Daily Archives: 07/16/2010

What the…..?

Often I stand confused in the garden. I tend to garden in “fits” , crazy behavior of planting, transplanting, moving or installing paths,and  ripping out shrubbery all in a haphazzard unplanned fashion and at completely inappropriate times.Then I forget what I planted or moved and have a little ‘moment” staring at a plant I have no idea what it is or an empty hole where one has gone missing.

But I will tell you emphatically, I did not plant this

what the *&#* is this?

a.) It is blooming in the Pink Garden, all plants in that garden bloom either pink or white. That’s it…pink..or white.

b.) Daylilies generally have more defined  eyezones (see the petal that has no indication of one?) and are usually more subtely bi-colored , very impressionist looking in their mottling. But, puh-leez, this is wacky .

I  am chalking up the mis-placement to a small confusion when I was dividing last fall. The coloration is another story altogether. I could be drought affecting the bloom. In the pink garden I have plants that bloom early when rain is usually ample, but they need to be cut back right when they are done so that they do not block the sprinklers that reach the garden later in the season. Before we went away on vacation I never got around to that chore so the plants in that bed got no water from me, and no help from god either so they were very stressed when I got home. Maybe this guy went a little crazy with the heat and thirst.

 It could also be viral. Mosaic plant viruses are responsible for many variations in coloring including varieagated foliage and the  wild bloom variations in tulips affected with the tulip breaking  potyvirus.It could also be something I have not even thought of,  or even know of.

 I guess I will know if the day lily weakens and dies (virus) or pulls through(drought) or someone else sheds some light on the subject.

For now I must resist the temptaion to pull his ugly a** out of my pink garden for to do so now would mean certain death for him(I use the male pronoun because it is icky looking, if the mutation was lovely I would use  the female…perfect logic!).

I am curious to see what will happen. There is currently only one scape and only one flower has bloomed. His fate is out of my hands, time will tell if he gets a new home  or goes in the trash. (never compost anything diseased).

This week there are so many things on my To Do list I am struggling to manage my time. Now that I have decided some tall shrubs need to go , I can’t wait to get it done, and there is a hydrangea I want to prune into a tree,  I want to plant day lilies along the edge of the street, the chipping pile is HUGE, and on and on and on it goes. Today the indentured servant (CJ) will be pressed into service and over the weekend hopefully Bill too, and by Monday I will feel better about the state of the yard even with the ugly red day lilies messing up my pink garden.