Category: Approaching fall in Minnesota

What about the sedum?

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.

Amur Maples 2021

I would know them anywhere. Their spring flowers have a delicious scent, and their fall seed pods are beautiful. They are also invasive. The seeds, if they don’t get eaten by the squirrels, sprout seedlings each spring by the hundreds, maybe thousands – not kidding. I pluck them out of the gardens by hand each year. Each year there are 7+ buckets. Hours of work.

We have the one at the townhouse, and … we have an Amur Maple at the little reno house up north.

What to do? I think it needs to go. It is scrubby, about 4′ tall, and leans like crazy. Nevertheless, I will be sad on removal day.

The replacement will be birch transplants. MUCH more manageable.

Recycle?

As part of deciding to let our gardening “start” up north naturalize, I am trying to decide if we should pull the steel raised bed garden frames and use them in the garden at the new (to us) house.

There is currently no garden or landscaping at all at the new house.  It is unusual for me to consider a no garden yard, but I’m excited at the possibilities.  There are both sunny and shade covered areas so my current style of sticking mostly to hostas, daylilies and sedum is the plan.  Some grading will be needed, as there are gutters but no downspouts – another unusual idea for me – but I have read that some folks think it is better to even forego any gutters and just grade and rock away from the house.  For us, the gutters will stay, but whether or not downspouts will be part of the long-term plan is not certain.

During this interesting year, it is very hard to find contractors who are not swamped.  People are apparently keeping quite busy with home projects.  The earliest we can get a contractor out to grade and rock is mid-October.  That means … no landscaping up by the house this year.  What to do?

I have already ordered 9 distinctly different daylilies for the new house (couldn’t resist, and I want them in the ground this fall …).  They are all ones I don’t have in our current gardens.  My pending decision?  I’m thinking of pulling the raised bed garden frames from the overgrown – ahem “naturalized” – gardens up north in September, and starting a border garden along the back edge of the lawn at the new house.  Last year we also bought recycled tin (from an old barn roof) for projects up north, and I could continue the metal vibe in the new house garden next spring if I still like it.

So, being true to us, potentially reusing the unneeded frames, testing on a smaller scale before going wider, and using the recycled tin if we like the metal look down the road are all wins.  Now we’ll see exactly how much work it is to implement.  Maybe there could even be a “take 2” on the hugelkulture test?

All just on paper right now.  Implementation is a month out.  Lots of time to consider all options.

Meanwhile, here, the Rainforest Sunrise hostas (some of my faves) are starting to get their scapes, a lovely red with purple flowers.  Out front they are overcrowded.  They need to come out of there this fall and be divided.  Maybe go in the corner of the yard at the new house, where it gets afternoon shade?

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Right on the edge of crisp

August is one of those months – the daylilies wrap up, but the hostas are super full.  The days are shortening, but the morning air is right on the edge of crisp – perfect!  The crickets sing and the monarchs start showing up much more, but the robins are scarce again.  The feeling starts to turn the corner into fall, but with plenty of warm days still on the horizon.

I have noticed once again I don’t have a lot of mid to late August blooms in the garden.  I need to do something  about that.  I have also noticed I have plenty of weeding and trimming to do in the garden after a couple very busy past weekends, and I need to do something about that.

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A few weeks ago I accepted a more challenging role at work, and at the same time we started to really think about how we want to downsize again and work on some more bucket list items.  This whole year and all its events have brought priorities into sharper focus.  So my thoughts are turning again to simplifying the things we can so we are able to amplify the things that nurture us.  It is once again a time of both weeding out and filling in.

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Division – of the good kind

The last red daylily of the 2020 season in our garden bloomed yesterday.

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Other daylilies have already wrapped up or are wrapping up.

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Our attention remains on their beauty, both this year and in future years, and also turns to the potential of the gardens around us.  It is time to start planning to “dig and divide” – a good thing.

Friday a fellow gardener and I walked the association with the purpose of planning the plantings for the final projects this year.  In that discussion, the topic came up of what divisions from our garden will go to other gardens.  My friend has a saying,  “We garden for others”.   There is wisdom in that perspective.  Gardening  fills our mind and gives us hundreds of happy hours each year, and part of that is because it gets us thinking of what others may enjoy.

