Daily pictures and chat from our garden
The old seedling bed is no more.
I have tucked the last of those seedlings into a more sunny area
and made room for hostas to go into that more shady area.
The last hosta cutting (which was an accidental pulling) is also planted in another shaded area. (I have pulled out some non-productive clematis.)
Now any more transplanting I get done in the townhome gardens this fall is bonus.
The last daylily of the season bloomed yesterday.
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.
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.
I say no to some very “good” stuff, so I can make time for better stuff. Sometimes there isn’t a choice, but when there is – think. Time is finite. Use your voice. Make that choice. And then … Rejoice!
Here’s some Rejoice in the Garden time
The daylilies at the townhome are almost all wrapped up. Fall is at the door. With the garden refresh pushed out to next year, it was time to come up with a plan to address the gardening challenges.
Here is a recap of the weekend.
Friday:
Two priorities were top of mind for me:
Saturday:
The three red daylilies, at the back of one garden area, that needed more sun, swapped places with the seedlings, at the front of another garden area, that kept getting stepped on, “weeded”, and blown apart.
We did our own labor for this gardening project. My husband, bless him, did the digging out part for the mature, deeply embedded lilies, and I did the pulling, dividing, moving, replanting part.
I set the garden up for a look I have always wanted out front – red daylilies next to and complemented by the white/cream in the Marque Moons, and in the spring preceded by the BlueBells clematis. The red daylilies we moved are mature, and, even divided, they are still hardy. They are also super recognizable as a plant, not needing to be plucked 😉 Fingers crossed.
Then (angels sing) the seedling bed. It is safely tucked behind the mature garden of daylilies, Blue Mouse Ears, and other “blue” hostas. Noone but us sees the seedling bed, unless they are right up to the house. Noone has to worry about accidentally stepping in the seedling bed. It is not anywhere close to where grass clippings would land and need to be blown. In the fall when shrubs need trimming and leaves need blowing, it will be ready to be cut back. In the spring, for leaf blowing, the lilies will still be in the ground. I am so hoping this works.
There is also a new configuration of another front area. 3 red daylily divisions now fill the space I emptied out last fall. To me, right now, it is not very exciting. It feels like landscaping. But it could be snazzed up a bit to cover up all that rock – maybe a few Blue Mouse Ears divisions. We’ll see. That will have to be another Friday night planning session.
With the initial year’s build out of the little house gardens wrapped up, thoughts turn to fall monitoring and clean up. The new gardens now just need continual weeding as the mulch bed settles in.
There were no gardens at the little house when we bought it, only grass and trees. Year 1 (last fall), while we were doing the reno on the inside, my husband put 5 daylilies in a front grassy area by the sidewalk. That’s where I began the build out this spring, using sedum transplants from an overgrown area in the townhouse gardens. Here’s what that front area looks like now.
It looks like all five daylilies survived, and the three sedum divisions are doing well. I can’t do much more there until we decide on next step home improvements – front porch, siding …
Putting mulch in all the garden areas somehow stopped the deer from munching. I don’t understand that, but my latest theory is that the deer might not care for the smell. I’m just thankful. As long as that continues to work I will stay that course.
I had considered hiring for the landscape build out, but I kept running into roadblocks. I’m happy now that happened. I am enjoying a new process I hadn’t even considered before – the lasagne style build out. Cardboard right on top of the grass, plants in soil, cover with 3-4″ mulch. The transplants, rootings, and cuttings all seem to be doing well with that method. I make sure to give them a good initial watering, and then follow up with watering as needed.
Yesterday’s post showed the completion of the garage to shed area build out for the year. There is a tree that needs to come out yet, and then the rest of the shed side can be finished next year.
As is my nature in projects, I do a test, observe results, and build in layers. That’s what happened on a larger scale in the back gardens. It went from all grass, to a 4′ x 5′ area on the shed side, to a 2′ addition on that side, to a 4′ x 8′ start on the garage side, then hopped the sidewalk to the back of the house where I put in 3 weigelia rootings, and then back to the garage side where I finished up yesterday. Here’s a few pics of the progression.
