Hurricane Sandy is here to ruin the day.

     Well, if you lived a little further to the west in Detroit or St. Louis, consider yourself lucky.  They are projecting we are suppose to get 4 inches of rain this week.  What makes this weather event even worse is the fact that we have had a wetter than normal fall.  Things have gone from bad to worse and I still haven't finished lining daylilies out or even begun planting seed.  This whole coming week all I'm gonna do is work on tags.  What else can I do?  Rain is forecasted for every day through next Thursday. 

     On to less depressing subject matter.....I thought I would post some pictures of some of my favorite blooms from this past season.  Pictured at the very top is Gaudeamus, a Steve Moldovan daylily introduced in 2009.  Right below it is a seedling of mine out of a cross of Venus Fly Trap X Labyrinth of Solitude.  I'm thinking of introducing it in 2014.  At the bottom of the page are two of my favorite blue eyed daylilies.  The top photo is Persian Art from Carpenter, and the bottom photo is Paul Aucoin from Linda Agin.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.  I'm so tired of all the bad news.  Sometimes it's just easier to change the channel.

The hard work continues.

      Oh, my aching back.  Even though the area I selected for lining out the last of my seedlings from last year is small, it's still some back breaking work.  You'll see at the top of the page where a company called Kurtz brothers delivered 4 yards of their bedding mix top soil.  Once they left, I proceeded to shovel it in the back and some spots out front for 3 to 4 hours.  Then on Thursday, (right after it had rained) I began lining out seedlings.  Man was it muddy.  I had mud stuck to my shoes, my little cart I sit on, and tracked it all over the place.  Today I was able to finish what I started, but in much nicer conditions.  Not nearly as muddy and the sun was out most of the day.  Anyway, I'll let all the photos do the talking tonight as I'm pretty tired from juggling working my landscaping business, some part time pizza delivery, and all the work I put into my daylilies.  It was one of those weeks you'd like to put behind you.  Hope you are all fairing better.

Three toothy beauties and the hardest job of the season.

     Tonight's post may be a little short because of the lack of blooms outside as the bloom season slowly comes to an end.  I was going through all my pictures from the season and found this really cool picture of three toothy daylilies I had brought inside to harvest pollen from.  The daylilies (which are pictured above) are Gaudeamus (Moldovan 09) in the upper left hand corner, Briar Patch (Grace 10) in the upper right hand corner, and Happy Holidays from Mike Holmes in front.  The reason why I wanted to share this photograph is it is such a nice collection of toothy blooms.  I enjoyed using each of these daylilies this season.

      In the photographs below you can see my landscape trailer completely loaded with seedlings I had dug this season.  I had to get the compost pile out of my backyard, which borders on my neighbor's backyard. It was a bit of an eyesore and my neighbor was very understanding and patient with me finding time to remove them.  I have to say this was probably the hardest job I did all season.  I had to hand load all of these daylilies up, and this after it had rained all weekend making the weight of each daylily much heavier.

Slipping in the mud and puddles didn't make things any easier.  I am suppose to get a load of top soil tomorrow and hopefully I will be able to line out the last of the seedlings in the coming weeks.  It's late, but I have no choice.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate.  Anyway, that's this week's installment.

Florence Denny blooms and still gathering seed.

      This past week we had a couple days in the 70's, just warm enough to let a rebloom scape or a first scape come into bloom.  I had planted a single fan of Florence Denny I had won on the lily auction in spring, and due to the warm weather it has increased rather nicely.  Enough to throw up it's first scape.  For those of you who don't know, Florence Denny was introduced by Dan Trimmer in 2011.  The thing that will catch your attention about Florence Denny is it's awesome size, sometimes getting up to 9" across.  You can see the bloom I have photographed has some nice angel wings and ruffles.  Too late to use this year, but I am anxious to cross with it next year.  I've heard it is a good breeder from several sources.  Florence Denny is featured at the top of the page with both photographs.

        I am still gathering seed even though it is nearing the end of the season.  I thought this year was going to be a down year for seed due to the drought, but I look behind me at the drawers I keep my seeds collected in, and I've filled 3 drawers.  Probably 2.5 to be more exact.  Sometimes when I make a cross I only make a couple of seed, but if I really love a certain cross I'll hammer it on every bloom.  Take a look at the bottom two photos.  One is of seed pods I collected from a Steve Moldovan daylily called Mahdi.  Steve Moldovan and Roy Woodhall always praised Mahdi as being a grand parent.  You'll notice all the tags have the initials "C.F."  That stands for Crowning Fire which was introduced by Guy Pierce for Pat Stamile this year.  I was really blown away by Crowning Fire and was always told by Steve and Roy to take red tets. into Mahdi, which was purple.  I've seen some of the kids from those crosses and thought taking Crowning Fire into it made sense.  Below the seed pods, you can see an envelope I am holding that has easily a hundred seed from a cross of Crowning Fire on Curt Hanson's Up on the roof.  If you don't grow either of these daylilies I encourage you to get them.  Excellent daylilies from outstanding hybridizers.  Once again you can see I loved the cross involving Crowning Fire on Up on the roof.  Every pod except two were from that very cross.  I will be excited to see the results of these crosses.  Anyway, it's a rainy, dreary cold day here in Northeast Ohio.  Hope you folks have better weather where you are.