Gazehound's Animal Communication » Garden Journal

Polytepal/Polymerous

Gayze — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 15:24:39 +0000

Daylilies. Hemerocallis species. One of the identifying traits of the daylily is that they have three petals, and three sepals. The petals, to put it in extremely scientific vernacular, are the big pretty things that sit in front of the other pretty things, which are the sepals.

To illustrate, feel free to visit this Parts of a Daylily diagram on the American Hemerocallis Society website.

That’s what the books say, anyway. And then, every so often, you meet a daylily who hasn’t read the books.

When a daylily produces a number of petals and sepals more than the standard three, it is referred to as a polytepal or polymerous bloom. The term polytepal used to be used pretty much globally for daylilies, but the AHS has apparently switched to the more botanically appropriate polymerous in recent years. You can see more of an explanation, and some other photos of these “poly” daylilies, on this page of their website.

http://www.daylilies.org/ahs_dictionary/polymerous.html

Certain cultivars of daylilies tend to be more prone than others to producing “polys”. This morning, as the season winds down, one of the final buds on my daylily, Chamonix, opened as a polymerous bloom. Chamonix is one that loves surprising me with extra petals. I thought I’d hunt down some of my daylily photos through the past several years that display these anomalies, and share them here on the blog. As I find more such photos, I’ll return here and add to the gallery of images.

I hope you enjoy this parade of mutants!

Daylily Season Ending

Gayze — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 22:14:28 +0000

It seems like it was such a short daylily season this year. I am sure that’s at least in part because I only managed to get about a quarter of my plants moved to the new garden in the spring. I haven’t been able to get back down to the old house too often, to see what is still blooming down there, and very little of that yard can be seen from this one.

Up here, most of the daylilies are nearly, or completely, done. Though Primal Scream and Outrageous, Siloam Double Classic and Wisest of Wizards, had quite a few scapes on them, they’ve all pretty much finished their run. Primal Scream opened its last flower today, as did Outrageous (and a damaged one at that).

South Seas looks like it’s pretty well finished, too, having opened its many flowers all within a little over a week.

The only problem with daylilies, of course, is that the blooms only last for a single day each.

Um…that’s why they call them daylilies.

I’ll miss them, I always do. However, I see quite a few seed pods on Fooled Me. Maybe I’ll find a place in the house to plant them this winter, and have some new seedlings to put outside in the spring.

Today’s photos will probably be the last for the year. Enjoy.

I know I have.

A few pretties and a new laptop

Gayze — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:32:39 +0000

My new laptop arrived yesterday. It was a tough decision to make, as (1) I’m very attached to my old desktop and (2) funds for major investments are a bit scarce right now.

(1) Since sometime around 2003 I’ve been using a very basic E-machines desktop. I think I paid all of three hundred for it, and it’s actually still going fairly strong. Its hard drive’s pretty stuffed, and it had some issues lately handling some of the more recent updates of software, but it’s been faithful as the sunrise for many years.

However, it does have age issues, and it sits in the hottest corner of the house. Since my leg complains (screaming bloody, literally, murder, figuratively) about the heat, I was unable to get any work done past the point in the early afternoon where the den started to heat up. Since the desktop hooks our wi-fi network into the DSL, and because of lack of room in the only air conditioned space I have available, moving the computer wasn’t an option.

So, (2) when I came across a really excellent deal on quite the little laptop, I took it.

It arrived just in time for yesterday’s 99 degree killer weather. Thus, in answer to folks who’ve inquired as to my whereabouts, and if I’m okay, I’ve been tucked away in the a/c moving files onto the new computer, getting email accounts set up, and fumbling my way around Windows 7 (which is actually pretty cool).

This morning, before it heated up too terribly much outside, I went out and snapped a few daylily shots for your enjoyment. I then came back in and fought with the fact that my camera wouldn’t talk to the computer (it turned out to be an easy fix, found on the Microsoft website). Once I got them communicating, however, all went well.

Below is a better photo of a South Seas bloom, I really do love the color of this daylily. Primal Scream is putting out more “spidery” than ”UFO” flowers as it winds down, but there was a nice one this morning. And Outrageous, which seems to grow larger up here, gives us a pretty picture as well.

So, to answer those kind souls who’ve been inquiring, I’m okay. Busy and stuck in computer upgrade confusion, but that’s gradually easing, and I’m starting to be able to say “yes” to the age old question:

“Are we having fun yet?”

No related posts.

