Category: Asian lilies

Back to it

I took a couple weeks off garden work when our 2nd grandson was born. Yesterday was “get back to it” day. 4 1/2 buckets of clover and forget-me-nots left the gardens and it looks great again.

As the Asian lilies wrap up

and the Elegans hostas stand in the background

The Blue Mouse Ears are starting to steal the show

The big Just Plum Happy daylily is getting it’s scapes

The daylily seedlings are starting to outgrow the seedling box and are gradually getting exposed to the wider world

And the lavender from the old seeds is standing guard as a deterrent to bunny munching

Oh yes, it’s a thing

The coneflower in the back is completely gone, and this is what remains of the one in front.

But it is a cute little one, right?

Note to self – buy more lavender seeds next year.

While We Were “Out”

Our second grandson was born last Friday! That whole week was a non-gardening week. We absolutely were in the gardens, but with our two year old grandson. I watched with sheer joy as he followed the garden path wearing his cute little camo Crocs, pausing to pick up rocks, and dump them on other plants. Wait!!! What is happening here? Has my brain turned to Grandma mush? Perhaps.

While we were “out”, the daylilies got scapes. The South Seas is the one that first caught my eye,

but the Purple D’Oro and the Just Plum Happy are not far behind

We are getting some bonus clematis blooms.

And the Asian lilies are already in mid-seaon.

The hostas deserve a blog post of their own (coming up).

Baby is doing very well, 2 year old grandson already has our next “date” on our calendar, and somewhere in between work, building out the cabin up north, and grandchildren time, I need to pull all the forget-me-nots that are done blooming and are going to seed.

If I catch them early on in the seed casting process, I get just the right amount to bloom two years out (they are biennial).

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It has been a bonanza time for me in the various gardens. I have an oft-used saying – “Talk is not do”. I have soooo been in the flow of “do” I had no momentum to “talk” much. On the blog at least – lol.

The gardens at the townhouse are starting to approach their very full time. The spring blooms, even including the clematis, have wrapped up. The pine trees candled out, the linden is about to bloom, the weigelia is blooming, and the first hosta is blooming.

The “clover”, which I think is Yellow Wood Sorrel, has lived it’s usefulness as blooms for the bees, and has been plucked for the season. The bunnies do not eat those flowers like they do the white clover.

The Asian lilies are about to bloom.

There are now 20 daylily seedlings sprouted from last year’s pollinator created seed, all of which will need a home in the seedling bed this fall. The daylily seedlings from last year are all growing, and the 2-5 year daylily seedlings (that didn’t go to the little house up north we owned for a couple years) all need to go to the (camping/hunting) land up north, or to the historic cemetery fence garden. (The daylilies in the iris bed appear to be bunny food there.).

At the land up north, the camper will be moved next weekend to make way for trees to be cut, ground to be levelled, class 5 to be laid down, and the incoming shed to cabin conversion to be moved into place. Yikes! Here we go again with a build out. I am told that from the (shed) cabin I will have the view to the garden that I requested. I may have some thinking to do on a strategy to keep the ferns out. Plastic may be deployed. We shall see. One thing is for certain – the “I wish I had that money back” steel raised bed gardens with expensive black dirt on top of hugelculture turned to ferns 😂 is out. It has to be, as that is where the camper will be for a year or two while retired hubs builds out the interior of the (shed) cabin.

What else is going on?

The long fence garden at the historic cemetary is getting a rock to mulch makeover. The old rock is slowly being hand-picked and removed to a pile for donation, and bags and bags of beautiful mulch are replacing the rock. Sweaty work for all, and no lawn chair relaxing like at the townhouse, but wow! Looks awesome! Many hands are at that work through the week, which is absolutely heartwarming! We garden for fun, but also for our neighbors, and I seriously have lost track of the number of people who are complementing as they walk by. The other ladies have exactly the same types of stories.

