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victorian garden rolling thunder

11/26/2017

'Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder' was one of my favorites in 2017. This daylily exhibited different 'looks,' depending on the weather and temperature. In the morning it always bloomed near black in color, but as the day progressed the color mellowed. Some days it looked grey-tinged, while other days it appeared more purple and/or various shades of red/burgundy.

Hybridized by Gerda Brooker and introduced in 2009, Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder's blooms are 6" in size and thick in substance with a velvet-like appearance. For a dark-colored flower the blooms held up very well in full sun. It is a semi-evergreen tetraploid that grows approximately 32" tall. Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder bloomed from July 6 through August 17. I really enjoyed watching it from one day to the next, just to see what colors would emerge.

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imagine

11/19/2017

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Now that the cold weather has arrived in Wisconsin, my ability to imagine is the only garden activity that is going on. And I can do 'imagine.' I'm well into my favorite activity of list-making to keep track of what needs to happen in my garden during 2018. After all, you've got to have a plan before you can make things happen. I'm sure many, if not all of you gardeners have a similar mindset.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

What plants do I want to cull? (None really, but if I want some new ones this must happen.)
What plants need to be moved to different locations?
What is working well in my garden and what is not?
Narrow down my daylily 'wish list' to an affordable amount
Replace any plant labels that are looking rough
Update my garden maps to reflect what changed during 2017
Organize the hundreds of garden photos I took over the summer
Get my annual seeds put away that are currently drying on cookie sheets
Take some time to visit some online daylily sites
And finally, imagine what's in store for next year's bloom season

Pictured: A close-up of the double daylily 'Buckeye Barnstormer'

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gulls at the landfill

11/12/2017

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I have never seen this many gulls all in one place before! Driving past the local landfill reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds.' Being underneath that cloud of birds would not be a good thing.

Landfills close to bodies of water tend to have more gull problems. This particular landfill is near the Mississippi, Black, and La Crosse Rivers, in addition to Lake Onalaska and Lake Neshonoc. Lack of natural food during the cold weather/winter months brings birds to the landfill. My curiosity was piqued after seeing this phenomena. I did some reading on gulls and landfills. A Duke University Study (by R. Scott Winton) finds that gulls' nutrient-rich droppings may cause major water-quality problems in nearby lakes and reservoirs. It's quite a dilemma that affects our environment. Who knew?

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-trash-picking-seagulls-poop-tons-nutrients.html#jCp

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grow, enjoy, and appreciate

11/5/2017

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Over the years I've grown some of my own daylily seedlings. And to be honest, most of them were disappointingly pedestrian. One thing for sure, it gave me a glimpse of the scope involved in hybridizing an award-winning daylily -- all the hours of research, pollinating, seed collecting, planting, weeding and evaluating. What a methodical, detailed labor of love it is.

So I'm that person who does nothing more than grow, enjoy, and appreciate the daylilies. How wonderful for me, that I can simply pick out a daylily--any size, color, or shape--whatever my heart desires. I can simply purchase, plant, and behold the beauty. It can't get any easier than that. I'm glad there are so many hybridizers out there doing all of the really hard work; call me grateful!

Pictured: Daylily 'Raspberry Goosebumps'

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