Saturday, July 14, 2018

Close Encounters of the Day Lily Kind

My husband and I had the pleasure of visiting a day lily garden owned by Tom and Kathy Rood this past Wednesday.  We are near the height of day lily bloom here in upstate New York, and we were fortunate enough to be in the area when this commercial operation was open.

Tomorrow, I will show you some of my day lilies as part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

For today, the Roods rule.  After we take a stroll, I have a little story for you.

Such beautiful grounds.

Come into the shade, shall we?

The Roods were friendly and knowledgeable- they immediately offered us bottled water, and invited us to eat some of the mulberries ripening on their trees.

Mulberries.

Alas, this White Perfection was sold out, because I was ready to buy it.

This Lemon Supreme was.

When we got to talking to the Roods, they asked us where we were from.  Upon hearing that we lived just outside Johnson City, New York, Tom mentioned that he had worked for GE for several years back in the 1960's.   Yes, just blocks from where I live.

And 100 miles from where he now operates a day lily farm (it is well worth the visit, by the way.)

I had to tell Tom that the former GE plant was a fixture of my neighborhood at one time, but (rented by another defense contractor, BAE Industries at the time) it was ruined by a flood in 2011, and demolished in 2016.  It took months to demolish this grand building, once the largest wood framed structure in the United States (as my regular readers know all too well.)

The grounds remain vacant, a former power plant (Gowdy Station) Tom also remembered in the distance.  Now, only the geese work the property.  I showed him a picture (not this picture) on my phone. 

I have blogged about the building he worked in so many times.

So many bittersweet times.

I still wonder what will happen to the structure I once called the NakedBuilding.

Wouldn't it be something if someone turned it into a daylily farm one day?

Nah....

Day 14 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge #BlogBoost


7 comments:

  1. Enjoyed your post and loved the pictures. I really liked the Lemon Supreme and White Perfection. The White Perfection sort of reminded me of Stargazers. So pretty. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. How pretty! I love visiting farms (even though we live on a small one ourselves). The White Perfection definitely lives up to its name - it's perfect!

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  3. The Roods sound like neat people.Enjoyed your post and the photos of the day lilies. I love mulberries -- used to have three trees laden with them. :) Sorry about the demolished building. Losing fond and familiar places is difficult. I've missed your posts on them but know the feeling.
    Thanks for posting,
    Amy

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  4. Oh, my word, those flowers are sooo beautiful!
    Went and read your posts about that grand old building. Another piece of history remains only in pictures and memories . . .

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  5. If only... Do you have any influence to make that happen? xoxox, Brenda

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  6. I'm so glad you got to enjoy this garden. We visited the first time when we were in the area for my sister's wedding and then again in 2016 when were up in New York visiting family. It's one of the two places that got us hooked on daylilies. One of my favioret daylilies 'Sweet Seneca Butterflies' was hybridized by Mrs. Rood.

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