A Day at the Farm July 11, 2015

This is a Naked Lady.  Lycoris Squamigera is a bulb.  They prefer a slightly cooler climate, so I don't have great results with them.  I have a a dozen or so bulbs, but I usually only get a few blooms each year.  The greenery sprouts in late fall (and there is a lot of it) and dies away when the weather gets hot.  The flowers spring up straight from the ground with no surrounding greenery, hence the name.

Arrived early Saturday morning after spending the previous 3 days at the Hill Country Hyatt with mom, dad, Nan, and Beckett.

• Worked in the Orchard all day long.  It was so hot, but I swam in the pool many times throughout the day. I pulled weeds for a long time.  Things had really gotten out of hand.  Several weeks ago I cleaned out three flower beds in the Orchard, and I wasn't able to get them mulched before I left.  A lot of weeds had grown back!  I re-cleaned them out and cleared out several other beds.  Spread mulch in several spots where I cleared weeds.  Finally, I sowed zinnia seeds in the beds I cleared.
• I cut away dead blackberry canes from the blackberry patch at the back of the Orchard.  Yuck.  But looks much better.
• Sprayed herbicide throughout the Orchard, and parts of the driveway and Star Garden.
• The zinnia seeds I sowed several weeks ago are four and five inches tall now.  I thinned them out.
• The gingers are in full bloom right now.  So pretty.  And the Philippine Lilies are just about to bloom.
• Made a lemon ice box pie for Blake's pool party.  
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• Got up early Sunday morning.  Made a fruit salad for the party.  Watered the pots around the pool, in the Star Garden, and the small roses in the Rose Garden.  Picked the wild grapes growing on the barbed wire fence near the house.  Left by 8:30.  
• Made grape jelly after Blake's party.