Doctors and Daylilies..and Birdies

Gayze — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:54:38 +0000

After two years of having no health insurance, and no medical care, I’m happy to report that I’m once again able to get this “darned leg” to a doctor. That was done, at least the initial visit, yesterday. Now begins the foreseen adventure of tests and specialists, but the hopeful outcome is to finally get the pyoderma gangrenosum under control again and eliminate many of the potential “underlying causes” which may have developed since my initial hospital stay back in 2008. So, this post begins with that very brief update, as well as a huge thank you to all the friends who’ve been so supportive, and have sent healing and prayers each in their own wonderful way.

Daylily season is in full swing here in upstate New York. One of my two “later bloomers” (at least those I was able to get moved up the hill while my health held out in the spring) opened its first flower of the season today. South Seas is a lovely salmon pink bloom, and this year it has more scapes than it ever has before. As is frequent with first flowers of a season, today’s bloom isn’t a perfect one, but I’m including it below, anyway. My last hold-out, Chamonix, is another favorite, and has a ton of buds that are going to be ready to start opening soon.

Last hold-out, that is, if you don’t count the ones over by the bird feeder that the darn deer ate. ::sigh:: I do love the deer, but…. When it comes to tender, sweet young daylily buds, my polite requests to the deer to leave them alone simply gets me a response that might best be translated, “In your dreams, silly human.”

And the last big bit of news is that we’ve said goodbye to the baby Grackles and Starlings of 2011. I haven’t taken in any more birds long-term due to the way my leg has been acting up, and on Sunday morning we opened the “escape hatch” of the aviary. By noon, all five babies had flown. I’ve seen the grackles, both together and separately, numerous times since, and we’re leaving dishes of fresh water and food all over the yard for them, in an effort to help them out as they learn to forage on their own. The Starlings, though, were here one minute, gone the next, and we’ve seen neither foot nor feather of them since. Just like last year’s Starlings.

Well, if you don’t count Whistle, who refused to leave. (She’s still here and even named one of this year’s babies. One of the Starlings just released took with her the name of “Boo-Boo”, which is what Whistle would repeat over and over every time she saw her.)

So, think good thoughts toward my Star-babies and Gackers. May they thrive and their tribes increase. I hope they’ll bring their babies back to visit next year. I’m pretty sure that’s why we saw more Starlings than ever in our front yard late this spring.

Pretty Pictures and Other Things

Gayze — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:47:18 +0000

The weather has cooled just a bit, making life much more pleasant. I’ve been catching up on the things that have been set aside, and thought I would include a blog post, share some minor news, and post a few pretty pictures of (mostly) the garden.

“The Leg” seriously dislikes the heat, so when the temperatures soar close to and above 90°, I head for the bedroom, the only room with air conditioning. Since the computer is an old desktop sitting in the hottest corner of the house, that means that my time at work is limited, and of course the priority is time given to speaking with the many wonderful animals (and their humans) who come to me for help.

This means, naturally, that emails fall by the wayside, my writing time suffers, website jobs get put on the ever-growing to-do list in the “undone” category, and frustration abounds.

Then, within the past few days, serendipity crossed my path in the form of a laptop computer. It’s not here yet, but will make life much more pleasant and productive on those hot days. It still has to be paid for, of course, but the deal was a very good one, and the cause was just. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) Being able to get more work done, more books finished and “out there”, and other beneficial endeavors will certainly see the new addition paying for itself in the long run, after all. And my leg won’t cook in the process.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

The book I’m almost finished with at the moment is another novel, one unrelated to the Junior Handler Mysteries. It was actually first written in the 1990s, and may still be a bit on the “dated” side in some ways, but I have done my best to minimize that. I’m just waiting for a certain talented young artist who is very dear to my heart to finish the cover art, and I’ll be putting it through the publishing process. “Watch this space”.

I have several others in the works, as well as rudimentary ideas for another non-fiction animal communication/animal wisdom book on a more focused topic. I’m currently noodling over the best approach, but it’s looking more and more as if it will come to pass. I’m liable to need some audience participation on this one.

The daylilies I moved up the hill in the spring, though they’re only a portion of the whole, are doing well. They seem to like the new location. A couple that were pretty but not overly enthusiastic down the hill are going strong up here. I haven’t seen so many blooms, for example, on Wisest of Wizards before, and South Seas, which previously only put up a couple of blooms each season, has five thick, healthy scapes. That is a later variety, and flowers haven’t opened yet, but the mid-season cultivars are now in full swing.

So, without further ado, some more photos for my fellow flower fans. And yes, I realize the Hollyhock is not a daylily, and the sunset’s not even a flower, but I hope you enjoy the pictures anyway.

