You mean you have coffee & breakfast BEFORE you see your daylilies! I can't imagine having that willpower :)

Close but no prize! I live-head at night so there won't be any slimy blooms to worry about the next morning or interfere with pictures. So early AM, here's the order of things at my house 1) pictures 2) more pictures 3)breakfast, 4) download images to computer.

Lol. Almost correct. Let me add that I'm taking pictures with one hand while an infant is either trying to eat the camera OR stuff a bloom in her mouth and another one is repeating, "Mom, mom, mom, Mooooooooooom. Can I take a picture with the camera? Is it my turn now? I won't break it. Just one. Are you done now?"
Well! I can never complain that I'm lacking for garden company.
;)

CTC- You and they will remember these times as the best long after the daylilies are gone.;)

At my house it's get up, take dogs out-they don't care about the flowers, get pictures-only dead heading if needed for photo, then breakfast and off to work. Dead heading and labeling has to wait till evening. Floota-have problems deadheading at night. I helped my dad do that the other day since he had an early tour coming the next day and cringed everytime I snapped their little heads off.

Here's my routine:
1. Feed cats - they won't let me photograph until I do.
2. Photograph the emo's
3. Breakfast and work a few pictures
4. Back out to photograph late openers and water
5. Work pics after the sun and the high temps force me back inside.

Debra

This post had me laughing. So I AM normal after all! The only difference is because ALL my lilies are new for me and I've never seen each one before, I skip the breakfast... and feeding the cats... & getting my Mom up for the day...and just head out in my pajamas with my camera! My cat Zeus sleeps curled up around my head so that in the a.m. my hair looks like a beehive...so I get strange looks from cars
passing by...I am sure I am the talk of the neighborhood.

After snapping a hundred or so pictures (thank God for digital cameras so I can delete about 80 of those), I rush
back in to upload them. Coffee, breakfast, Mom, cats, etc.
will come next. But the daylilies are an addiction that has taken over and there's no stopping me.

Celeste

Oops, Debra reminded me, I do have to feed the cats first. Otherwise they follow me around every step, winding around my feet trying to trip me & crying like they haven't eaten in a week. Never mind that their food dish still has plenty of food. It isn't "fresh" food. I really could understand if it were moist food, but it is bagged!

Ha, great post and so dead on. Except forget breakfast, no eating until after the garden walkaround and picture taking. I don't deadhead either so I do frame my picture and deadhead what is necessay before I shoot. I could get a lot more done in the garden if I didn't take pictures and post each day but that would be no fun. I love to post my pictures :-)

Yeah, I have to feed the dogs first too, forgot that. Most of you guys have a lot more DLs than I do, so some mornings I don't have anything new to see, but I sure enjoy everyones pics!

I'm with floota -- This year, I've been live-heading in the evening. In the a.m., I go out to see what's blooming & I'll probably take some pictures. I may also dab pollen, although in a not-very-systematic way. But before I go out, I usually have to give the cats their water. They are bengals, and they therefore insist on running water -- They will not drink out of bowls. I stupidly introduced them years ago to drinking out of the bathtub, so I have to turn it on, let them drink, dry off the one that sits directly under the water, & turn off the tub. I generally don't bother uploading pictures until the evening or even, sometimes, the next day. I don't post pictures to this site, but I do share some with a couple of other groups, plus friends. Oh yeah, and of course there's coffee before I go outside! Without it, I'd probably try to dead-head poison ivy or something.

I try to livehead when I have an evening off, but I feel so sorry, some of them look beautiful still. Other than that it's the same - skip breakfast, DH feeds the cat as he gets up earlier, take pics and then the part I don't like - uploading them (it takes forever)..
Cracking, LOL! Your pictures are great, now I'll appreciate them even more!
Lynxe, why don't you post your pictures here?

nat4b, I believe there are some issues to do with ownership of the pictures, or maybe there is something about what the site's owners are allowed to do with one's images. I don't recall where I read that, however, so maybe I've been misinformed all this time.

Susan,

I love it! What a good thread. We are so alike. I am one of the ones that will have coffee first only after heavy bloom season is over.

I am joining Floota next season and liveheading the night before. It is much nicer to just walk out and take pictures. Even if I do I just have to have to almost restrain DH and my older (even older than me!) neighbor who mourns every bloom I pick...and she never seems to learn they will be back in the morning and they are good for only one day anyway.

I take many, many pictures... I've actually kept almost four thousand this season. what did we do without digital cameras?

