In The Eye

I hope all had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a Happy and Great New Year. Sandy Nalls of Texarkana has been emailing me and i was already getting in the Daylily Mood she got me to day dreaming. It has been raining here since before daylight and may rain all day, thank the Lord, we need rain so bad. So i have taken the day off and first thing Sandy sent me an email wanting to know How To? Thanks Sandy. I havent written on the blog for a while, letting my brain rest cause you know im not Oprah.

I have never been a fanatic about eyes in lilies, i always liked the selfs, big pastell and poly chromes, with reds and royal purples mixed in. I saw on the robin that Verna wants lilies that bloom in the snow, like a big blood red on a snow bank, now thats exciting. Then i started going to Jack Carpenters Lily Farm. wow. The eyes have it there. Jack has been one to follow the seedlings, that is he takes what his seedlings give him and he goes after the new things that he has developed with his seedlings. Like Lavender Blue Baby and Josie Bomars Cranberry Eyed Picotee. Those 2 seedlings made the Lily Farm famous with not only those flowers but all that were bred from their genetics. What if Jack and Josie had sold those 2 seedlings to me and i never bred from those genetics, would we still know of the Lily Farm. When Jack toook them and converted them to tets, BOOM, then the world started looking at this school teacher that loved his lilies. I think the greatest flower i ever saw was a kid out of tet CEP. This plant was in Jacks green house and blooming that day. 6 inch and more ruffled than anything i had ever seed double edge of darker red and gold, but increased very, very slow. It never made it ti the market because of that. Most of the tets have the genetics of these 2 plants that are growing on the Lily Farm today.

Then Jack named one Georgia Pansy Face. Super big eye for that time actually ahead of its time. I saw a whole shade house that year of all these dips with super big eyes, i called the coffee table eyes for some reason. I didnt buy any cause i didnt like eyes. Then here comes Peppermint Delight, extra big red eye. Pat Stamile loved it enough to convert to tet and has introed a whole line from tet PD. Best thing is not only the eyes are so big but the colors are vibrant and clear. Why do people say the dip days are over when all the new patterns and eye colors are comming from the dip side of this plant we love so much.

At the Chattanoga Winter show last month in Tenn., my friend Sandy Nalls stole the show with her patterned diploids, and there were the best of tet breeders at that slide show.

So i am still here doing dips for the love and playing with the tet line for something blue. So are the dips done, no way, we have just started and if i had the sight of Jack Carpenter oh my what would next bloom season bring? Jim Elliott

Fall Planting

Seems like forever since i have posted, my back went out in September when i should have been in the garden dividing lilies. I layed on the floor for about 3 weeks. I believe going from one side to the other is the hardest thing in the world when your back is pinching those nerves and the pain is terrible. Enough of that.

A few weeks ago my wife and son Jeremy got together for a few days and started moving plants and planting seedlings. I was digging plants(clumps) i wanted to use in the greenhouse this winter and lining out the rest of the clump. I did buy some plants from Floyd Cove like Space Warp and Shamrock Dew and a few of their blue eyed things tyo go with my tets. On my dips i have some of Jack Carpenter intros and seedlings with patterned eyes to play with. And also on some of Grace Stamiles blue eyed dips i will load up with pollen from my bigger thicker substance seedlings. Man if i could get a 6 inch flower in different base petal colors with blue eyes like her Southern Blues i would get excited.

Where the seedlings from the plug trays are planted we have them planted 6 inches apart and rows one foot apart. i think there are 85 seedlings to a row. If we have an easy winter some of these will bloom next summer. About 90% are out of Texas Kalidescope pollen applied to my selected seedlings with much thicker substance.

The picture showing the alphalfa pellets is how we make all our rows and they stay put for 2 years and redone again. Lets say rows are 65 ft long and 5 ft wide so we can get 4 rows of plants in the bed. This is for one row. 50# alphalfa pellets, 25# cottonseed meal, 15# pelletized lime, 3 to 4 inches composted small pine bark and about 3 gallons of 9 month osmocote fertilizer

15-9-12. The second year i will top dress the bed again with fertilizer. When i apply the pellets i use a water hose and wet down the pellets to help break them down. Just a good wetting will break open the pellets. Till it all in and plant your plants. Water well for several days. I also use pine needles as a mulch and it helps keep out the weeds. Just add water and watch your plants grow. Fall is here and we have had 2 frosts but we will have a killing frost saturday morning. All my dormants will rest for a while till spring brings them to life. We only get one time in this life before we get to eternity so make it a point to let someone else have a Great Day. We can have our day anytime. Jim Elliott

Arkansas State Daylily Meeting

I have just gotten in from church and thought i may let yall know how things went this weekend. I am sorry i havent posted in a while, i guess i needed a break from things but here we go.

The 17th was friday nite and the club had their show and tell for those of us that hybridize and those that just want us to see what has been going on in their gardens this past summer. We had about 25 people present and we saw some beautiful pictures of new seedlings and yard fixtures that were shared with the group. We had a discussion for about 2 hours and some that were staying the nite i am sure stayed much longer.

Saturday morning we had the privelige to meet Dan Bauchman and Jamie Gossard. 2 of the finest guys i have met even if they are from Ohio. They had the floor about an hour each before we broke for lunch. Dan does UFs and some spider looking plants of all colors and gave those of us not knowing, a good education about these catagories. Dan also runs a nursery, so he is a full time gardner. Thanks for comming Dan.