Daylily Pictures, July 14th and 15th

Tag (Sale), You’re It

Gayze — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:43:56 +0000

Carol, Grandma Travis, Dot, and Florence

It’s been a busy few days here on the hill. Yesterday and the day before, I had a visitor whom I haven’t seen since 1985; my cousin Joey. It was so wonderful to see him again, and we spent several hours pouring over old photos and the memories they generated. His mother was my mom’s older sister, Dot, then there was Mom (Florence) and their younger sister Carol. They had a much younger brother who was born with a neuro-muscular disease, Billy, who passed away when he was only fourteen. Billy passed the year Joey was born, and I came along about thirteen years later. Joey shared many of the events with me that I was too young to remember, and I learned quite a few things about my own family. His visit has renewed my desire to find out more, and I’ll be looking into family history research to attempt to trace our roots back a bit farther.

I’ve even finally got a photo of another family member whom I’ve heard about all my life, but till this weekend had never seen. Here is my Grandpa Travis…with “Yocko”.

Yocko and his Protector, Josiah Travis

The story is that my grandfather’s brother was a Merchant Marine and brought the monkey back from overseas. One evening he was at the house with Yocko and the monkey bit him, and the uncle threatened the animal with bodily harm. When Grandpa stepped in to protect Yocko, he was told, in essence, “you can keep him”.

He did, and Yocko lived out his life as a family pet. My mom was quite the young athlete, and loved to climb, but was told it wasn’t lady-like. However, all pretense of propriety went out the window when Grandma couldn’t get Yocko to come down from his climbing pole. “Florence! Go get the monkey!”

Apparently my penchant for rescuing animals is inherited.

I have a little phoebe baby here right now, whom I’m birdie-sitting for a few days while my mentor is on vacation with her family. My own nestlings, who are all grown up and acclimating to the outdoors in the big aviary, are nearly ready for release.

Today was also a busy day of a different sort. Our community holds an annual tag sale, and this year my hubby decided to put us on the map. We had quite a few people pull in, some items were sold, and it was a day of running in and out to tend the sale tables and keep the wind from carrying things off. We didn’t exactly make a killing, but the weather held nicely, and we got to say hello to quite a few neighbor who we don’t normally see on a frequent basis.

Well, time to feed the phoebe….

No related posts.

Daylilies, Knitting, and Stuff

Gayze — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:37:37 +0000

Life has been, well…life. That should pretty much cover the range of ups and downs, shouldn’t it? I’m sure by now you’re all sick of hearing about my books (and if you’re not, you can find them on the Writing Page). So I thought I’d post a general update today, and go back to a couple of the more pleasant topics I’ve enjoyed blogging about in the past.

Daylily Season has just begun here in upstate New York. In the spring, I began moving some of my daylily collection up here to Pop’s house, where we moved after his death. Our other house, where my daughter and her partner now live, was the long-time victim of my obsession with Hemerocallis, the lovely Daylily. I had over eighty varieties, and probably close to a hundred actual clumps, planted down there. I managed to get about twenty-something moved before my health fell apart again. Gladly, those twenty seem to be doing well (better than their Mom, LOL), and are beginning now to bloom. So, below, I’m going to begin sharing pictures for your enjoyment.

Getting photos has been a chore, as thanks to the leg and the fact that the leg threw out my back, until today I haven’t been able to get down the deck stairs to get decent photos. Thus, a lot of these were taken from the deck with a telephoto lens! Today, however, I did manage to make the arduous four stair climb to the yard, and H. Primal Scream, H. Demetrius and H. Siloam Double Classic (which opened it’s first flower as a single bloom) had their pictures taken from several angles. Primal Scream’s first flower didn’t open in full splendor–that is one of my all time favorites, and when opening in its normal state, it’s a gorgeous, huge spider-like UFO form. Still, I love it, and love the colors, so couldn’t resist getting some shots of it.

I’ve been doing some cleaning up of the website lately, because a recent WordPress update (which runs this website) broke several of the plugins I have used for a while. One of those was the image gallery plugin, which I’ve not been able to fix no matter what I do. Therefore, I’ve had to uninstall that photo gallery viewer, and have been going through old posts, finding spots where I’d used it, and replacing photos using WordPress’s internal image gallery function. It’s not as fancy-schmancy, but at least people get to see the pictures.

