yes, Julia.I am very excited to finally see a daylily bloom again and its not the one I been watching to be the first bloom either.but, this one is even better then I expected. ikayd. Thank you for looking and commenting .maybe yours will be blooming soon? jean

Ann - Did you have any flooding? I know some parts of Williamson County were very hard hit. We are lucky that our place is on high ground, since we are only two blocks away from a creek that flooded and five blocks from the Cumberland River. We only lost some items stores in our basement, so we were very lucky. You are right about some people being in serious financial difficulty now. I have two very good friends who lived in Bellevue condos, which were in a flood plain. One is being denied building permits to rebuild her gutted condo, and the other can't rebuild until the owners of the condo complex do work on the structural elements. Both are having to live with friends and relatives for awhile. I know I appreciated the help from my neighbors. Two young men spent a long time helping us bail the water. None of us had pumps, and no place nearby had any to sell. If they had not helped us, the water would like have risen four or five feet. Debra

Here's a fairly large Double Knock Out in the front yard--in the divider between my property and the neighbor's. Haven't had time to anything with it yet this year, so its looking a bit wild and woolley--and maybe lop-sided. I'll try to get some pruning done before the season is over. : ) Light blue irises came with the property when I bought my house thirty something years ago--don't know their name, but they bloom forever (for an iris). Another iris--name unknown. Sure is lovely. Here's a terrific fully packed white peony called Festiva Maxima--love that blood-red like marking in the middle of the blooms. I read somewhere once that this old classic is a good choice for more southerly gardeners, but I don't remember why. I have 4 of them. BIG blooms. Its getting so exciting now that things are nearly ready to bloom--can't believe the buds all over the yard--have never seen so many. Oddly, however, my hybrid teas are not taking over the show like they usually do. I thought with the mild winter we had, they would do terrifically well, but it seems the shrubs and floribundas are the ones doing best. But maybe that will all change in the next few weeks. This is about 3 weeks early for my roses--any of them--to be blooming. Kate

I know some people nip off the side buds to get larger flowers, & those large flowers are definitely impressive. Especially if you put them in an arrangement. I got so many complements on Bartzella & Coral Sunset. Coral and yellow peonies are never seen around here, & nothing that big. Yeah, I know we need the rain, & really hasn't been too bad. So far we haven't had the heavy storms we get lots of years that blow the petals off peonies & knock iris to the ground. And there have been plenty of gaps where I can at least walk around & look, although too muddy to do much. But watch the weeds grow.