Jamie on the other hand has been hybridizing for a while as he has so many different paths he is following with the lilies. Jamie has more teeth than a dentist!! At least on his plants that is. I really enjoyed his presentation and saw a couple avenues i may explore in my own yard. I am not a thin petaled liking person but these 2 guys really opened my eyes and made me see the future in a different light.

I have always been the one to love the bagel looking lilies, big flat petals and overlapping. I always loved the selfs until the past couple years i have started working with eyed plants. Now i can add the teeth to the fat petals with broken patterns in the eyes on 36 inch scapes and maybe have a future intro. In the past i have been very close minded about my hybridizing but Dan and Jamie kind of woke me up. Dan even showed some seedlings that were almost spiders and trying to double up, imagine that.

This is the reason we should go to our club meetings and visit different gardens to get some new, fresh ideas for our lilies. I hope i havent bored you with this blog and you will come back in the future. We are now lining out plants and we will talk about building beds real soon. Jim

Setting Pods in the Heat

We have had 17 days in the over 100 degrees this summer and it is mid August. It is a little off beat but it works. Dan Trimmer told me a couple summers ago how to make hard to set seed plants set pods. So i will share what i have done. As hot as it is we still have plants in rebloom here in central Arkansas.

I had a clump of Boundless Beauty that was begining to rebloom. I think 4 scapes were ready to bloom. When the blooms started to open i dug the clump with the dirt left on the roots. I cut the root ball big enough to fit a 3 gallon pot(plastic). I did put potting mix in the bottom about 2 inches deep and after putting in the root ball i added potting mix to the sides. Leave plant outside and water thoroughly.

Next morning bring plant inside and if you have some light comming in a window on the south side thats where i would put the plant. I have glass doors on the back porch so that is where i put my pots. The plants stay inside for 3 days and go outside 1 day for watering. I used frozen pollen and fresh pollen depending what i wanted to use. This went on for about 3 weeks. i set a total of 24 seed pods on this pot. After bloom is over i moved plant outside in part shade so the plant could recover as it finished off the pods. 3 inside and 1 outside. I have tried this on 4 different plants and it works. I hope you will give it a try. I did cut the blooms off short so there wasnt as much weight on the ovary. you will see in the photos the pods are shedding the old bloom.

This bloom is a 7 inch dip seedling with a height of about 40 inches. We hope you had a great bloom season. jim

Easy Garden Markers

Well the heat has ended for a day as today we got a half day of rain of 3 inches here at my house. We have had temps all week at 105 to 108. now add the humidity and its very hot.

I have seen on the Robin where people ask about what kind of Garden Markers or stakes do you use? Here is what i have come up with, with help years ago from Jack Carpenter showing me how he made his. You can find this wire i use at any welding supply store. I use aluminum welding wire that is 36 inches long and about 1/8 inch in diameter and when put in the ground it sits above the plants. I also use a 6 inch white plastic stake with a hole punched in it using a paper hole punch. I also use a pencil to write on the plastic marker, it doesnt fade and will not wash off with rain. Works for me. So here goes.

I use a half inch diameter thin walled pipe and cut a slice in it about 1/4 inch deep into the pipe. The slice must be wide enough for wire to slide into slice. With left hand hold wire and right hand twist pipe and wire will wrap around the pipe. Slide wire off pipe and next you can attach your marker. these will never corrode or rust while in the ground. You can also use stainless steel welding rods but they are more expensive. The wires i make and use are somewhat flimsey so hold the wire close to ground when inserting in the ground. Here in Conway you can buy the wire by the pound and they add up to 20 wires per pound and about $6.00 a pound.

Also this is the time of year for prolifs, here is a cluster of about 10 prolifs on a seedling scape. Thanks for looking. Jim Elliott

Yellow is Hot

This time of year i try not to pay a lot of attention to seedlings in the mornings and when we get in from work they are burnt up. The past couple days i have been pulling out of the yard and i have been seeing yellow bloom in the bed. This morning i saw the yellow seedling flower again and at first i thought it was 2 blooms side by side. Its color just stuck out like a full moon comming up over the trees. I had a small job close by so i left and when i came back in the yard there was this yellow bloom shining thru all those dry scapes. Well my curiousity got the best of me, i just had to know what named lily that was. to my amazment it was a single bloom and it is a seedling on its rebloom scape. It is a tet, yuk.

We havent watered hardly any this summer cause i wanted to see how much rebloom i would get without a lot of water. i am not getting rebloom like i did last year with all the rain but i am getting lots more than expected. The plants that want to rebloom in this 100 degree heat i can learn to appreciate even when they are tets. This seedling got lost among the other seedlings during regular bloom season but she is shining now. I do not know the cross as the tag was lost during the move from the old garden. So what do you think? Stay or go?

Drink lots of water during this hot summer we are having. Jim Elliott

Mini Crete Myrtles

Before we went to work this morning, Kathy asked did i see the Crete Myrtle out front that was in full bloom? No Maam. So i had to look and it was full so i thought i would share this picture on our blog. Kathy has them in several different colors, red, purple, pink and white. They are basicly ground huggers. We have a couple older ones that are about 10 years old and about 3 foot tall and about 5 foot across. If you will go to our website and look under other plants you will see the different colors of Crete Myrtles. You have to click on ENTER at bottom of web page. http://www.woostergarden.com/ . I thought since everyone is past peak bloom with daylilies you may like a little variety. Jim Elliott