In the process of those edits, I came across a number of my knitting journal posts, and realized that, due to one thing and another, it’s been quite a while since I picked up my needles. That led to the thought that it’s July, and I had promised myself during last year’s rush to get stuff knitted for Christmas that this year I was going to knit all summer long and stockpile home made gifts.

The best laid plans….

The thoughts got me itching to knit again, though. I’m most likely going to start by getting out the sock pattern I like so much, and brushing up on the process of knitting socks. I hope the old muscle memory kicks in before I mess up too many pairs!

Maybe I’ll post some pictures as I go along. It was fun looking back at my earlier efforts.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far, and that my U.S. friends had a nice Independence Day yesterday. Devon and I spent the day home, due to me not getting around all that well quite yet, but Joe, Jess and Chris were at two different fireworks celebrations, and had a great time (even though Joe was working). We did catch the Macy’s show here at home on TV, though.

Garden Season Begins

Gayze — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:38:50 +0000

Yes, I realize that there haven’t been many garden journal updates in the past couple years. This is primarily due to the fact that I spent the entire growing season of 2009 in a wheelchair. 2010 was occupied by dealing with the death of my father and moving the larger section of our family into my parents’ house up the hill.

The daylilies were left behind, at least temporarily, and the leg was still plaguing me enough that I never did get started with the transplant duties in the fall as I’d hoped. Although I’m still having problems with my leg, they’re not as severe as last year, and I’ve finally begun to venture into the garden again.

We’ve had quite a lot of rain so far this spring, with nights that have grown wintery cold at times. Temperatures have been all over the scale, as well. However, this weekend the rains stopped for a couple of days, the temperatures were mild, and I grabbed the old pitchfork and started moving daylilies.

Of my approximately 80 cultivars, I moved 20-some clumps up the hill. Most have, so far, gone in the border in front of the deck. I’ve got a couple around one of my front yard bird feeders, and intend to put more there. I’ve set one in the corner of the front of the house, and have plans for that corner. As to the rest, I’m still trying to figure out where to put them all!

Some of the clumps came up easily. Others, such as the ones struggling in the waterlogged poor drainage area across the driveway from the old house, weren’t quite so willing. Hauling Primal Scream out of the sodden ground (which left a good six inches of standing water in the hole it slurped out of) was the hardest job. It must have weighed eighty pounds, and I managed to pop something in my right ribcage in the struggle. I had to scrape a good portion of the mud out of the root ball with my hands before I could even lift it enough to carry it, a step at a time, to the back of the pick-up.

Due to the need to get so many moved, and all before they begin to put up scapes, I’ve just been digging holes, dropping them in, and filling in around the roots. I need to pick up a load of mulch, so I can clear the grass and weeds out between the clumps, lay down newspaper mulch, and then something attractive on top. I also want to get some sort of border material to keep my dear hubby from mowing them down.

Since several beds will be near the bird feeders, I also have to pick up some deer repellent. I love the deer, of course, but there’s plenty of good stuff out there for them to eat now that spring has fully arrived. I’d rather they leave my daylilies in peace. Does anyone have a good recommendation for a deer repellent that actually works? Please leave your comments here, below, if so. Thanks!

All in all, and especially considering how sedentary I’ve been for the past few years thanks to my bum leg, I think I put in a good weekend of work. And am I feeling it this morning?

Heck, yeah. “But it’s a good kind of pain,” right?

Looking forward to posting updates. Send healthy-growing thoughts to my daylilies, that they all bloom nicely despite moving house, and so I can posts lots of purty pictures!

Daylily Macro Photography

Gayze — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:22:23 +0000

Yesterday was a wash as far as photographing the garden, and I missed quite a few good ones. The family visited relatives upstate, though, and it really was a very nice day despite missing out on:

The FFOs of Hemerocallis ‘South Seas’, ‘Desperado Love’ and ‘Hazel’s Stitchery’
A lovely double bloom on the elusive ‘Daring Dilemma’ (not that it’s all that illusive, other than that it always seems to bloom on days I can’t get out there with the camera)
‘Primal Scream’ putting forth several really nice blooms
My Wisest of Wizards x Outrageous seedling again blooming along side its pollen parent
‘Designer Jeans’ really nice trio of blooms
and more….

