Oh Dot, All your babies are so beautiful. I love your cats. I'm a really big lover of all animals. I feel that it is one of my purposes in life to try to make life easier on all animals in my space. This includes tame and wild. I love them all.
I'm a huge fan of TB Iris. I can not say which I actually like better. I think the Iris is actually more regal and beautiful than daylilies, yet I grow way more daylilies. I've left my Iris to fend for their self for 3 years now. I must get the to growing again. I have love Iris since I was a child and my grandmother grew them in her yard. I just couldn't get enough of looking and smelling them. That's a long long time ago.
We have 2 cats now. Our Munchkin cat is about 14 years old. He's a Russian Blue that we got at 4 weeks old from the vet. Someone had left him on his front porch steps over night. He's a dead out Russian Blue. INDEPENDENT!! Arrogant! Obstinent! He is only loved at his convience and only for a very small amount of time then. Let me tell you, you really don't know you have a cat with him. Then came Orange Cat about 5 months ago. He just showed up one morning and hasn't left. My DH swears he's not staying so I haven't had him fixed yet. I'd say he might be a year old, maybe. He looks just like Morris the Cat. He acts like a cat. Doing the under foot thing that I had forgot with Munchkin. He beats up on both our dogs and he and Munchkin stare at each other for hours. I think they had a few fights early on but Munchkin is our in house cat(he goes out when he wants) and Orange Cat stays outside for now. I'm sure when it gets really cold, I'll have him inside with or without DH blessing. I've got to get him neutered, soon.
Then we have Conrad, about 11 or 12 year old dog. He's an overgrown beagle and boxer mix that was abused before we got him 10 years ago. He'd rather hunt a rabbit than eat. Up until about 2 years ago, he did just this for hours aday. It was a sight. He and now departed Dixie(just died 3 months ago) girl would chase a rabbit, while the rabbit set in the garden about 10 feet from me watching for them to catch up and then the rabbit would make a big ciricle and come back to the daylily beds and wait again. it was something to see!!
Jazz is my love. He showed up 4 years ago on a very cold January night. He was setting under the big oak in the front yard when I came in from baby sitting one of my grandchildren. He was huge, starved, frozen and dirty. When I opened my car door, he bounded like a baby deer into the car with me and has been my lap puppy since. He's appears to be a lot part Boxer and maybe Great Dane. He weighs around 85 pounds, rust brown with black eyes and mask and 4 pretty white feet. He sleeps with me when I let him.
We, is made up of DH of 40 years, daughter(30) with her 4 year old daughter(Emma Grace is my love beyond reason) for the last 3 years and son(they don't live with us) beloved DIL, 5,3,1 year olds and another in progress(maybe). The birth of my first grandson 5 years ago was earth moving for me. Never had I imagined of love like him. I don't get to see them as much as I like, but I go about every 2 months and stay 3 days or more to give DinL a break.
I started growing daylilies in 1999. I bought several at Lowes for cheap in the fall. This led to the internet to see where I could find more and I was lost and addicted!! I grow 90% of mine in pots. Most in 3 gallon and best in 5 gallon. So far I'm up to 1500 pots and it grows everytime I repot 1 pot becomes atleast 3 most of time. I'm repotting 800 pots from 5 years ago that had not been done since. I have 400 of the 800 done and these 400 became 1100 when they were repotted. Plus I still have another 400 or so that need to repotted. I have terrible clay soil. This is the reason for the pots. I have lost maybe 10 daylilies since I started growning in pots. Most of these were to Voles. I've had 2 or 3 lost to crown rot and this was my fault for planting too deep. I also bought one bag of soil that had the water crystals in it long ago and this planted rotted. Naturally it was Mort Morss, one that I had saved for 2 years. It died over winter the first year and I just know it was that soil.So now I use Miracle Grow Garden Soil and mini pine bark chips mixed. I just started using this this summer, so far so good. I'll know the rest of the story after this winter. Our winter can range from 10 below to 75 degrees in mid January. We usually have 3 to 4 weeks of cold weather and the rest of the time it's not too bad. It just that we never know how long the ccold will last. We have gone a whole week without it getting above 32 degrees and that's bad for us.
I bought many seeds in 2005. This is were most of my seedling came from. I grew alot myself too in 2005 and grew them too. In 2007, I got to buy about 75 good plants. This was a gift from my wonderful Mother n Law. A very special person that left me the money when she died. I loved her like a second mother and she loved me. She is dearly missed. I haven't bought many plants since then. Just a few along as I could. I had 3 years of bad health that kept me inside way too much. This year has been better. I thrive on being outside. I love the sun and the heat. I freeze in the winter. I'm an old mother bear in winter and really should hybrinate without any visitors until the sun shines in the Spring!!!
My hope is to sell plants and seedlings come Spring. I have thousands of pictures to get organized over winter. I've got 95% of all labeled true. I have some seedlings that have more than 1 orginal seed in a pot, so they can have more than 1 named seedling to pot. By named I mean that I know the parents. I will sell these by pictures and parents. I have some that are unknown that I will just sell by pictures. I've sold a few seeds several years ago, but I haven't sold named plants. I will sell named plants now that they are in good pots and will be in great shape. I could not sell any until I got them to growing big and pretty. I plan to use the Lily Auction and the web site "Growing Daylilies Together". I'm new to this one, so I'll have to see the rules. I also hope to sell some locally. Great Plans, I'll just have to see what happens come Spring. Oh yes, I have 3 years of seed resting very comfortally in the fridge that I'll start to plant soon. I haven't registered any but maybe in a year or two.
Busy busy busy. Now, if I can just keep enough "go" to get some things done.
Blessings to all, Mona
