H.Youve Got Soul

WOW, yep i said that. This is a plant that my good friend Josh Jacques down in south Louisiana has bred and registered. Can you imagine have this beauty bloom in your seedling bed someday. The color is perfect combo and if you enlarge(click on picture) the picture you will see tiny dots from the eye pattern. Josh sold me a double fan last fall and i am very proud he did. He gets $100 for a double fan. Joshs phone number is 318-613-2618. He also has a web site that you can get by google his name. I very seldom push another persons plants but Josh is up and there, not comming. The seedling pictures he has been sending me are just beautiful. Didnt Dizzy Dean say"it aint bragging if you can do it". he has proven to me he can do it and we should support him.

Lee Pickles has posted on his blog today a beautiful red seedling that bloomed today, If you havent seen it go look. Lots of ruffles and very red. I think it is the same cross Bill W. had on his blog a few days ago and it was a beautiful red also.

To me looking at beautiful new, never seen before seedlings are like eating ice cream. The more you look the hungrier you get for more. This time of year i feed off seeing other peoples seedling pictures with an unsatiable appetite. I get to see the cross it came from and in my little mind i can vision similar crosses in my own hybridizing. For some like me it is a Passion to be able to raise and grow this fantastic flower. The Ohs and Ahs that people let out when they are looking at your plants makes for a great day. The best compliment i will never forget was when a club came to buy some seedlings and i think every flower in the garden was open that day. When she was looking at the seedling field and she said" I didnt bring enough film". That was a special day. Our blog lets me help others find there way thru the daylilies wether they are curious or have that passion to grow this plant and we can show flowers that just maybe you havent seen before. Like the plants flower shown here I hope someone will appreciate the effort people like Josh put into hybridizing a great flower. He dont have a bigtime name yet but he has the passion to get there. Thanks for looking and come back soon. Jim Elliott

We Got Scapes

Good Day to everyone. Its feeling like Spring around here. I have had the plastic on the green house since March 9th and now we have scapes. Wow!! From cold to scapes in 30 days. That is what you call Speed Hybridizing. Temps on the outside are highs of 70s each day and it seems there is a race inside compared to outside. But the green house is winning. Larry Grace told me once that if i could hold temps at nite at 60 degrees for 60 days i would be in bloom in the green house, He was right for sure. I have been checking temps inside and they have been steady at around 55 degrees each morning before the sun hits the plastic. Now in the afternoons the sun will bring it up to 100 for most of the day. I still have sides pulled up tight and have both doors open during the day with exhaust fan running all day. I water every third day. I have the plants in raised beds and mulched with pine needles. With the heat and humidity the plants are loving it.

My wife was kind enough to let me buy a lot of plants last fall on the Lily Auction and they are in the green house. Plus over half the plants in the green house are our seedlings we have been lining out last year. Next year three fourths of the plants we will use in hybridizing will be our own seedlings, thats when it starts getting good. Lots of blue eye things, patterned eyes, and big edges some with color some with lots of chicken fat.

We have added some annuals like Petunias and Geraniums plus 2 large leaf Coleas. One of the Coleas is a Mosaic that has 4 colors on each huge leaf that i really like.Each morning the fragrance smells so good in there from the Petunias. Maybe in 30 days we can start to show our seedlings starting to bloom so please stay in touch. Drink lots of water while working outside. Jim Elliott

MAMA KNOWS BEST

Good morning, what wonderful weather we are having here in central Arkansas. The daylilies are growing so fast. Yesterday i was out front where the future seedlings will be planted and had a moment that i thought was funny and wanted to share with you.

Last year when i turned under this area with a tractor almost imediately a Kildee built her nest and laid her eggs there. Kildees are those birds that run along water fronts and have long legs. So yesterday i had the afternoon off and decided to fertilize and mulch the seedling beds we planted there last fall. The seedlings are looking so good that i should get some to bloom this spring. Click on pictures to enlarge.

When i started getting close to her nest she started making sounds and flopping on the ground trying to draw me away, the longer i ignored her the more dramatic she became. I called to Kathy to get the camera to record her antics. I hope you enjoy this blog.

