Surprise Lilies for Starr Lillie

This is the sight all over east Tennessee right now.
One time I used one of my photographs of these lilies for my niece Starr Lillie,
without thinking about her middle name.

Now I think of her everytime I see them bloom.
Today is her daddy's birthday, but this post goes to Starr.

For those of you that don't understand why the name, I will explain.
In the spring the greenery shoots up with the daffodils, even appears to be a daffodil, but it never blooms. The greenery fades, along with the daffodils. Then late July or early August upshoots the flower stem, with buds aplenty.

Hope everybody is doing well, and has a blessed day.

Purple Coneflowers this morning

It was still early, so the shadows are more than I like in the photos.
But notice the difference in the flowers.
The top photo is a typical coneflower bloom.
The next one is more flat than Coneflowers usually appear.

The 3rd one is my favorite. I love how the petals are straight down.

As you can the roofers didn't kill all my plants close to the front of the house.

Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend. Happy Birthday to my friend Jan.

Beautiful morning

The yard is beginning to recover a little from the hail damage of 4/27/11. I have one bloom on two different hydrangeas. You can see just a little hail damage on the greenry.

My daylilies are going to bloom, but it appears that all my asiatic and oriental lily bulbs have been eaten by something since last year. I had a 12 ft, by 3 ft patch, and a single row about 20 ft long. Not one single sprout this year. I don't know what else other than some critter must have enjoyed the taste. Thank goodness they don't like daylilies.

The roofers came today and are hard at work.

Spring keeps getting better

Love birds are flying everywhere. They are fighting over the boxes, but I am sure soon they will have all that straightened out between them.My small purple wisteria. And my white wisteria on the arbor in the backyard. Someday it will be as large as the one we had in Halls, but it still has a way to go.

Spring has turned pink today

The Flowering Almonds have just started to open.
They will be gorgeous in a few more days.

See the spideweb below?

My hyacinth bulbs were transplanted from Rockwood.
I didn't even know what color they were going to be.
The bulbs were planted in the grass and the bulbs were just
about to nothing when we moved them. They are so pretty,
sure am glad we moved them home.

Spring is in the air--with Granny's daffodils

Granny Sorrells daffodils are my first real sign of spring is here.

Such a gorgeous day outside today,
and Granny's daffodils are getting thicker every year.

Dallas Star Daylily

This photograph was taken 2 days ago. This is my last daylily hurrah for the year.

I bought this one in 2009. The book says "Masses of star-shaped lavender pink blooms". For this to be a very divided plant this is great, specially late in the year like this. I can't wait to see this one as the plant gets larger. It is suppose to be a mid-season bloomer, but oh well, who is complaining about beautiful daylilies in September? Not me.

It is a beautiful day outside and I have less than 2 weeks until I start working dayshift instead of evening shift....think I will go outside and enjoy God's gorgeous world.

Coneflowers and a skipper

This photograph (taken in June) makes me realize how few Skippers I have seen this year. I usually have lots of different skippers. Other than the Silver Spotted Skippers I think this is the one skipper I have seen. Very unusual around my zinnias.

Love the dew on this one.
Or maybe from the looks of this, it was rain instead of dew.

You know me, I just have to get closer and closer.

And I do have a few white Coneflowers.

Working on my card order, which makes me go through photos and decided to take a pause and post these.

Old Fashioned Daylily

One of my very first daylilies. I do not know the name of this one, had it before I started buying daylilies. I have shared this one with so many people that it is all over East Tennessee now. Thought I had given them all away, but was glad to find 2 small clumps this year.

As an added note to previous post. I was with Audrey and Mason yesterday, I had printed the picture of Mason and he saw it. He told me that Mason was 'using the bathroom'. I told him, no not quite. He is such a joy to be with.

Today I am going to spend some time with Noah and daughter Wendy.

Scenery from the Smokies

Jimmy and I have very limited time together anymore. I arrived home late Saturday evening from the festival, and Sunday we had a chance to spend the day together without other family members. Jimmy and I just got in the car and drove, when we first met we did this every weekend. We talked about some of the times we got lost and of things we just came across by being lost. We did leave the house with an idea in mind of where were going this time, but still went down some memory lanes together along the way.This is the nicest scarecrow I have ever seen. Look at the way the blue has faded in the front. When printed that blue is vibrant.

There is a loop road (for some reason I think 8 miles, but that might not even be close) of Arts and Crafts that turns off the highway between Gatlinburg and Cosby. There are shops all along the road, some shops are close to each other, so some of time when you park you get to go through 5 to 10 shops before getting back in your vehicle. Some of the time, just one shop before you are driving again. I am including this information because I had a couple of questions since my earlier post this week.

All of the photographs in this post are taken at one stop along the road. These were all in the yard of an old house. The old house was the home of the Paul Murray Gallery , but when we first pulled up I had to grab my camera. It was the neatest little place. A man came out while we were in the yard and as he was leaving told us the artist was great. Seemed kind of odd, most people don't give out that kind of praise. Check out the link, this artist is awesome.

By the way, the photograph above and below are the same photograph,
the one below has been cropped. I like both.

This is just the barn door to a barn in the front/side yard.

If you follow my Photography By Leedra blog , the peony bloom was posted there earlier this week, just in case you are thinking you have already seen this photograph.

All but the barn door have been made into greeting cards already (including both the cropped and the non cropped version of the birdhouse),
with some of them already selling.

Common Columbine

I sat and photographed this common columbine bloom as the light changed,
but I like the first photograph the best.

Very slight difference in the 2nd and 3rd photograph.

I have 4 or 5 clumps that look like this.

Bleeding Hearts in full bloom

How many ways can a person photograph a Bleeding Heart plant?Way too many.....
Then I can't decide which one I really like.

This one is already in a card.

See just the slight difference in turn of the heart from the one above.

This one is early on, before they branched on out like the last photos.

Please pray for Dorothy's son and Darla's Father.