A hot Sunday summer morning.

This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see two lovely additions to the blooms opened: Pirate's Promise, and Great Red Dragon!  I got P.P. last year, but it didn't bloom, and G.R.D. is a NEW arrival this spring!  

PIRATE'S PROMISE, Salter, 1995; MID; SEV/TET; 28" x 6"; re 

This one is settling in quite happily in the Pirate-themed garden!

GREAT RED DRAGON, Gossard, 2006; DOR DIP; Early-Mid; 41" x 10" (It has 4-way branching, and a 25 Bud Count!)  This thing is going to be HUGE; I may have put it in a less than good spot, down front of a small slope.  Nothing behind it will be visible!  You can see by the snipped leaves that it's a newcomer, and nowhere close to the size it will get, with time.  I think I'm going to love this handsome dragon ... immensely!  But I'll have to work out another spot in its garden.  It's at the top of what I call, "Dragon Alley," shared by the Harry Potter theme and the Lord of the Rings theme.  This is the LOTR end, and its neighbor is called, "Firedrake."   Seemed like a good spot at the time, but I didn't have the numbers in front of me.

On another positive note, I believe I have all those spring deliveries either in pots or in the ground, FINALLY!  Daylilies aren't supposed to be heeled in, and if done, shouldn't be for more than a day or two.  These poor babies have been heeled in for a great deal more than that!  But if it means losing them versus saving them, it gets done.  I'll check, but I believe they are all settled now, in one way or another!  And none have died.  They might have been set back, sure -- might not bloom this year.  But they're alive.  


Yet another positive note:  my side yard looks FANTASTIC!!!  The yard guys showed up again, for a shorter time, and finished up.  I have a yard again! 

This may not look terrific, but it's SOOOO much better than it was a few days ago!  The large maple to the left is throwing a bit too much shade, so nothing is growing under it.  It will need to be trimmed away from the house too, since the branches are extending over the roof of that part you see on the right.  The lilac doesn't bloom on the shady side near the tree, either.

 A few steps further, and past the maple, turning slightly left... one of the four remaining apple trees, and some black locust saplings.  Those were removed today, after these photos were taken.  Bit of hard-earned advice:  DO NOT PLANT BLACK LOCUST trees in your yard!  They are invasive, and horrible to try to remove/ annihilate.  They're WEEDS!  Yes, for about one week in the spring, when they're in bloom, the air around them smells lovely.  But the other 51 weeks of the year, they'll be busy plotting how to make you miserable.  And ultimately, how to take over the world!  These won't be gone for long, believe me.  They will spring up little suckers that will need to be trimmed, faithfully every year, until they finally succumb.  But I don't know how many years that will take.  I'm not always faithful.

I'm thinking of putting the "Meditation Garden up on the knoll, where I used to have a vegetable garden in the late 90's.  The guys can clear that in the future, and I'm sure they'll do a fine job, if we go that route.  The above spot is that former "knoll garden".  There is still a lot of scruff that has grown in, but not impossible to reclaim.  The guys have started dumping the grass clippings up there, and with some manure over the winter, I should have a decent start to lay it out, in the spring!  Oh, and the budded plants in the foreground?  Hemerocallis fulva -- aka, "Ditch Daylilies," of course!  I'd forgotten I had long ago tossed some extras there.

If there are some FFO's tomorrow morning to show, I'll be back then. 
Have a great rest of today!