My Excellent 48th Birthday!

Greetings Everyone!

It's the end of July, and of course that means that it's my Birthday.  Last year at this time, I had a new plant to talk about.  While I don't necessarily have new plants this year, there are a few noteworthy garden events to talk about.  But first, I'd like to tell everyone how my day went...

My cupcakes, books and all the great things that came
 my way on July 26th, My 48th Birthday

Dana woke me up at about 7am, to take my medications.  It was about an hour later than usual, but it was wonderful being able to sleep in.  I took my pills and slept until about 9am.  Waking up has never been my strong suit, so I grumbled around until about 10 am  when I had a breakfast of wonderful apple pancakes.  After Breakfast, Dana gave me my gifts.  I decided that I didn't want to open them though, as I wanted to see what the rest of the day had in store.  I did however decide to open cards from both my Aunt Susan, who sent me a most generous gift (Thank you Aunt Susie!) and from Dana's Mother, Eileen Pille.  Shortly thereafter we headed over to my Dads house.

My Dad had set up a plan with me to go over to his house around noon on Friday to have Cake and Ice Cream.  We arrived at noon to find that he'd made the coolest display of cupcakes, arranged with candles and candy letters to spell out "Happy Birthday Mike" and also two spares--one with a 4 and the other with an 8, to indicate my age.  These weren't normal cupcakes either!  They were German Chocolate cupcakes with the maple-pecan frosting that is so good on the standard German Chocolate Cake!  It was a really creative set up!  Dad gave me my card, and along with that, another very generous gift!  (Thank you Dad!!)

They lit the candles and sang to me, and while there were only about 15 cupcakes, I wasn't able to blow out all the candles on the first try!  I missed one!  Aargh!  After that, we sat around and talked about all sorts of things--gardening, putting in a place for a barbecue grill...a really nice visit. I guess we left there at about 1:30pm.

We had decided to go to the beach that morning.  It's something that I've managed to do every year on my birthday.  We went, and it was a great time!  I walked on the beach, got sun, but managed not to sunburn my feet like I did last time.  The beach was crowded, but the wind coming off of the ocean was cooler by far than it was in town, so it was easy to overlook the crowds with the nice weather.

We got home while it was still daylight, and I had the chance to water the garden.  Before I did though, I had the opportunity to take a few photos, and they are included below.

What I call "Hurricane Lilies"  but what are they?

After that I opened my presents from Dana.  I was very surprised to find a hardback first edition copy of Anne Rice's book "Merrick" was the first gift.  He'd discovered my Amazon.com wish list where I have a listing of hardback books that I want copies of to complete my collections by Rice, King, Barker, Lackey, et.al. to get me started on that road again of collecting first editions of my favorite authors.  While I'm not terribly sure I want to do this (It WAS hard to move all these hardbound books) it was a book I had not read other than by audiobook before, so I was pleased to get it.

My second gift from Dana was a copy of Xara Photo Editor.  Just three days ago I was complaining that I needed a new photo editor as ASee-DSee had run it's trial and I've been having a terrible time editing images.  I wanted something that could bring them to the computer from the camera directly.  I tried like heck to get the new software to work with my camera, but it won't.  I CAN edit the photos with the new Xara software though, and it has a nice 3D rendering part to it as well, so it too was a really nice gift!

another shot of the Hurricane lily

It was a Wonderful Day and I owe a great debt of thanks to my Dad firstly, who put a great deal of time and effort into those wonderful cupcakes he made me.  (Thank you Dad.  You REALLY DID make it a Birthday to remember by doing that.)  More big thank you's go out to Dana, who chauffered me around all day when I had really decided that I didn't want to go anywhere after we got home from Dads but he kinda pushed me, and of course to the other gifts and cards given by Aunt Susan, Mrs. Pille, and My son, Eric.  I don't know why I was so worked up about this birthday,  but I was, and I thank you all for helping me through it.

My final Birthday surprise came from the backyard on Friday night.  I've spent 2 years trying to get these hurricane lilies to bloom (that's what I call them), ever since we moved in to this apartment.  These lilies are kind of rare down here, but much more common in Florida.  I don't know what they are called, but they are so neat!!!  Can anyone help me truly identify them?  I was SO excited that I managed to get two of them to bloom!!!

Pink spider Lily

Additionally, another kind of Lily that I've been waiting to see bloom for over a year now has decided to take off.  It's a pink spider lily!

And finally, after more than a year of waiting, my Pride of Barbado's shrubs havestarted blooming!  Check them out below!

Yellow Pride of Barbados

Close up of Pink Spider Lily

That's it for now.  What a great day it was on Friday!

Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Interesting things happening.

I sort of lost my enthusiasm for gardening this year after I had a major disaster.  I planted a garden in my front yard, not realizing that the front would be too shady for anything to grow.  I spent a lot of money on it too, so when it didn't grow, it sort of sucked the enthusiasm that I had for gardening this year right out the window along with the disaster that the front yard became.

It's late summer now though, and many interesting things are beginning to happen in the backyard garden.  Things that have never bloomed for me before are starting to show up and show off their specialness to me and the rest of the folks in my apartment complex.  The Gardenia that was almost dead last year is FULL of buds, the Blue Plumbago is lush and growing, and my Burrotail cactus is doing some serious dangling out of the sides of it's container.  In other words, things are looking surprisingly good, even considering the heat and the lack of water we've had this year.

Perhaps the  most exciting thing happening right now is the blooming of lilies.  I've been trying to get these blasted Lilies that I transplanted from the front yard to the backyard to bloom for two years now and I am FINALLY seeing the fruits of my labor.  I don't have flowers yet, but I have flower stalks!  I believe these to be hurricane lilies, but I can't be sure since they are hanger-onners that didn't come with an ID tag.  Another completely unknown lily that I've been playing with has come to stalk as well.  It is also unknown with flowers that grow on a seperate stalk away from the original plant.  This stalk will grow with flowers on it, much like gladiola do.  No idea what that is called either!

Many things that I attempted this year didn't survive, despite the positivity I express right now.  I planted at least 25 snapdragons in yellow and pink, grown from seed that I planted with my Mom while she was in the nursing home before she passed away.  Not a single one of those survived the heat.  They were bred in the air conditioning, so I don't think that they had enough of a "hardening off" period after I brought them home. Additionally, I planted Gerber Daisies and Alyssum that didn't survive.

The Datura that I grew from seed last year that was supposed to be sold to a greenhouse was instead planted in the ground, part in the front yard.  Of the eleven that I planted up there, three still live.  The others were planted in a little area in the backyard and are doing very very well!  There are blooms on those almost daily it seems.  The Canna Lily Indica were also planted into the ground.  They are still alive, but not doing very well.  The require more water than the desert can provide, and will die off without a watering every three days.  There are about six plants remaining of those, and it's a real chore to keep them alive now that they are in the ground in back.

Thus far this year has seen yet another disaster, of sorts, for me.  I tried planting Texas Bluebonnets, the state flower mind you, and they DIED almost as soon as I got the in ground.  I love TX Bluebonnets, and they grow like weeds here in this state.  How could I NOT have success with them?  That was terribly discouraging.  I also planted another Pink Desert Sage along with it though, and it's beginning to take off finally after about three months of near dormancy.  I planted roses in pots this year also, but they burn up almost as fast as they bloom and never seem to look attractive.  I can't wait to put them in the ground so that I can transfer other things into the huge pots that the roses now occupy.  I have no place to put them though where they won't just die off!

As you can tell, this year has been a bit of a struggle for me.  I plan to keep at it though, and report a little more often.  Till next time....and there WILL be photos next time...