Ann, what I'm doing over there is a WHOLE LOT OF WEEDING and that's an understatement. Me and Kim started going over there this past March to plant the club plants we auction off in Oct. Well, all of his beds (around the outside and in them) were just overrun by weeds. Can't fertilize daylilies without fertilizing the weeds. And of course the weeds grow a lot faster and taller when they are fertilized. We offered to come weed, so about once a month for 2-3 days in a row we would go weed all the beds. Anyway, longer story not as long, we came over in September and the club bed had weeds taller than me in it. It's the club members responsibility to come weed and no one had done it since about May. I didn't go do it because I was in the middle of a breakup and having to move and all the stuff that goes along with it. So anyway, me and Kim (who is my best friend by the way) went over to see Laura and James since they had been worried about me and saw how the club bed was overgrown and ended up going over the next week to weed. Not long after that James emailed asking if we would come over and help. He was trying to get all his pots weeded and in some kind of order (they need to be condensed down to one area and reorganized after things get shipped out). There are certain grasses and weeds here that just love to grow through the ground cover so we weed that as well. Then he needed help getting daylilies washed and soaked to be shipped out. His son helps with this, but he has some health issues and can't do it sometimes. Another lady used to help, but she had some kind of surgery done. Then it was time to dig up clumps and divide. We dug up about 100 clumps and divided them into single fans and potted them up and organized them in alphabetical order so he could keep better track of them. That was just the 2011 collections he bought. Then we divided what was in his hybridizing area and if there were older daylilies that had been in bigger pots we divided them as well. Now it's back to weeding again.
James is 75 and can run circles around me some day, but things can get behind if you're not careful. If anyone has listed things on the lily auction you know how much time it can take to post with the photos and descriptions especially if you list as much as James does so it takes a lot of his time doing that. Just listing and shipping is a fulltime job in itself. In our area with it being warm most of the year, any type of gardening is a year round job.
It is a win-win situation for us all. He gets help and can actually take some time to go hunting and whatever else he wants to do. I get a place for my daylilies, James gives me daylilies, I get fed daily
, and most of all it gives me a purpose. If it wasn't for my daylilies and the work we do over there I would be sitting at home with nothing to do and depressed.
