Happy Spring 2024! Gardening season has begun in earnest here. A few weeks ago my forced daffodils started blooming. They are now wrapping up, and tonight will be their first night outdoors. Their greens need to fade back before I can cut them back and plant them in the ground. Location TBD. Here are the last of the blooms.
The sedum I left out for the birds and bunnies are all cut back, the daylilies, sedum, tulip, and crocus are all coming up, and the Bluebells clematis has buds. Coffee grounds (to prevent slugs) are already on half of the garden areas. It might not be official spring, but spring has sprung in Minnesota. No question about it. And the mosquitoes got the memo too. 10 minutes of sitting out by the little gas fire pit, and the first one made an appearance. Where is that bin of repellents? Better take stock now.
Besides the daylilies being done for the year and the linden starting to look very fall-ish, and the sedum making me smile, I feel like yet more changes are a-coming.
Sometimes children – grown and tiny bring you along on their journey. So it is that, besides the cabin build-out up north, an enormous gardening opportunity has presented itself, one that, frankly, is even more than I would tackle alone. But the beauty is that it is not mine.
I find myself astonished that I am looking forward to NOT being the owner. What is going on?
And who was it that looked at me oh those many years ago and said, “Don’t let those daylily seeds go to waste! You know you can save them and plant them!” Yes, indeed. In addition to some going up north and maybe some to the historic garden, I think they may look beautiful in your new gardens 🥰
It appears the the hot pepper by the transplanted coneflower has become less efficient in repelling bunnies. Their fair share 😉
And at the historic cemetery it seems that the wild turkeys may think some of the transplanted irises are theirs. Or some sort of wild turkeys at least 😂
Happy Labor Day! (In the US) The unofficial end of summer. Soon school buses will be picking kids up again, harvest activities will be planned, and gardens will pick up speed toward eventual winterizing.
But for today, we are enjoying some early morning time outside and I am increasingly enjoying the new daylily seedling bed. It is holding up well and encouraging me to get the hostas out of the other side with very similar exposure.
She is Tender Love, and has been added to my absolute favorites list. I would like a few more, but I am going to stay steadfast on my “no buy for the townhouse” decision. Things are far too unsettled. Maybe in the future.
Yesterday I also planted the new daylily seedlings bed. I have to tell you, it was a grunt it out experience and after it was done, I did not feel exhuberant. I felt a bit down. It was weird.
But this morning after it weathered a night (notice the hot pepper piece to deter diggers 😂) I am feeling much better about it. I planted the stunted coneflower in the middle to give it a year to grow. Then it can move, or not. (We have gotten a lot of donations for the historic cemetary fence garden. It is almost full.). But more on that in an upcoming post. Hint: I bought a bag of 50 daffodils to deter the moles.
I have one more potted transplant to get into the ground. It is a piece of one of the Elegans. I accidentally pulled it off when I was cleaning up a few weeks ago.
The two giant Elegans I was looking for a home for are eventually going to my Dad who is already making plans for them. Remember it is my Dad who got me into hostas? So I am feeling super good about them going to a loving home. He has space, and shade.
And I now have my plan to get more hostas more into the shade and more daylilies more into the sun. Next weekend. Because we are headed to 100°F this weekend. This girl has her water and watch hat on.
Last Saturday was weeding day at the historic cemetery. It felt awesome to be at that point! With the rock to mulch conversion done and the iris bed built, we now can weed, water, and watch. For this year 🤔
Back home on Saturday it was “remove clover, forget-me-nots, and dried leaves and blooms” day. Sunday was transplant day. And then yesterday … the gardens at home also went to weed, water, and watch status.
I was undecided on the pollinator created daylily seedling placement in our home gardens. Part of that decisioning was that I had eight new daylilies in my cart from my favorite seller. I knew they would be healthy, and strong, and potentially bloom next year. I was excited to add them to our gardens and share their beauty. But I was having a momentary lapse in judgement. With yesterday’s (yet another) blowzilla incident, I realized those daylilies in that cart deserve a better home. So, I have abandoned that hope, and will return to a “no new monetary investment” approach.
It is a “sigh” moment. I wish it were different. We certainly pay quite a premium for the blowzilla service. (You would be shocked.) It should be a delight experience. But it is not. So only the pollinator created daylily seedlings will go in this fall. No new already named daylilies will be added. And, unlike the happy feeling of weed, water, and watch at the historic cemetery, the weed, water, and watch feeling in our own gardens is a bit of a disappointment.
But alas, there are other avenues to explore and options to consider. You never know.
Today I leave you with second to last daylily bloom in the garden this year. She is a good representation of how I feel about the townhouse situation – a bit frayed. But she is still lovely and beautiful and resilient. And, in the future she may have children. Just not new neighbors.
Today was transplanting day. I had thought about it long enough. It was time for “Do”.
First up, this beauty moved. Poor thing. Believe it or not, she is a coneflower. She needs more sun.
She will either go to the historic cemetery garden (pending approval) or to the new daylily seedling bed. (More on that later). In her place, initially, went the Praying Hands hosta, but later the Praying Hands hosta moved and the Patriot hosta went in the old coneflower spot. I didn’t think I would get to moving the Patriot hosta today, but Yeay! Now the Patriot hosta is in the shade most of the day, tucked in by the Weigelia and up front with the red daylilies, white-ish Marque Moon daylilies, and Bluebells clematis (which, by the way, do rebloom). Pulling out that Patriot hosta was very hard. I am probably going to feel it tomorrow, but It was burning up in the sun year over year, and, recently someone’s dog was finding it interesting 😞
Here she is in her new location.
Next up was an un-named hosta. I used to know the name but I can’t remember it off the top of my head, so it shall be named “un-named”. It was one of my very first purchased hostas. I bought it from a lady who was having a plant sale out of her yard. It has been in the spot I pulled it from today for at least 15 years, and probably longer. It was fading. It needed new digs, and some dividing. She went to the middle back of one of the patio area gardens, in back of the old seedling bed.
The Praying Hands hosta was there for a year, but did not thrive in that spot. Last fall, we moved the Praying Hands hosta back from the little house up north (that we sold) and plopped her there. Poor thing. She will do much better quietly going about her business in a less visible role, in the spot where the peach daylily used to be.
The peach daylily, poor thing, languished in the shade when we had our smaller Traeger, and this year she did not bloom at all in the shade of the bigger Traeger. She needed to get back in the sun. She got to go to the spot where “un-named” hosta was. I’m thinking she will think that is “just right”.
And … 5 year old South Seas daylily seedlings got her chance to have more sun. She now sits between South Seas and tall cream colored daylily, in the spot where Patriot hosta used to be. I hope she blooms next year. If not, up north she goes, where she runs the very high risk of being deer yummies. Just sayin’. Bloom please.
Still left is the potential new seedling bed. It would be here.
That area was supposed to be the pepper bed but believe it or not, the peppers didn’t like it. So daylily seedling bed it might be.
The other option is to put them in with mature daylilies. And give them one year to bloom.
(They are unintentional crosses, so that is less likely. Now that my intentional crosses are going to seed I may stop harvesting any other seeds, to keep the daylilies from expending extra energy. All up in the air this fall. First I need to see how the intentionally crossed seeds perform.)
And last year’s seedlings? They will be tucked into the front of the old seedling bed to see if they can get a bit bigger with more sun. They are still pretty small.
But that is for another day. I am being wise. I have to work tomorrow. The seedlings bed decisions can wait for another day, or week.
Susan's Daily Garden 