Looks like Sparky was helping too much : )

it was a wonderful day to work in the garden, I was busy watering, sooo dry here. Lovely color on Renaissance Revival. I hope you get all of those seedlings in their new spots quickly!

Sherry

R Revival is beautiful! The pure simplicity of many species makes them so lovely. Sparky is adorable. My cats always seem to think I am digging holes specifically for them too. At first I thought, how cute, he is digging the hole deeper for me, he is trying to help. Then i realized how he was helping, LOL!

Renaissance Revival is gorgeous! We've finally cooled down here too, I am so far behind in my list of things to do outside... I hope to get some things done this week. Your kitty is so cute!

Oh, Sparky! You are just too cute for words! I would get nothing done in the garden if he was hanging out with me. I have 4 cats but only one who goes outdoors and she is such a fun little cat. She has to be with me as I work and I know I would accomplish more if I didn't have to stop every so often to pet her. Your daylilies are pretty too!

Sparky is adorable! Renaissance Revival i is awfully pretty. I had that one at one time and it just up and died on me. I always like it.

kay

Nancy: That first photo with Sparky gave me a chuckle. I have Gaillardia aka Blanket Flowers here. They come back year after year and are still blooming here and will until the first hard frost. The heat and dry conditions does not affect them at all...at least not here.

Julia

I like Renaissance Revival and that color! I have the blanket flowers too which are still blooming. I do like them. Sparky is just following form on garden cats-“oh, a bathroom for me? You shouldn’t have!”

Kate

What a great picture of Sparky. You just know he made me smile. Is he a totally outdoor cat or does he come in at night?........As for daylilies, Renaissance Revival looks gorgeous but I'd be disappointed by the lackluster color on Reese Renee too. Maybe it will improve............Maryl

Sparky thinks all those holes are for him. What a cutie. Renaissance Revival is a pretty one!

Maryl, Sparky is a garden cat. We had cats inside for years, but I'm just don't want the litter box and scratching the furniture now. Riley, the dog, is enough. He's a good dog but he sheds all of the time. Sparky is well taken care of. He has a nice kitty house (it was expensive) with a heated mat.

I can't imagine having 100 select seedlings. How do you have that much space to move them? I need to make space for my 16 selects, and I'm having trouble with that. I want to give them plenty of room and maximum sun exposure, so it's a challenge here without culling more registered daylilies.

Debra

Debra, actually, we probably have almost 300 select seedlings. (I know we choose too many.) We basically select on the basis of a pretty face and don't put as much emphasis on plant habit or bud count at the 3 year stage. Later, after they grown (for a couple of years) in the select bed and have their own spot (not so crowded and competing with weeds), we further select on the basis of plant habit. We have seen great improvement at the four year mark (and beyond) when the seedlings aren't so crowded.

We are running out of space though. We have 1.7 acres, but not all of it is devoted to daylilies. We have a small orchard (peach, beach plum, apricot, cherry, and pear trees) which is on the most sloped land. (When we bought this property in 2004, we weren't growing daylilies. If we had been, we might have thought twice about buying a lot that is not flat.) We also have a lot of trees, but most of them are pine trees in a windbreak. We are trying to downsize the garden. We currently have 1100+ named varieties. We usually sell off some daylilies in May during the local herb society's plant fair, but it was canceled this year because of Covid 19. We had hoped to sell about 40 of them this fall, but we discovered rust in the garden so we will have to wait until spring to sell them.

We are finding that the most interesting aspect of the daylily garden is our own seedlings. As the time goes on, we use our own seedlings more and more in the hybridizing and don't need so many named varieties. Bob is even parting with some orange ones.

Wow! Three hundred select seedlings - that is a lot. I typically don't "select" them unless they have shown at least 15 buds or have a truly amazing face. I do agree that with more space in years four or five, they can show much-improved plant habits. I thought I had spaced my last two seedling beds with enough room to keep growing the seedlings there for at least four years. But with some already at nine fans or more, I have to thin those beds out and move some of the taller ones.

Bob says all we do is move plants around. It's a lot of work.

I understand what you're saying about the seedlings.My seedlings get most of my attention now. I've culled more than 200 registered varieties from my 600 plus, and I had hoped to sell another 40 last Spring, but with the Covid situation, I just didn't want to deal with the Post Office. There are so many of the registered ones that I could live without now. Culling seedlings is another issue. I need to get rid of far more the nine I've already culled.

Debra