Today, however, I’m making up for it, and will plague my visitors with several dozen photographs. Some of them are from the 25th (up to and including the shot of the two ‘Watermelon Moon/Kid’ blooms), but most are thanks to my decision to take my Sigma tele-zoom/macro lens out and see what it could do. It’s a new lens for me. I’d saved up to buy this lens several times, and each time wound up having to spend the money on dumb things like bills and emergency vehicle repairs. So, not long ago, after having heard about the lens and its ill fortune, my dear friend Wes surprised me with a very special gift. I’m determined to get stable on my feet and get over to the farm with it again, to add to his photo-journal of wildlife rescue. I’m looking forward to Oscar the Bobcat’s graduation to his outdoor enclosure, in fact … maybe I can finally get some decent shots of him (without having to get close enough to make him grouchy).

So, all shots from the 27th are taken with this lovely lens. It’s not a hugely expensive one as photographic glass goes, but I think it does a fine job. I hadn’t really messed with the macro features before now … and, as you can see, they appear to work just fine. Several of these shots (‘Emperor’s Dragon’, ‘Siloam Double Classic’, and others) were taken before I’d even left the front porch, in fact … close-ups without being anywhere near the plant. I’m particularly fond of the macro shot of the heart of ‘Primal Scream’. Well, I’m particularly fond of ‘Primal Scream’, anyway.

So, enjoy!

Do you have a collection of flower photos online you’d like to share? Leave a comment with a link!

A Gallery of Daylilies

Gayze — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:43:28 +0000

Life has had me overly occupied for the past several days, so this is the first Garden Journal update for the week. Thanks for your patience! I’ve got photos from two different days, though missed taking pictures in between. I missed the first flower opening on several, including Hemerocallis ‘Daring Dilemma’, a lovely that I truly would have liked to share with you all. Several others had FFOs that didn’t get photographed, but I’ve got subsequent blooms in today’s batch. H. ‘Daring Dilemma’ will bloom again, and I’ll be sure to capture it for you.

Today’s grand star is one of my all time favorites, H. ‘Wisest of Wizards’. The first year I planted this cultivar, it bloomed magnificently. We then had a strange winter with deep freezes, thaws, and more freezes that knocked the poor dear for a loop. For two … or is it three? … years in a row I got no blooms. Indeed, the second season, I thought I’d lost the plant all together, for it only put up a few scraggly fans. This year, however, it’s back in full swing, has propogated nicely, and has a number of healthy scapes up, full of buds.

H. ‘Real Wind’ is another one I’m particularly fond of. It has a color and shape that is unlike any other daylily out there, and always is a real stand-out in the garden.

I’ve got another “Candy” blooming. H. ‘Blackberry Candy’, a gift from my good friend Dede, is in bloom, and really doing well this year, despite being crowded by a couple of out-of-control climbing rose bushes. Dede is also the origin of H. ‘Siloam Double Classic’, ‘Todd Monroe’, ‘Darius’ , ‘Barbary Corsair’ and ‘Hazel’s Stitchery’. The latter has buds, but has yet to bloom this season.

H. ‘Matt’, which got a rough start with all of the blooms coming out damaged in some way, is finally doing much better, and shared a nice picture with us today. Some other first flowers opened on H. ‘Eye-Yi-Yi’ and ‘Chamonix’. If I had to pick a “favorite child”, which of course no parent is supposed to do, I think it would be ‘Chamonix’. The combination of colors and shape of the bloom is so unique, the blooms large and profuse, and the scapes grow tall and really stand out in the garden. Today’s first bloom isn’t a perfect one, but I know ‘Chamonix’ well, and there will be many perfect blooms to come. Visitors will be sick of it by the time the season ends, I’m sure!

H. “Watermelon Kid” is what that lovely peachy-orange eyed daylily was tagged at the HADS function I brought it home from. However, I discovered that there is no such cultivar registered with the American Hemerocallis Society. It does strongly resemble a Stamile registrant called ‘Watermelon Moon’, however. I’m not certain that’s what I’ve actually got in my garden … but it’s a possibility. What do you think?

A couple of my “dragons” are also blooming, though I missed photographing the firsts on both. H. ‘Oliver DragonTooth’ and ‘Emperor’s Dragon’ are lovely today, despite being trapped behind the wheelchair ramp.

The ramp will soon be coming down, though, as I’m finally upright again, and find that I handle stairs on the crutches better than the slope. Besides, if my Dad gets approved for his power chair, he’s going to be needing his wheelchair ramp back!

I love my garden strolls. They make me feel almost normal again, even if balancing the camera and the crutches at the same time might keep me slightly off kilter. I hope my website visitors have been enjoying the photos! Drop me a line, leave a comment, let everyone know what your own favorite garden subjects are. Do you recognize any of my “unknowns”? How about “Watermelon Kid” — is it really ‘Watermelon Moon’?

I’d love to hear from you!