Nile Lilly

 This weird looking flower is a Nile Lilly. I have had this plant for 45 years. Or at least I have off-spring from the first Nile Lilly bulb I got 45 years ago. Actually I saw a plant like this blooming near a library and noticed that one had developed this strange bulb or maybe it was sort of a seed pod that had come on after the bloom and dropped down onto the ground. I walked by and picked it up. I put it in a pot and it grew. I realized I had a monster on my hands. For the first few years all it did was put on these long, strap-like leaves but still it didn't look bad. And each year when I replanted it I found it had put on a lot more bulbs. Soon it was a mass of bulbs with lots of leaves coming out of it. Not sure what I had and wanting to be careful I did keep it in the house during the winter. In summer it sat outside. About the 4 year = Surprise =  it sent out several flower stalks with these fragile looking flowers. They are fairly fragile. They do not like hot sun, wind or hard rain. I did figure out what it was while looking through a gardening book. Over the years I have had lots of these and some years they bloom and some years they don't. I found that they do prefer to be crowded in a pot or in the ground and bloom best with light fertilize. And they will not come back after freezing in the winter. I always make sure to bring a few in to winter over.
    When we decided to move to Kentucky I brought a few of my favorite flowers with me. Mostly just cuttings off of big plants which I gave to a friend. I brought some of the Nile Lilly bulbs, too. Last year they weren't crowded in the pot enough to bloom. This year I have one nice flower stalk. Maybe there will be more next year. Interested in a Nile Lilly. There are a lot for sale in nurseries and on the internet. There is a blue one as well as the white but I haven't had as much luck with it.

This is a variegated hibiscus. I have had cuttings from the original plant for about 40 years. So far we have had one blossom this summer.

Nature

As much as I like the hybrid roses I still love the wild ones I find in the woods in the spring.

Nature makes some beautiful and unique designs.

Man on the Moon

   









      On July 20, 1969 I sat with my family in our living room and watched the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. It was the last time I would sit and watch a space shot with my family. On this day we were all there. My mom and Dad, Kate and Bob Barnett, and my sisters, Sarah and Janice, and my grandmother (Mom's mom) Alma Williams. Plus myself. We were thrilled to think that a man was going to walk on the moon. We watched the television intently and heard the words "That's One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Man Kind".
    I don't remember what any of us actually said. I wish I did. I do remember my mom was crocheting squares for an afgan and put in a couple of extra stiches that she said was to remind her off what happened and what she was doing that day. I am not sure what happened to that afgan.
     This ritual started back on February 20, 1962 when John Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission to become the first American to orbit the earth. He was the fifth person to in space and the third American in space. I was 11 years old when John Glenn took his flight. I remember being woke up by my parents at what I thought was very early hour of about 7:30 am (I remember it was still dark, and I never got up before sunrise, but it was winter) and couldn't believe I was being told to go watch television. My sisters, ages 7 and 5 sat on the sofa with me as we wondered what was so wonderful we had to watch it and why it came on so early. At that time I didn't have much concept of time zones. Officialy it was 9:47 am Eastern Time when "Lift Off" happened.  My dad was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base near Los Vegas, NV and we lived in a house on the base.
   I guess my dad was really thought the world was going to be up in space soon.  He tried to explain to us that a man, John Glenn, was going to make history that day by going into space to orbit the earth. My parents thought it was very important that we watch this happen. I remember thinking it was interesting but why so early. I'm not sure what my sisters thought. We were told the flight was so early because the space ship would take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The fact that their time was 2 hours ahead of didn't make much since to us. We learned about time zones that day as well as space flights. We did understand when we were told that was when the weather would be best for the spaceship to lift off. We sat and watched the spaceship go into space, dozed on the sofa for a while, had breakfast and --- well I don't remember if it was a school day or not. I do remember watching a film of the splash down of the space capsule and seeing John Glenn come out of it. John Glenn was in flight for 5 hours and circled the earth 3.
     After that first time we got up and watched each time there was a showing of a spacecraft "Lift Off" or splash down which I continued to do even after I left home. And, yes, I remember watching and being horrified when the spaceship Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. Plus I watched as many of the space shuttle lift off and landings as I could.
     Of course it didn't hurt that my sisters and I became big Star Trek fans when the show came on. I never got into reading that much science fiction but I did like the show and then the movies. I believe that the space flights and Star Trek influenced a lot of people to go into science which may be why we have advanced so fast and into so many different science fields in our generation.
   
   

Pumpkins and Tomatos

Last fall when my pumpkins started to go bad I through them out in the far back thinking some critters might eat them. This spring I had pumpkins come up a long way from where I put the rotten ones last fall and in places I had never planted any last year. That's Okay. I figured maybe a squirrel had stached them to eat later and now they were coming. Problem is so far there have been lots of beautiful male blossoms on the vines but no female blossoms. Which means no pumpkins. I will keep hoping.

We bought 3 tomato plants and put them in large pots. The first blossom on this one was a double blossom. I don't think I have ever seen one or even hear of one being double. It did not set a tomato but lots of the other blossoms did.

Summer Flowers

All my roses seem to be red this year. These were here when we moved in.

 Impatiens seem to do really well here.

 I planted a pack of mixed color nasturtiums. Got all kinds of colors from the dark red, to orange and then to pale yellow. They did well for a while but seem to be dying back now.

The impatiens I got at a nursery where only this red a purple.