This year we are dividing some of our “Blue Mouse Ears” from the garden here and giving them new homes when we rehab the Welcome Garden.  Another hosta, an “Elegans” is being divided and going into a neighboring homeowner’s garden.  Our garden stays fit and trim, our association’s landscaper does the heavy lifting of digging and dividing 😊, and if I make room, I get the opportunity to consider what new (ahem daylily) additions make sense to introduce next year 😊😊.

 

 

 

Turning colors and time to start trimming

While we were up north we literally watched the leaves start to turn yellow.  Each day there was more and more yellow.

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Now back at the townhouse, the linden is turning more and more yellow.  Soon we will have a carpet of leaves in both places.

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While we were up north the last 2 daylily buds also bloomed.   I have already harvested our first seeds – from the ‘South Seas’ daylily – just one pod.  While we wait for the other seed pods to mature, it will be time to start trimming.

I take about six weekends to hand cut everything back.  This weekend it will be all the asian lily stems.  Our friend the bunny has put a hurt on a bunch of them, so literally some of them are just stems.

What a wonderful spring and summer garden we’ve had! Lots to remember! Now, while we enjoy fall, it’s also our time to prepare well for next year.

Fall additions, wave two. Seasons changing.

A week or so ago we made another trip to the local garden store.  4 additions and a replacement came home with us – two lavender plants, and two more chocolate colored sedum, plus another ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ hosta.  It is my favorite time of year to plant, when I know with almost 100% certainty what survived the previous winter, and where I have gaps going into next year.

The only daylilies that are still blooming are the ‘Marque Moon’, and they are wrapping up.  That area needed some fall interest.  The two new sedum are just what that area needed.  They are babies now but will fill the space within the next few years.

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The two lavender tucked under the weigelia, right along the path, where I can brush by the leaves and enjoy their scent.  I hope they survive the winter and return.  They are zone 4 so we’ll see.

In the progression, as the daylilies are winding down, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum are now taking the stage.  I know, they are kind of like ‘Stella D ‘Oro’ – everybody knows them – but I absolutely love them.  Over the years I  have propagated many new sedum from our original ‘Autumn Joy’ plants, which were a gift from my Dad.  I learned to do that at first because we had a fearless bee chasing Irish Terrier (Darby) who broke off stems in his efforts to eradicate our entry garden of those “buzzing menaces” – lol.  From those poor broken stems I rooted sedum plants that within three years formed a hedge!  That hedge got too big and I had to gift some, but now, years later, our garden boasts a fall tapestry of their beautiful form and changing color, woven in throughout the landscape.  Here’s their first efforts at color morphing this year.

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The garden also has an abundance of seed pods.  The daylilies are full.  The ‘Purple D ‘Oro’ are crazy full this year.

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I think I will have quite an April seedling project coming up.

And of course, the weather has been INCREDIBLE!  Cooler temperatures soothe my soul.  The crisp air renews me.

I already miss the “Wow!” of the new daylily blooms, but to everything there is a season.  There’s still a lot of garden left.

Forward

It seems that “Poof! There went the daylilies!”  Not totally, but last week started a big wind-down.  There were lots of “lasts”.  Each day we said good-bye to some of our favorite blooms for the year.  The ‘Just Plum Happy’, the ‘South Seas’, the peach daylily, the ‘Hush Little Baby’.  I miss them already.  Even the hosta blooms are winding down and some of the leaves are already starting to look tired.

This is the time of year when looking at the garden could make me sad.  I have to discipline myself, to regroup, be thankful, and get my thoughts on how to make the garden even better next year.  And we are adding little touches already.  More on that in the next few days.

Yesterday morning I committed to our garden donations.  The two Aureomarginatas that are 5′ wide each deserve better than the crowded space they have overgrown into.  If we ate hosta greens I would keep them, but we don’t.  I may save a small division, but that would have to go up north and be put in chicken wire.  Much more joyful is the thought of them maybe being divided to share with many and absolutely being primary specimens in neighboring gardens.

I also decided to harvest the daylily seeds again this year, and they are plentiful.

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Above are the ‘Purple D’ Oro’ but almost every daylily formed seeds this year.  (The peach daylily is our exception.)  Those seeds will be my early April seedling project next spring.

Today we were cleaning the garage, going through things.  Some things with many fond memories were put aside to donate.  We don’t use them anymore, but we know others who are very excited about receiving them and will really enjoy them.  So it is with the garden.  We grow, we enjoy, we improve, we share, sometimes we pass things on, all with the hope the joy will continue.  We can be thankful.  We can remember fondly.  We can continue to move forward and improve.