leder legends

  It’s July and it’s been perfect.  Perfect weather, perfect blooms on the daylilies, perfect conditions for growing Hostas.  The daylilies have been a lot of fun this year because I’m seeing some for the first time in a long time.  The fact that the plants are large and blooming profusely made me think of managing them better.  Do I leave them and let them get bigger or do I divide and make room for more?  It didn’t help that R and I went to see the garden of a lady who I will call the daylily queen! She is a hybridizer and has the most daylilies in her backyard that I have ever seen in one yard!  Of course I did not leave without buying 4.  That started my thinking about how to manage the yard lol! These three are very common generally and very common in my yard. I found  that I had multiples of each- 6 of the orange Kwanza ,  8 of the yellow ones and 8 of the peach ones.  I am keeping 2 of the peach and two of the yellow and the ...

H July is daylily month. This year it continues to be spectacular. The colors and variety continue to amaze. I had forgotten why I planted so many over the years since I never saw them ALL because the deer always ate many of the buds.  Daylilies can get a bit messy...especially the larger ones. They only bloom for one day and as such, yesterday’s blooms close and die.  It looks pretty “yucky”.  I like to clean them up so my self-imposed chore almost every morning is cutting off yesterday’s blooms. They either get dropped beside the plant amidst all the foliage or into a bucket. It doesn’t take long to improve my vista from the kitchen- it is amazing.  My walk around the yard also lets me see if there are any new plants in bloom. I have 5 plants that have not shown their colors yet. This morning there were two new ones! 

My son has a green thumb - takes after his mom, I think.  He recently gave me two plants for my yard and I have called them HOLLY and IVY.  ( I had one last year that I also named but I cannot remember the name.  Hence - Holly and Ivy from the title of a song so that I might remember...) This year I got them earlier in the year so I am hopeful that they will get very large. 

  We had a great time - good food , good conversation, and everyone stayed until dark! It sounds simple, doesn't it?  Just invite a few friends over for a BBQ on the deck on a summer evening and away you go!  So an uncomplicated menu (I said -- haha)! Food --Brats, chips, potato salad, watermelon and ice cream.  Beverage -- lemonade. Complications soon raised their heads. The hubby said -lemonade ok but let's also have beer and wine. Now needed: ice bucket, beer and wine glasses, bottle opener A friend said--Ice cream ? ok - I'll made an ice cream dessert.  Now needed: plates and forks (instead of cones) I have myself to blame too: fresh potato salad (not store bought); watermelon-let me make a simple fruit salad (Watermelon, mango, lime) so good and "I haven't made that in a long time lol." Now needed: more ingredients and more time to prepare it. So eventually the food and beverage problems were solved. hmmm- Did I say " on the deck "?? I spent app...

 The daylilies are blooming profusely in my yard this year thanks in part to the fencing and in part to the fabulous weather.  Almost everyday I grab a bucket and deadhead all of the plants. Yes, the spent flowers will drop off of their own accord in a few days BUT I don't find that very attractive.  This morning there was 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket.   The main reason I do this because I want the stems to stand up tall and show off! When one stems has multiple buds (many have more than 10) it gets very heavy. Taking off the spent blooms lightens things up. My friend Rose and I went to visit the garden of a daylily hybridized. She has SO many!  She also told me that every evening she goes out and fresh-heads most of her plants! She takes the day’s blooms off before they are spent! Crazy ...I thought! But hey ...

  Daylilies are an obsession this year!  The fence, even though it is ugly and somewhat temporary, has been such a blessing.  No deer means an abundance of blooms.  I walked around the yard and snapped pictures of all that are blooming and discovered that there are 17 different ones.  That has never happened before! I’m tempted to post all of these here but that’s too much!  This Tangerine, my favorite!

Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians, figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected. 1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it. 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list. 3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 5. War does not determine who is right - only who is left. 6. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting  it in a fruit salad. 7. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't. 8. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research. 9. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out, I just wanted pay checks. 10. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put "DOCTOR." 11. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 12. Women wi...

  I collect two kinds of plants: Hostas and day lilies.  The other thing is that I like to get them for free as in cuttings or pay as little as possible, A few years ago a colleague/ gardening friend offered me a piece of what he swore to be a unique and awesome day lily. He even was able to name it. He called it Calvin College.  He was true to his word and gave me and a friend a piece. I planted it and it has grown into a beautiful, large plant that gives lots of buds per stalk.  The problem has been that I have never seen it bloom before because of the deer. (My neighbor calls daylily buds “deer candy “.) However, I am almost giddy to say this year that will not happen.  Today the first bud has opened and did not disappoint!  I hope you agree!!  

  My friend and I went cherry picking a few days ago and in the process learned a few things. There were two kinds of cherries available : sweet and tart (also called sour).  The sweet are the nice big ones that are available in grocery stores and the tart are much smaller and softer. We each picked some of each.  I got 3 pounds of sweet that I pitted and froze but saving some for eating!  Mmm so good.  I got 3 pounds of tarts as well that I pitted and some were dehydrated and some baked into a delicious crumble.  We were worried that it would be oppressively hot and humid but the cloudy morning was great because the breeze/wind made it very enjoyable . The cherry crumble I would definitely make again.  The dehydrated ones, while very tasty, were not worth it. Two trays on the dehydrator yielded approximately 1/2 cup of dried cherries and took 36 hours.