to pull weeds so that's what I did this morning.

Seedling 11-003

Because I like large flowers I have almost exclusively used large flowered parents in my crosses. Occasionally I used a smaller bloom for one parent and seedling 11-003 is the result of one of those crosses. 11-003 sometimes reaches 5" but more typically is in the 4.5" to 4.75" range with 27" scapes. The cross was (Seedling x BIT OF BLUE).

We've had rain almost every day for the past 8 days. This has resulted in the appearance of new fans emerging from the soil in many of my pots. Ample moisture means there will be a good fan increase this year.

Seedling 12-089

Today's seedling is 12-089. The parentage is the same as 14-083 immediately below (CIMARRON ROSE x PRISCILLA'S SMILE) but the resulting seedling is completely different. Such are the joys of hybridizing. You never know what you might get from a cross. Seedling 12-089 has 6" blooms on 26" scapes.

After a long dry spell we finally received about 4" of rain over the past 3 days. Grass, trees, and daylilies are happy. The accompaning cooler temperatures gave me a chance to get some much needed weeding done. There were still a few blooms open in the garden today.

Seedling 14-083

Cimarron RosePriscilla's Smile

Today's image is seedling 14-083. It has 6" blooms on 27" scapes. It comes from the cross CIMARRON ROSE x PRISCILLA'S SMILE.

I have always thought of aphids as being cool weather insects. I see them on daylily foliage primarily in the winter and early spring and on hybiscus buds in late spring. As I was watering a hybiscus yesterday, I found that many of the buds were covered with aphids. This was a surprise because the temperatures have been around 100 F. every day for about a week now. So apparently, aphids survive in the heat.

Seedling 13-069

This is seedling 13-069. It has 6" blooms on 28" scapes. The red eye and edge really stand out on the bright gold petals. So far the bud count has only reached the high teens. It comes from the cross ORANGE CITY x CARIBBEAN MAGIC.

Today's image is seedling 14-019. It has 6" blooms on 24" scapes. It comes from the cross EDWARDIAN CHARM x HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

Seedling 14-019

This is seedling 15-103. It has 6" blooms on 25" scapes. This comes from the cross UNSPOKEN LOVE x ZELLA PANCHAUD.

Seedling 15-103

This is seedling 16-128. It didn't bloom until June 1st which would make it a VL (very late) season bloomer if that remains consistent. Of course, the first year bloom is not necessarily a good indicator as to when a daylily will bloom once it gets settled in. This was the last seedling I marked this season.

It had 6.5" blooms on 25" scapes. The bloom had wonderful substance even in the 90+ degree temperatures.

Seedling 16-128

Today's image is seedling 16-041, new from this year. It performed below average in its first year bloom but I marked it anyway because of the intense colors.

Seedling 16-041

Today's image is seedling 14-079. It has 6.0" blooms on 27" scapes.

Seedling 14-079

The parentage for 14-079 is SUNSHINE KISSES x FASHION POLICE.

Today's image is seedling 15-075. It has 6.5" blooms on 28" scapes. The first year bloom on this was not all that impressive but I marked it because I thought it had some potential. This year the form is much rounder and the pink edge is much more pronounced than on the first year blooms.

Today's image is seedling 12-079. It has 5.5" blooms on 23" scapes. Bud count hasn't yet reached the magic number for registration yet but every year it goes up so there's still hope. I really like the bold dark eye.

Seedling 12-079

The parentage for 12-079 is FACE PAINT x HEDWIG'S EYES.

Today's image is seedling 14-058. The parentage is WHAT LOVE CAN DO x PRISCILLA'S SMILE. It has 6.0" blooms on 26" scapes.

Seedling 14-058

What Love Can DoPriscilla's Smile