If you haven’t picked up your Johnson County fair lemon shakeup or chocolate milkshake, finish reading your favorite newspaper (that’s us!) while drinking your morning cup of coffee, then head out to the fairgrounds.
If you want a lazy Saturday morning, you can always wait until tonight to enjoy a steak dinner and watch the fair’s closing fireworks.
Don’t forget to mark from 12:57 p.m. to 3:48 p.m. Aug. 21 on your calendar, or exactly 2:24 p.m., for maximum viewing of the partial solar eclipse in Johnson County.
The total phase of this solar eclipse is not visible in Indiana, but it can be observed here as a partial solar eclipse. It’s going to be a spectacular sight as the moon covers a large portion of the sun.
I recently had the opportunity to visit another impressive sight in Franklin — the Toney Lollipop Garden. Shirley Toney has more than 350 different Daylily cultivars, which were in peak bloom, planted amongst Agastache, coneflowers, Sedum, phlox, Dianthus, lavender and many annuals.
It was obvious why their garden has been featured as an American Hemerocallis Display Garden. When 77-year old Shirley and her husband James moved to their Franklin home eight years ago, Shirley transplanted 165 Daylilies — which has more than doubled in cultivars.
Shirley joined the Indiana Daylily-Iris Society in 2000 and served on the board for nine years. Two of Shirley’s registered Daylilies include Hemerocallis “Lollipop’s First Creation” and “Lollipop’s Whiskers.”
Lollipop Garden was named after their Persian cat.
In case you’re yearning to know her secret for growing Daylilies, Toney noted that she alternates annually between 6-24-24 granular fertilizer, then the next year applies a five- to six-month slow- release fertilizer, such as 18-6-12.
I jotted a few of my favorites — the first Daylily is an orange double-bloom that Dave Kirchoff introduced and named after Shirley in 2014. Others include “Sunday Sandals,” “Saved Soul,” “Halloween Masquerade” and Lilium “Pretty Woman.”
