Your red seedling is very nice! The scapes look stout, branching good and lots of buds, plus I see a couple of prolifs. My daylily season has been long done, it's nice to see someone else is just starting. Karen

Your sarracenia is great, I've seen the plants on line, but never any that looked that good. My favorite daylily is Malaysian Marketplace, it has been the one that really catches my eye this year, but I still really like Peppermint delight. I've tried altromaria here, but only 1 ever returns even though I tried the hardier varieties. It doesn't bloom nearly as well as yours though.

I really liked the blooms on CRM; lovely lilac pinky colour - and they lasted quite well on the bush, haven't tried to pick for a vase yet. No smell either, but then he is only new, planted as a bareroot this winter. Unfortunately he only managed about 3 (admittedly gorgeous) blooms, and like 80% of the collection, (eh, most of that's pretty new, too) is now resting. Peach Profusion tried hard to live up to its name; sadly he got attacked by a big thunderstorm at just the wrong moment, and the blooms suffered. Still, so far its been extremely healthy and bushy with nice glossy dark green leaves. No fragrance, but no blackspot or mildew either. . Only Julia Child, Pope John II and Buff Beauty are still hard at work. Blooms started doing odd things like semi balling, going manky round the edges, and being rather undersized..growth seemed to have stopped, and blackspot is attacking just about everything:( I suspect it may have to do with the weather; grey wet and mostly overcast, with the occasional sunny muggy day; strangely up and down temperature wise. And that's what its like here in Spring, Diane! We get a short cool spring, followed by a fairly hot longish summer, which seems to be getting hotter by the year. I am down south, and near the city/coast; means it doesn't tend to get to the extremes it does in the country- little frost for instance. everything tends to shut down in the last two months of summer tho; the backyard turns into a bit of a desert. I had a bit of a tidy up today, and things do seem to be looking up; new growth is now appearing and hopefully I can get another flush before the really hot weather starts!

Readyami, thank you! We have some "mixed metaphors" going on with the Texas star decorations and the un-tiki gazebo, but I've always been kind of eclectic anyway, LOL! :-) Tim, thanks! When I was putting the skull up I was thinking "This belongs on Tim's pirate ship", haha! The ball is a Japanese glass fishing float (this one is actually a modern replica), a long time favorite decoration in tiki bars and restaurants the world round. It's as required a staple as the traditional hanging puffer fish lamp (I have one of those too) :-) Mostly they were hung indoors in arrangements of different colors and different heights and sometimes were lighted from within. I can't direct-link the photos, but if you look at the thread linked below (photos of vintage tiki bars) you'll see what I mean. They were also popular as A-frame decorations. My A-frame is actually a little teeny version of the real thing, the traditional A-frames built on restaurants and bars were enormous and had gigantic glass fishing float replicas, period light fixtures or even outrigger canoes hanging under them. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=29982&forum=5&13