Daylilies have changed quite a bit since the Stella de Oro, Happy Returns days in my opinion. I got hooked about 4 years ago when I saw Clothed in Glory in a Wayside Catalog. The ruffles, bubbles, chicken fat, eyes, curls etc. add more to the varietal selection then just color...... I do not know when charging such outrageous amounts for new introductions came into being. An unbloomed seedling for instance sold on the Lily Auction for $1,300.00. And no, neither the buyer or the seller knew how it would turn out once it did bloom. From the parentage the buyer just hoped it would be really great. Considering I can buy the newest rose variety around for under $25.00, it does seem a bit much for a flower that you can't even cut for the vase. But hey, each to their own. As long as it's not my money they are spending, I wish the daylily collectors the best of luck. I suggest anyone wanting to see more check out the daylily forum when the blooms start popping in a month or less. Some of their pictures are real show stoppers. You may end up willing to spend more then $1.00 for a daylily. I saved up for 4 years to get a $50.00 daylily called Shores of Time. It's supposed to be a true pink. If it blooms this year I guess we will see if I end up being the subject of the old adage: " A fool and his money are soon parted."

Their professionalism in the daylily world is what impresses me: promptly returned phone calls, order acknowledgements and shipping updates (also they take credit cards adding another layer of consumer protection). After TRYING to contact a few other daylily sellers this year, I finally just gave up and went with Marietta. Marietta is run like a real business and when it comes to giving away my hard earned money that's what I want.... My bonus was Sugar Pie Dumplings. My purchases were: Shores of Time and All in Ruffles.

They do have some nice daylilies. I got some from them last year and was really pleased. My bonus was cousin charles and hope I see some blooms on it this year did not get any last year. Jill

