blogger awards

perennial hibiscus

Recently I was privileged to receive blogger awards from Karen at "Over the back yard fence" and Violetlady at "Violetlady at Home" and Tristi at "Tristi Pinkston". The descriptions for these awards are:

The Creative Blogger Award is for those who bring unique and creative elements to their blogs. For those who incorporate art, music, creative writing, photo's, and other beautiful visual effects into their website. For those who put a unique spin on things and come up with new ideas. This award is for the artsy, the funky, the inventor, and even the rebel. This award is for those creative individuals who stand out from the crowd.

The Thoughtful Blogger Award is for those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others' feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping other bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.

I don't know that I really deserve either of these awards, but thank you, thank you, thank you!!! When I started my blog back in February, I never dreamt that I would meet so many nice, fun, generous, crazy people - and that they would visit my blog and leave the nicest comments. But I have, and I truly appreciate all of you who come here and compliment my gardens and share information and make me smile. I love visiting all of your blogs. I feel really fortunate to have met so many great bloggers - I am in awe of the ideas, photos and passion that you all share with me every time I visit.

So, thank you for the recognition - I love it! But the real gift is that I get to share this experience with so many talented and generous people. Thank you to all of you for that.

Casa Blanca - oriental lily

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVERETT!

too much yakking

We came back from our daily kayak trip this evening, and I saw new daylilies blooming that I hadn't noticed earlier in the day. Obviously I am not spending enough time walking around my gardens!! I am loving the kayaking. Yesterday we went out early in the morning and again just before sunset - the water was perfectly calm both times - the only sound was the splash of our paddles dipping into the water.
The photo above is one of my dinner plate dahlias - I think it was named Mystery Day (from Breck's). It isn't as big as a dinner plate, but you could certainly have a lovely big helping of dessert!! There are a ton of buds on all of the dahlias - and I'm wishing I had put stakes in when I planted the roots. Live and learn I guess. My first try with dahlias - I will be planting them again! This is another smaller dahlia. I have all of these names somewhere because I just did them this spring. Can't seem to lay my hands on the list right now - when I find it, I'll share the names. There's a similar sized purple just opening and a dark red that's just started showing color. This is very fun!

One of my oriental lilies - is this Stargazer? I used to have all of these names firmly in my memory, but this year I can't seem to remember anything except the roses. I love going to other blogs and seeing the name of each lovely bloom - really wish I could do the same here! My orientals are not doing as well as they usually do - bummer, because the smell is so wonderful. I have them planted right in front of the porch and the scent wafts up into the porch on breezy days. I love it. My favorite oriental lily is Casa Blanca - it looks like white dotted swiss fabric - and smells heavenly. I'm hoping it will still bloom, but not looking promising.