The daylilies in the green house are scaping up and in a day or two i will show results that are happening just after 30 days of pulling up the plastic on the top. Now is the perfect time of year to add lime, fertilizer or weed granules which have all been discussed on this blog. You can go to the bottom of this blog page and go to Older Posts. Lee Pickles is having some fantastic seedling blooms that he is sharing on his blog so please go for a look. Remember to drink lots of water while you are working outside this spring. Jim Elliott

Whats Bugging You

You have bugs on your Daylilies that are driving you crazy? I know we should be protecting the envirnment but sometimes you cant wait on Mother Nature to give you a remedy so you need a little help to get things back in order before your plants are destroyed. Systemics are the way to go.

This is the way Systemics work. You mix 2 tablespoons of Systemic with a gallon of water. I use a garden sprayer to apply. Always use latex gloves and a mask over your mouth and nose while using any chemicals. Eye protection is a great idea also.

It is easy to apply. Just pump up the sprayer and spray the folage on your daylilies. Any bug using your daylilies as a dinner plate will be destroyed. The plants take in the poison(does not hurt the plant) and when bugs suck the juice or eat the folage they are done. Spider Mites, Thrips, Aphids, White Flys all of these are hard to get rid of but easy with a Systemic. Get rid of whats bugging you.

I am not an expert on Poisons by any means but i do use these products on our blog in my own garden so i know they work. I also know the effects of not using precautions while using these poisons. So please be careful. Use common sense like dont spray folage when the wind is blowing it back on you. Get on the Upwind side of the spray. Dont use around animals feed or water containers. Those kind of things.

I have included pictures to show the damage and different bugs in our gardens, i hope this helps. It has rained here again this week and we got 5 inches over nite and another inch the following day. We are wet in central Arkansas and the plants outside are growing fast. Jim Elliott

Wet,Wet,Wet

Good Morning to All, a rainy nite here in central Arkansas. I checked rain gauge this morning and we had 5 inches in it. Thats a lot of water, glad i live on a hill. Springlike temps are making me start to look for scapes even though we are a month early for that plant habit. Daylilies in the beds outside are looking so good.

Inside the green house the plants really look great and seem to grow half an inch each day. I have added more coated fertilizer to the beds and been watering twice a week. Plants are dark green and the dormants are jumping. I am seeing increase so i know the plants are happy.

When i was outside weeding some seedling beds last week a seedling of mine d1510 stayed for several days on my mind. My concern was wether i had put it in the green house or not. Finally i went inside and started looking for it and found it, not one double fan but two double fans, i was a happy man. The cross for d1510 is Tijuana Treasure x Cosmic Kaleidoscope, it has so many buds as you can see in the picture. The pollen parent will be d1810 a yellow with a huge dark burgandy eye. d1810 is also a Cosmic Kal. kid. This will be an F-1 cross. So you say what are my intentions?

I like making long crosses, that means i will make the same cross between these 2 plants several time to get lots of seed in the hopes of getting patterned eyes with lots of buds. Both flowers are in the 7 inch range and i expect the kids eyes to get bigger also. Have a Great Day. Jim Elliott

Try Again

I have no idea how the post i started got posted so lets try again. We have been working on setting up a green house for our breed plants.Daylilies that is. It is 24 ft long and 22 ft wide. We planted the plants last fall so they were outside all winter. Rust has not been a problem here the past 4 years but i didnt want to get it in the green house either.

We have a lot of our selected seedlings in there in hopes of getting early seed. I realize we are getting a late start this year so we are getting our feet wet for next year. I am learning at a fast pace about green houses. This morning it was 26 degrees inside at 630 am and at 9 am temperatures had risen to 80 degrees. At 12 it was a little over 90 degrees. I have a glass storm door for the entrance with a screen window so i raised the window halfway to let in some fresh air. I do want to keep the heat in so as to raise the soil temps and get plants growing. Tonight is our last nite of cold temps for a week anyway so i wont turn on any heater for the nite.

Here are a few pictures to show our progress of building our green house. In a few days i will show the plants growing and soon we are gonna see scapes sometime later this spring. We had 4 inches of rain yesterday and the day before that i had our first Purple Martin sitting on the bird house. Spring is comming and i cant wait to turn her loose. Thanks for looking. Jim Elliott

New Ground

Well here we go with our first green house. It is 24 ft long and 22 ft wide. I have 4 raised beds inside with the plants i