In the little house gardens, I decided to use grass paths. That will be way less maintenance, and we can just do one mower pass through there. Plus, call me daring, but the lawn at the little house is old, and full of up north flowering weedy things I actually like, so a bit of that along the path is something I liked the look of this year. Reminds me of the wildflower nature areas along the shore, in miniature.
Next year’s plans are to start a garden at the back of the yard and move the alpine currant and the weigelia rootings there. That will free up the current weigelia garden area. If I then make a parallel garden up by the house along the second long downspout, those two garden areas would flank the area where we sit out. I envision hosta and daylily tiered hedges there. I love that combo, and there is just enough, but not too much sun there to nurture both. The mulch should also help.
There is also a thought floating around in my brain to start a sedum hedge on the side of the house, but that might have to be a “slow to go” project. I am no spring chicken, and a couple advil were needed after yesterday’s build out work.
All this depends on the deer continuing to leave the mulched gardens alone. They do seem to be eating the apples from the apple trees, and that’s great. Less for me to clean up.
So at the little house, year 2, initial build out, there is now monitoring left this fall, and at some point, daylily and hosta greens cutback. I plan to leave the sedum standing until spring, as a test, to see if the birds and bunnies enjoy that winter snack.
Space is something I have very little of in the townhouse gardens. It is rare I can add a new plant without it looking crowded. I love the look of daylilies tucked in between hostas, or is it hostas tucked in between daylilies?
However, I made a tough decision this last week. Daylilies gotta go. I know – what? Here’s the deal. The new landscape maintenance team at the townhouse is awesome at blowing cut grass and fallen leaves out of the rock. Really awesome. Really really awesome. The gardens all have rock. There is a lot of collateral damage lately. Mostly to the daylilies. Why have daylilies when they don’t survive for their day? So I made a decision. A lot need to go. Up north. This fall.
What holds up way better against the blowers? Small to medium hostas. I have plenty of those, too. Maybe I should divide a medium-sized hosta and put it in this space.
I have mixed feelings about moving the sedum. They are such a resilient plant, and super easy to propagate if they do get damaged. Literally if a stem gets broken, I stick it in dirt, it roots, and I have a new sedum plant.
I really like the fall color sedum provide as well as the 12 month interest. The pollinators LOVE them and the bunnies eat the unbroken stems all winter. When the bunnies do that, it also makes my spring cleanup easier. But for some reason, once the stems are broken, the bunnies don’t seem to have as much of an appetite for them. Very different from the sunflower!
I have already brought sedum plants and sedum cuttings up north and they are doing well with the mulch around them. I suppose where I’ll land is that if any of the Autumn Joy sedum get severely broken this fall, I’ll move those plants up north right away and let them sleep there. Then next summer I can take cuttings and start building a row to make a hedge – maybe on the farthest long gutter downspout.
I am being cautious about bringing up plants that are under the Linden tree. There are tree roots, yes. But more concerning are the Japaese beetle bugs. They lay eggs in the soil. I don’t know if the eggs would survive the move, but I really don’t want to give them the opportunity.
So unfortunately, the Marque Moon daylilies, many of the hostas, the pink Asian lilies… Will all stay.
But the hostas outside of that area, and maybe a PurpleD’Oro need dividing and will go up north.
Maybe yet this fall, but more likely next spring.
It’s a lot.
So that’s the plants, so far, that are going up north in the next wave. That’s enough digging for me. It’s a lot of work to dig them out, but that’s only the first part. They have to be protected for transport, the holes have to be dug in the new garden to accommodate divisions, not just plopping in the whole existing plant, next there’s soil amendment, cardboard, mulch, and then watering.
That may be enough for this fall. I’m already having a realization that I will fill more space than I planned, but hey! If I plant along the long downspouts and put in mulch, then my husband doesn’t have to remove the downspouts anymore to mow – right?
Could be this whole area, or 2/3, with a grass area in the middle for lawn chairs. It’s bigger than it looks …
We’ll see.
Susan's Daily Garden 