ruffles. purple on pink. star shaped open form. and did i say ruffles ? this one is in a new spot this spring. it was marked high on the keep this one list…

space – as they say in those scifi shows is the final frontier. and it is the same in gardens. sometimes that is difficult to remember when planting a new flower. and painful to remember when they crowd together and only a few bloom very well. so the task the last couple of years is fixing and avoiding that situation. this one Purple Satellite got a little more room to breathe and stretch out the last couple of years. the change has been worth it all 9 inches 22.8 cm of it …
this seedling comes from two favorite parent plants. it is combining their qualities. and if you can see the two seed pods just behind the flower then you can see that i like it so much that it too is soon to become a parent plant. first the seedling and then the parents…
and look. then step close. and look. often there are several things going on in a flower. as i walk up to it in the garden i see one look. and i am drawn to it. as i get closer the change in proximity change the look. visually the flower resolves into a different look. walking into most daylily gardens at distance the oranges and yellows stand out. walk in a few steps and the purples and reds come into perception. then the whites and other shades work their way to visual presence. step even closer and details of edges and eyes work their way to the surface. up close all sorts of details reveal themselves. this is true of all elements of nature. it would take too many flowers to do this here. and it would still be a poor duplication. try to sense it the next time you encounter a garden or any other natural phenomenon. we can try it in a small way here with one flower. looking at it across the room i see a purple, a lavender flower. stepping closer i see what i take to be a white center. stepping even closer i see it is not just a white center. it is more complex even if my senses first and over whelmingly see white. upon closer observation, yes closer, there is a rainbow like area. an area where there is no clear line where on hue stops and another starts. purple evolves to lavender evolves to the faintest hue of lavender evolves to the softest cream evolves to the softest faintest blush of yellow evolves to a faint shade of butter. no coma no line no warning of the next hue only a gentle fog that takes you from one spectrum to another…
every cross the genes are stirred. depending on the cross we can sort out if they were stirred, whisked, chopped, or blended. this cross is between a big skinny spider and pattern that itself while not big and skinny is still a bit of a star. the cross is Alien Stardust x Heavenly Zebra Stripes. this past summer two of five seedlings bloomed. so more surprises may be in store. part of this cross is to see if the pattern will show up in the seedlings…