Friday's Hunt

Today I'm joining in Friday's Hunt, hosted by Eden Hills.  Today the categories are:  Starts with D, Week's Favourite, and Summer or Winter.

Starts with D
Today I was absolutely delighted to find that not all of my daylily plants are Stella d'oro. Don't get me wrong - I love the Stella d'oro daylilies - they are vibrant and cheerful and produce loads of blooms, so I'm happy to have some in my garden.  Sometimes, though, I find that they are overused, to the detriment of other daylilies, since there are so many lovely ones to be had.  I had noticed several clumps of daylilies here in the new gardens, but the first three clumps that flowered were all the same, and I figured that they would therefore all be that way.  Well, I was wrong!  Today, just in time for Friday's Hunt, and much to my surprise, I found three new daylilies blooming.  I don't know the names of any of these since I didn't plant them, but I'll be trying to find them in the coming days.

This first new daylily is a paler yellow than the Stella d'oro - it's more of a buttery yellow, like a pale custard.  It has a greenish centre and has narrower petals.

This second one is a peachy-apricot colour with a red band around the throat.  Quite attractive, and you can see the form is more like the Stella d'oro flower in shape.

This third flower may possibly be "Autumn Red" daylily.  It is taller than the others but has the typical daylily leaves and based on some pictures I found, I think that it fits the appearance for the Autumn Red.  I'm not sure about the underside of the three narrower petals though, which are yellow.

The colour is just stunning - so deep and rich, like velvet.

I have another plant-related "D" to share as well.  I have a plant that I was having trouble identifying, so I sent some pictures to my mother to see if she could help.  She's very clever about a great many things, but she is especially knowledgeable about plants.  Sure enough, she almost immediately suggested that it was a Daphne mezereum.  I had never heard of this plant, but it flowers in early spring (no doubt before we moved in) and then produces these stunning red berries.  It's extremely poisonous, but really pretty!  No worries - I won't be eating it.  Apparently the flowers are very fragrant, so I shall look forward to that aspect of this plant next year.

Week's Favourite
I had a really special moment this morning.  I was outside after hanging some laundry on the line and I noticed a group of chickadees at the feeder.  They didn't seem to mind my presence, so I got closer and closer to them, and managed to get a great picture of this one just above where the feeder is tied to the tree.  Shortly after this picture, I went inside and grabbed a handful of seed.  After some patience (and a sore arm from holding it out for so long), I was rewarded with a chickadee who alighted on my hand for a moment and took a seed.  It was just magical.  I'm not sure if it was this exact one, but it was one of a group of about 5 that were all at the feeder at the time.  I'm hoping to keep up with this habit so that they will get used to me.

Summer or Winter

Well, it's certainly summer here, and many of my recent blog posts seem to be showcasing the summer season - birds and blooms! Here's another exciting new sign of summer that I found this week. I have ripe blueberries throughout some of the woodsy areas of our new property!  They are the small, wild blueberries that are native to this area.  I have already eaten a few and they are delectable! Here's a picture looking down at the ground where you can see the ripe little bursts of blue throughout.  There are many berries still to ripen.

Here's what I picked today.  YUM!  A sure sign of summer, indeed!

I've got wild raspberries just starting to ripen as well - so lucky!