Drooling with Delight and Desire!

Thank you all for your loving, kind, and thoughtful comments on Andrea's post. Garden bloggers are the most caring and supportive community of friends. I am deeply touched by your compassion.





This is one of several Gloriousa Daisy plants started from seed indoors this winter. The have done really well in containers and in the garden. The other day I noticed the different looking bloom and thought it was another plant starting to bloom. No, these 2 blooms are from the same plant. Mother Nature must be getting some help with genetics...bees do you know anything about this??


Tuesday, I was off work for an early morning appointment and rather than go back for part of the day, I had arranged to meet Rose and have a play day. Our first stop was a park in Urbana, IL. that she has featured on her blog. It is abundantly full of prairie and native plants We spent a lovely time there enjoying the peace and tranquility and of course the blooms. But I will save that for another post.

What I really want to talk about is the next stop. Through rumor we found we had a day lily farm fairly close to us. Both she and I have developed serious cases of day lily envy of late. (thank to all the delicious postings on blooming day lilies!)

Five Acre Farm is located out in the country and was started 4 years ago by 2 very enthusiastic and knowledgeable men. (please be sure to check out this gorgeous site) And it is a little piece of Heaven on earth! Given a pad of paper and a pen to write down our choices, we set off on the grand tour. As Rose put it, we were soon on sensory overload! How could we chose??

Following are just a few I took photos of with their name in the next picture. Be prepared to drool with delight. :)

Ohhhh!!!

Ahhhh!!!

Wow!!

Oh my!!

I took many more photos of ones I would love to have and may post one now and then, but I don't want to give you sensory overload, too.

These next 2 were on my short list, but were already sold out. I can and will, I think. put a reserve on them for spring.

I think they have close to 900 different named ones growing here and are hybridizing more each year. In the bargain growing area, there were clumps growing of plants they had hybridized but had decided not to continue with them. They are not named and will never be seen or grown by anyone else. We picked out 2 of these together intending to divide the many fans between us. Rose picked out a separate one that was the most lovely shades of orange with what looked like glitter on it. She gave that one to me to plant in memory of her God Daughter, Andrea. I was overcome with emotion and love for my dearest friend! We are trying to decide on a fitting name now. Thank you Rose for your thoughtfulness!

Did either of us think to get a picture of it in bloom...but I will soon and will be sharing it with you.

Beside lilies there are other wonderful and interesting things to see at the farm. I found this so amusing, yet perfectly fitting.

Behind the house-yes they live in a farm house on the property-they have built a beautiful water feature.

Stocked with coy, they also have a large assortment of waterlilies blooming.

And I even managed to get a photo of one of the delightful dragonflies flitting about.

Hope you have a great gardening weekend!

I Know Heaven Has Dragonflies, Butterflies and Flowers!

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk in my garden forever. (Claudia Ghandi)


July 19, 2006, we lost our wonderful daughter- a kind, generous, giving soul, who loved her family and friends with a passion.

We will always love and miss you, sweetheart!

The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God. ~Quoted in The Angels' Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994

Mish Mash Monday!

Finally, I have a post to put up! I have almost missed Mish Mash Monday- now made famous by Monica at Garden Faerie's Musing, just getting it in under the wire. :) You would think that I could get more than one a week, but can't seem to manage that along with gardening and of course my favorite pastime which is visiting all of your posts. I do want to make a small complaint though. Just about the time I get all of the new posts from my sidebar read and leave a comment-you post anew and once again, I am behind! (please take this complaint with a grain of salt. I love reading each and every post you write.)



Do you know what this is??


Maybe this will help.

It's a Praying Mantis egg case and these are just a couple of the babies that hatched from it.

The granddaughters found them scrambling out from underneath the arm of a patio chair. There were dozens of them, but most were camera shy and moving way to quickly to get a photo of. We were lucky that one or 2 stopped to take a look around before hurrying off to find protection in a flower filled container.

Even newly hatched, they are perfectly formed and adopting the familiar Mantis stance.

This photo you have to look very closely at to see the wildlife. Enlarging helps some. I was at Rose's last week when I saw this one enjoying her flowers. We were on our way to go plant looking-even I knew we would probably buy some! We did find a sale at a country nursery. All annuals 4' and under were a $1.00. We used some restraint and only bought a few. :) But I did find pink Lythrum and it now has a home near the double pink coneflower I found a couple of weeks ago.

Some of my volunteer sunflowers have started to bloom. I so enjoy their bright faces in the garden. And I am not the only one. Since these have bloomed, I have seen many more yellow finches and several blue jays checking them out. I know they are keeping an eye on them to see when the seeds get ripe enough to eat.

My favorite and the first day lily I planted has started to bloom! It is a Ruby??? Of course I didn't write the name down when I planted it, but I did leave the tag by it. The following year when I went to read the name all that was still legible was the Ruby part.

The blooms on this lily are dinner plate size! This fall, I am going to divide her and maybe even move all of her. The ornamental cherry tree is providing a lot of shade in that part of the garden now.

Several of the rest of the day lilies have started to bloom also. This one is Royal Red.

Peach Delight

Unknown, but I love this lemon yellow with the raised ridge in each petal.

Wineberry Candy.

This is one of the 2 small ones I have. I don't think they are miniatures-just shorter and more petite. This one is Little Business.

Wine Red.

And another unknown one. These with the different color throats amaze me.

I am proud of these! Started from seed I purchased at Dollar General @ 3 for a $1.00. These annual Phlox are Drummondi Mixed. And of course I am very pleased that they are all shades of pink. :)

Now for another mystery or two....

I had been noticing these plants growing along the country roads I take to work. Finally one evening I just had to stop and take pictures. Does anyone have a clue about this one or the next?

These have been blooming for 2 weeks now. The flowers are huge-maybe 6-8" across. They grow to about 4 feet tall and seem to be very sturdy holding up their flowers much better than some hydrangeas I have seen. I hope they can be identified as I was thinking about planting one in my garden.

We had a delightfully slow rain of about 2'" on the 4th and even though it postponed many fireworks displays and spoiled a few picnics, it was much appreciated by me and more importantly- the farmers. Even so, we enjoyed our 4th and did get to watch the parade with our SIL driving a firetruck and a couple of granddaughters riding in it and throwing candy to the children lining the streets. I love these small hometown parades with the local high school bands and cheerleaders; the Shriners' 21 man bicycle; volunteer fireman driving the firetrucks with sirens blaring; locals dressed as clowns; and of course the old restored farm tractors driven by face -wide -grinning young farmers of tomorrow. I hope you got out to see America's freedom in action on the 4th.

Have a great gardening week!