Hi Everyone, Well, adding the rain that fell overnight to what we had yesterday, we ended up with 11.5" of rain here at our house between 11 a.m. Wed. and 7 a.m. Thursday. For the same time period, our county's Mesonet station recorded 12.89". Obviously we needed the rain and have needed it for a long time. I feel fairly confident in saying everyone's ponds have completely filled up. Around the county, and of course, the closer you are to the Red River, the worst the damage, we have roads washed away, at least one broken water main (in the Falconhead golf and retirement community), bottom land pastures flooded and cattle that had to be moved to higher ground, plenty of homes that seem to be standing in lakes, gravel driveways (including ours) almost completely washed away, standing water everywhere, damage to bridges caused by the rushing water and esp. when the water was carrying trees, etc. The Red River is a madly rushing wild thing this morning. While the river is not the highest I've ever seen it, it is the highest I've seen in rise in less than one day. Lake Texoma has already risen two feet from the runoff and will rise more over the next few days. My garden is probably in pretty good shape considering the rainfall. Some of the raised beds look wet but virtually untouched otherwise. Some had the mulch washed out into the path, but putting it back will be easy once everything is a little drier. Some raised beds that weren't planted yet had major erosion, but all I have to do is shovel that soil back out of the pathway and into the bed. The corn is in the lowest-lying part of the veggie garden and not in raised beds, to it may drown and die. If it does, I don't think I'll replant. It is getting late here to plant corn. I did notice as we drove to Gainesville this morning that several people who have very large gardens had much more erosion in their gardens than ours, but it had more to do with the lay of their land and erosion from the rain and runoff--not anything they really could have done to prevent it other than perhaps build raised beds. I guess now we'll have to wait and see if the veggies can survive the inevitable waterlogging of their roots. Of the four rows of tomato plants that I'd planted, two should be fine. Those beds are well above grade and ought to drain well enough that the plants survive. The other two rows may be in trouble. They are barely raised above grade and sit in the part of the garden where water drains down madly from the neighbor's higher ground. I will watch these plants for a couple of days before I even try to decide what to do with them, if anything. The broccoli, potatoes, cabbage, onions and herbs ought to be fine. I don't know when the soil will be dry enough to plant beans, melons, cucumbers, watermelons and okra, so I'll probably start all of them in 6-packs or paper cups on the back porch and transplant them out when the soil is a bit drier than it is now. I hadn't planned to plant them in cups and transplant them, but you have to work with what you have, and right now I have a lake instead of a garden. Water is standing in the pathways of the garden instead of flowing downhill. That's sort of comical. You wouldn't think water could stand still on a slope, but it is. And, I guess I don't have to tell y'all that the ponds are overflowing, the creeks are running like mad, the swamp is swampy again, the springs are running, etc. Now we can look forward to snakes, mosquitoes and fire ants. : ( Don't get me wrong. We needed the rain in the worst possible way. I am glad it fell. However, I would have been happy if we'd only had a more reasonable 6" or 8". Our Keetch-Byram Drought Index which had been in the upper 600s in Jan.-March when we were having so many fires has now dropped all the way to "0" from the rain-improved index in the mid-400s that we'd had for most of April. A KBDI score of "0" essentially means that the soil is 100% saturated down to a depth of 8", and 8" is as far down as the KBDI goes. Joyce, Drought is much more common here than flooding, so we are grateful for every inch that fell. Even sandy soil in the Thackerville area is too wet to drain well right now, but I think their soil will dry more quickly than our clay does. Scott, Keep your eye on the radar. I haven't even looked at the forecast (I'm almost afraid to) but my son told me we have rain the forecast for either 8 or 9 of the next 10 days. If it falls, we're looking at a 2007-type flooding situation again here along the river and the lake. Personally, I'm hoping the rain misses us these next couple of weeks and heads for the parts of western Oklahoma and southwestern Kansas that still need more moisture. I don't think I'll ever forget this rainfall. It wasn't as scarey as the April 2006 storm which literally washed cars off roadways and into rain-swollen creeks, but it was close. The poor emergency workers had a long, hard day yesterday. Moni, I hope you have a fun trip west and that you have exciting news to share with all of us soon. : ) I'm glad you got rain too, but I would have been happy to share ours with you if I could figure out how to get the water from here to there. Sally, Thanks to the miracle of having a GPS in his Blackberry, DH just punched in an address in Gainesville and his Blackberry told him what rural back roads to take to get around the flooded portions of I-35. He arrived home late and tired, but safely, and that is what really counts. I was thinking of you down there in Dallas yesterday as the "Swine Flu" news in Texas continued to worsen. I hope it is not going to be as bad as it sounds, and I think everyone is over-reacting. (Hope I'm right about that.) When I heard that the Fort Worth ISD had suspended classes for the next week, I was stunned. Y'all stay safe there and chase away any sickly-looking folks that are coughing around you. Laura, I'm glad y'all got some rain but I wish you hadn't had a river running through your place. I hope your land didn't erode too much. It is a shame about the grass. I noticed similar areas today where some folks near us had plowed large areas and planted either corn or grass and it looks like most, if not all, has washed away. It is hard to take the economic loss of the seed and having to replant, but rain is still a blessing. You're right, we needed the rain just as much as you did, and we all just have to take the bad with the good. : ) I always joke that our four seasons here are "Drought, Drought, Drought and Flood", but you know, it really is pretty close to the truth. Here in southern OK, we NEVER have a year where we get, say, 3" of rain per month every month. Instead, we have months and months of "below average" or even almost nonexistent rainfall, and then we have a deluge of rain all at once. So, in the end, the annual rainfall total looks normal, but it isn't normal in the sense that we had consistent rainfall every month. Y'all, I am grateful for every inch of rain that fell but I wish it could have been spread out over a few days instead of a few hours. To be honest, though, I more or less expected a major downpour at some point this spring because we always have a huge downpour following a long period of drough. I just didn't expect quite so much moisture to fall in a relatively short time. I am very concerned about the forecast for the next 10 days, but that is something we can't control, so I'm just going to do my best to not worry and fret over it. I hope all of you who need rain get some. And I hope we don't get any more here for a couple of weeks. Finally, I hope the Swine Flu leaves us all alone. I haven't followed the news too closely during the last 24 hours, mostly because the rain knocked out the satellite TV so all we had was the local stations and their news was almost entirely weather-related. Today, though it sounds like the flu situation is worsening and I am starting to think that I haven't taken it seriously enough--I just keep thinking the government and the media and the school officials are over-reacting. I hope that's all it is. Dawn