DH feeds the dogs and the cats. I'll fix breakfast when I come in after I go through the pictures. Then upload them, (thank goodness for Photobucket too) and then it's choose a few and post.
kay

Live-heading has another benefit in addition to making it SOOO much easier to take your images early in the AM. It helps to keep those gross ugly earwigs under control! Since I began live-heading every evening, I have seen almost no earwigs. Someone told me this long ago. And, if you have a bloom that it just kills you to pull off, save it and bring it inside to enjoy until bedtime. I often do that!

Unfortunately liveheading doesn't seem to help much with earwigs here. I have so many pics with them sticking out their ugly what's it called from the throats :(

Hubby feeds the kids breakfast. I go outside before eating and deadhead and maybe take pics to upload later in the day. I sometimes live-head at night if I have time. I deadhead almost every day because I can't stand how they look otherwise.
Oh, and this morning I watered by hand for over an hour. We're not getting any rain here and the blooms were already open so I didn't want to get them wet so I took the hose with the sprayer attached and soaked each one at the base.

This morning a friend stopped by and commented on how pretty the garden is and I said, " yes, but when it's done blooming it will all be green." Which is going to be way too soon.
:(
I did get a bunch of later bloomers last year so hopefully my blooming season will be extended by a few weeks.
Yup, we're all obsessed here.

You have my routine down perfectly. Have you been spying on me?

Oh my, these posts are priceless. I wish some of you live
on my street so I won't be the only one wandering through
the dew-laden plants clutching her wonderful digital camera.

I get up about 6 AM, let my cat out with a promise I'll be
with her shortly. DH is still asleep, there is just the
3 of us (counting the cat) now,

I deadhead as I go especially if any blooms are special.
We have breakfast (including cat) after DH wakes up or I
wake him up. I sit down, I'm OLD and get worn out quickly,
and go through the pics and start deciding if I have to
delete any.

Kay/phal

Love this thread. The morning garden walk-around is my favorite time of day. I get up at about 6:30, take care of Andy (golden retriever), then out for a walk around the yard. It's peaceful and beautiful. My fantasy is to have lots of acreage and then the morning walk-around would take 2 hours.
Christine

Ha...love it. My routine is close. I get up at 3:30 am, got for and hour/hour and a half run, take a quick shower, get out and pollinate, take pics of new babies, jump in car and go to work. Come home, love up my real children, take stock of what's opening the next day so I can write out the tags for the morning. Then it starts all over again. I'm thankfully on vacation until the 25th so I can find some peace for a little bit. Diet Mt Dew on the patio in the morning and beer in the afternoon, HERE I COME!

Dani

LOL, just so funny reading all the posts.

I can say I restrain myself a bit in the morning.... well sort of. I actually look out my windows first to see what is blooming before I head down for my cup of coffee and watch the local news for 1/2 hour. Yes, 1/2 hour of news time BEFORE the daylilies (gasp). No breakfast until much later. I then get the camera and head out as the sun is rising and the beds will be in full sun all too soon.

I do live/deadhead in the evenings with whatever energy that is left in me.

Julia

I look out the window at my daylilies as soon as I get out of bed. Then I get on my walking clothes and do my back stretches before I walk through the garden on my way to do my morning walk. I walk back through the garden on my way back in for breakfast. After breakfast I usually go into the garden with my cup of tea and digital tape recorder and note what is opening for the first time and what is blooming for the last time. Then I grab my camera and start taking pictures and deadheading. I've been doing some liveheading in the evening, but I never finish when it's near peak. I do find it easier to kill the earwigs in the evening.
Has anyone found that they seem to prefer certain daylilies? Chance Encounter seems to be an earwig motel! Fortunately it's located near the driveway so as I pluck off the blooms I can dump the little monsters on the driveway and stomp them!
Val

I have found that the earwigs adore the gardenias and seem to leave the daylilies alone as long as the ggardeniaqs are blooming. And since I usually have a few gardenias blooming most of the summer as long as there is any rain or if I water on a semi-regular basis, (there are two on my desk right now) they work pretty well as earwig attractants. Of course the gardenias have a lot of the stupid things on them, but there is no perfect world, is there?
kay

DH gets up several hours before me and he feeds the kids, I mean cats. I grab my camera and wander outside to photograph whatever is blooming if it is not raining.

I have been wandering my front yard in the city photographing flowers in clothes I'd never wear in public for a very long time. Daylilies are new. No neighbor has said anything but I figure I'd say I have a blog if they do...even though I don't.

I didn't know about live heading daylilies. Thanks, I do sometimes look out the window at them in the evening (stays light until 10 here in summer) but the slime in the AM would be nice to avoid.