80809....Twenty-One Years Ago Today...

....my most beautiful seedling (hehe) entered the world....just slightly before 8:00 pm at CHOC (Childrens Hospital of Orange County)...weighing just over eight pounds. She has bloomed into a legal adult (so fast!)....Happy Birthday!

In honor of this special date, I thought I'd show a couple pictures of Sam Cat who thinks he belongs to DD and adores her....

Here he is early in the morning taking a drink out of a birdbath....


Apparently, that wasn't quite good enough...


...as he felt the need to get into the birdbath...

Speaking of seedlings, I spent a good portion of today cleaning out about half of my oldest seedling bed. It's tough to do, but you have to ruthless. No excuses, anything not performing well or without a marker of some sort was yanked out. I'm not going to even look at pictures from last year...just in case...as I would surely convince myself to give one another year. Nope!

It's a lot of work that goes into these seedlings and after investing some four years on them, it's time for them to repay me! By that, I need to see more than a pretty face (although some days even that would be enough...lol). I kept one seedling that the bloom doesn't do anything for me, but it has increased well (had four scapes this year) and blooms later. I like those things, so maybe next year I'll work on crossing it to something to improve the bloom, but hopefully keep its good growing habits.

The silver maple this bed grows under is trying to take it over, so these seedlings have competition...tough conditions, but if they can make it here, think how much better they'll do in great soil.

My Chuck Hayes gardenia had a spectacular year last year. It was blooming away like crazy when frost got it last fall. We had a tough winter, but I think it made it through that fine...it was a couple of late winter/early spring freezes that got to it, unfortunately. It looked like a pile of black sticks. However, I wasn't prepared to give up on it just yet...and I'm so glad I didn't. It actually has given me a bloom (so far), but even that seems remarkable given how it looked....


Here's a look at it recovering pretty well...


The Kleims one didn't suffer as badly, but it also hasn't bloomed. I am considering moving it to the backyard by the back of the house...where I think it will be warmer and get more sun.

Early evening the air on my deck is perfumed by some potted tuberose...very nice...


Naturally, though, I have some late blooming daylilies to show...

CIMARRON ROSE continues to delight me...


(How could you not like that??) AIN'T I SOMETHING...on a rebloom scape...


A true late, LAST CHANCE FOR ROMANCE...two views...



One everyone thinks of as a late, SANDRA ELIZABETH...


closer...


LOVE OR ELSE still going on...


LOOK HERE MARY (with some SANDRA ELIZABETH showing, too)...


More of LOOK HERE MARY...


COTTON CANDY CUPCAKE blooming on Georgia rebloom...thanks to the kindness of Tim Herrington...


LOVELY PINK LADY which wins hands down for the longest blooming daylily in my garden this year...


There are some others blooming still, just not today...

A couple of my late seedlings...

8-185


...two views of 8-181



I saw in my drafts that I have a post I started for July 30th...noting what was still blooming then....I might go ahead and finish that one...time is just rushing by me this summer...