The long awaited Tender Love bloom has started.
Fortunately, very fortunately, Pink Tirza is also blooming. It may be my only chance this season to do a cross, so cross it was.
It looks like our first daylily seedling to bloom in the townhouse gardens is a tetraploid. I crossed her with Just Plum Happy and it looks like it was successful, so far. Many more mile markers to go but she has a seed pod.
Monday morning we said Sweet Dreams to Pink China Doll. She bloomed four buds on Sunday and now she is done blooming for the year. Well deserved wind down for her.
Monday the large Just Plum Happy bloomed profusely and yesterday the sole remaining bud bloomed. The same on the medium Just Plum Happy – the last bud bloomed yesterday. So yesterday was the last day of bloom in the 2024 garden here for Just Plum Happy. She truly has been a joy again this year. We are leaving all three in place, no dividing, for next year.
And the last bloom of the medium Just Plum Happy was crossed with the mystery yellow freebie, to see if the mystery yellow freebie might be a tetraploid. I suspect so, but I am wishing for a diploid. But doubtful.
If the Just Plum Happy cross fails, there is one more mystery yellow freebie bud, and I will cross that with whatever diploid blooms on that day. If the cross with Just Plum Happy succeeds, I will have much less choice for another tetraploid cross for the last mystery yellow freebie cross – maybe Cedar Waxwing, maybe South Seas. Or maybe Coral Majority lol! Could be nothing.
The diploid cross between Pink Tirza and the red daylily succeeded, so I did two more yesterday, same scape.
And at the historic cemetery we have a wrap up plan for the excess irises and daylilies from the large overgrown garden. They will be going to the historic mansion in town. There are two rain gardens there that have room. September should be a good month for that activity.
So now we begin August. The beginning of August always feels to me like a mini version of the first week of January, when the holidays have wrapped up and we throttle back to a more “normal” routine. But there is so much more of gardening season left. 3 months 🥰 Still lots of daylilies to bloom, but not July’s intensity, all of the remaining transplanting and then new planting work, the 2024 seedlings need to be planted, the remaining hostas will go to bloom, the sedum, the seed pod work … plenty still to come. Just a bit of a slower pace again now.
Susan's Daily Garden 