Too few currently opening for much of a list. But yesterday, when it was a bazillion degrees out, the following still looked good to great at the end of the day: GOTHIC BUTTERFLY (Stamile 2002) GREYWOODS SPIRIT HAWK (Wilkinson 2007) LEMON MADELINE (Morss 2001) TOPGUNS DRIPPING GOLD (Scott 2004) WAKE UP AMERICA (Scwarz 2003) Notice the color family? If for no other reason, heat's a reason to have yellow daylilies in your collection! BTW, I have to comment, probably not for the first - or even second - time, on GREYWOODS SPIRIT HAWK. This was a gift plant, and not one I'd have ordered on my own: I generally don't love the combo of yellow/yellowish background and red eyes. (For me, those colors generally have to be poke-your-eyes-out gaudy or must perfectly complement each other in some way.) But this daylily is probably my best "doer" in the garden. Nothing - and I mean nothing - seems to faze it. It opens when it's cool in the a.m., it looks fresh as a daisy in beastly heat, and it has even looked lovely after a torrential downpour. The part of the bed it's in is probably too dry, and I really should be watering there. But that hasn't slowed it down one whit. Add in scape height, plant vigor, and the fact that it's among the first daylilies to bloom yet will continue well past midseason....What's not to love?

Thanks for the reminder about the controversy regarding 'Peanut' v. 'Lakeside Dot Com', Steve. I'll go to my database and see if we have H. 'Peanut' and if so find it and re-label it. Last reading I know of the claimed originator of 'Peanut' hadn't responded to the other experts conclusion that it is actually LS Dot Com. Do you know further? It's sort of why our label for H. 'Empress Wu' is, here at least, H. 'Xanadu Empress Wu' to honor Brian and Virginia . . . not technically proper, but you understand, I bet. hh

One of the most touching photographic moments I have seen recently was the re-creation of photos by a man who lost his young wife to cancer. He and his bride had wedding photos taken in their new home before they moved in. They had a daughter, but then the wife died of cancer and the husband decided to sell the house and move on. So he asked his SIL (who took the wedding photos) to re-create the same photos only with him and his 3-year-old daughter in much the same poses. It was both heart-breaking and touching at the same time. Maybe if you have some old family photos of you and your siblings and your parents, you could copy those and take some new ones in the old family place and create an album of 'then and now' for them.

I am in agreement with shaknzmom. We paid our daughters for their good grades. $5.00 for each A, $3.00 for each B, nothing for C's and they owed us, if they ever would bring home anything less. WE also said that we would pay them $100 if they brought home straight A's. They all always made the honor roll, but our youngest really liked the money. She received one B the first semester of her freshman year of high school. She decided that while $38 was good, it wouldn't be that much harder to make straight A's. So, she did -- every grading period for the remainder of her high school life. She graduated tied for 1st in her class, and received full tuition scholarships to three different college, plus another $2,000 a year scholarship. That doesn't include the partial scholarships that she received from other universities. The $1538 or so that she received from us over the 4 years high school more than paid itself back for her college. She will graduate with no debt. We do pay for her room and board and books. She pays for spending money. The money she earned this summer not only went for spending money, but also to fund her IRA. This semester has cost us $1,800 for everything. Not bad at all. She is a highly motivated student. The money was a little extra that she enjoyed getting. My other daughters never quite made the straight A's in high school, but they did make it a couple of times in college. All three received scholarships to several colleges. Looking back, I wouldn't do it any differently.