"Isaac's Bloomers."

      Our Number Three Son has left me holding a bunch of wild bloomers. Bloomers of all shapes and sizes, bloomers that for the next month or so will delight and thrill and tickle my fancy, bloomers full of slugs to squish?.. and weeds to wrench by their wretched, evil, conniving roots?

     
       No, we're not talking boxer-cut Hanes or bedeviling banana hammocks by Calvin Klein. We're talking daylilies. Eighty-four different registered cultivars. The beginning of the bloom season is already tempting me out the door at 6 am, coffee in hand and jammies on half sideways. I can't wait to roam amongst the dewy green foliage to search the beds and see who is blooming each day.

"Kwanso"

      Isaac worked as a gardener for three summers, trying to pocket a different "green" to help with tuition costs. He fell in love with these beauties and every couple of days he'd bring a few more home. Soon he had commandeered every ounce of arable garden space.


     My vegetable garden  all but disappeared at the end of that summer. A grower that he'd become acquainted with was downsizing his garden and whole clumps arrived by the truck full. I have to admit it was fun, learning something new from one of the  "youngsters". The process of dividing the clumps and "lining them out" for sale the following season was something I'd never done.

"Lavender Stardust"

     
With their arrival began lots of reading. Discovering that these daylilies weren't just the orange ones in every grandma's garden but over 60,000 varieties in shades and shapes and sizes I'd never imagined. Even greater was the knowledge that they are tough, impossible to kill and that they multiply like bunnies and bring your yard alive with such showy dazzling color. Bonus,..Bonus, bonus bonus!

"Scatterbrain"

      They come with some off-the-wall monikers too! Imagine if you will, Scatterbrain, Lies and Lipstick, Body Rub, Big Kiss, Druids Chant and Zola's Pink Nightgown!

"Lies and Lipstick"

      Isaac and I have even hybridized a few of our own as well. A refresher course for me in simple genetics ( AND honing my communication skills when the neighbours wonder why I'm flitting  from lily to lily with a pollen laden stamen from one flower in my two fingers to gently dab the pistil of another.)
      
      What an awesome way to get those old synapses firing.  We have three different crosses bearing at least 30 new variations are already blooming for the second time. Those babies will need crazy names of their own. I have 15 plants from another cross that may bloom this year AND a whack of new seedlings from last summer in a shady corner by the woodshed. It's like Christmas when they finally bloom for the first time. 
      As a new and exciting note, I thought I'd experiment with lily "pulp" as a resource for handmade paper. I went out with my coffee and gathered 6-8 spent blooms and twenty minutes later there are two sheets of lily paper drying on the window sill!  More about that in a later post.

"Baby Betsy"

      
      The boy is beyond busy now. Life has "happened" as it invariably does. I am weeding and coddling his babies for him at the moment.  As he grows into the hustle and bustle of his new life one thing is for certain, with all those fresh new faces greeting me each morning, my nest won't ever be empty.