Little by little. The hostas are all now protected, as well, and the work is beginning to finish and fill in the remainder of one side.

The iris bed at the historic cemetary will be a fall “stretch” opportunity. Those can go into the fence garden too, little by little. And we keep getting offers of divisions as donations. All in good time and proper sun/shade planting. That garden has such potential, with all the offers of divisions donations, to be a wall of beautiful season-long perennials.

We do have an unfamiliar to me weed there. I downloaded an app to try to identify it, but what the app is returning doesn’t seem right. It is a clumpy upright weed with bulblets. This coming week, on Juneteenth, a plant expert is coming to the historic mansion for the annual rain garden consultation, and I hear they can identify weeds. I plan to ask them. For now, we are plucking that harvest. I doubt they were intentional. See below for my rationale – this dandy is growing between the sidewalk and the base of the retaining wall.

What else?

We miss the front tree, kind of. The daylilies we transplanted from the shade to the sun last year are loving the full sun. We will wait to see what the association does – replace the tree or not.

And the rain gardens at the historic mansion are so full I have just put that on hold while I work on the fence garden at the historic cemetery. All that really can be done there right now is weed the perimeter, which a few of the ladies are doing when they have time. Those will be a next year and following deeper dive. They do have potential, but will be on more of a late fall and very early spring cadence for those opportunities.

The jalapenos at the townhouse had a bit of a squirrel issue which is being resolved, and I am rooting 3 wiegelia cuttings and some clematis cuttings just for kicks. We’ll see if they take.

So that is the “gardens all over” catch up.

Things may be a bit spotty as we are also on the one month watch and hang close to town ask before grandbaby two arrives. You know how that goes – grandbabies trump gardens for sure! Gotta keep our priorities straight 💓

Their fair share, continued

When you “contract” with the baby bunnies to start doing garden cleanup.

“Will work for food”

They are “trimming” the stalks left from the Asian lilies. The Asian lilies finished blooming a month ago. I deadhead (most) and leave the stems to build strength for next year and then die back. Hopefully the bunnies didn’t get at them too soon. Time will tell.

Bunimous has decided

Bunimous (named because he is dinosaur sized as rabbits go – haha 😂) decided which Asian lily blooms I should have in a vase. He must have started his munching but then left a broken stalk for me. Thanks Bunimous!

In the background is the daylily seeds result for this year – one for sure. I think the other two are grass – I think. Those two will go up to the camping land in a spot that gets enough sun and does not totally dry out. If they surprise me, AWESOME! If not, they will be in good company. More to come on that and change of seed soil in future blogs.

The asian lily below just bloomed. That plant is one that fell in the category of “tulip” syndrome. It bloomed strong year one, faded year two, and is now “iffy,” for blooming each year. Like the faded tulips, I leave it in the ground just to see if it will do anything. And it provides early greens when the garden is first coming up in spring.

The clematis could be trimmed, but hey! It covers the boring bare rock 🙂

Forward

The roofs, gutters, fascia project work is all done. It was a long month of very much activity around here, which was a good thing, but I am glad it’s done. Yesterday we put the pictures back on the walls inside (it was recommended to remove them during the roof replacement). Then we moved outside and started really assessing the gardens – what needs love this season.

The gardens here will be refreshed this fall. And we know a bush out front will be removed to make way for the new gutter drain system. So not too much extra work in the garden this season will be smart until we know what all that looks like. But we can do a few things. A little fun. Adding the garden decorations back, planting a gift of zucchini plants in a pot (we can’t grow veggies in the ground per townhome regulations), moving the green shamrock to a shady spot out front, and maybe, just maybe, a couple coneflowers to fill in a bare spot in the back garden. Hey, they were at the farmer’s market and they, how does the saying go, chose me ☺️

So, we put one foot in front of the other, and say thanks for the weekend of time to finally relax.

The clematis are now done blooming, as is the weigelia, and next up are the asian lilies. This is what some looked like a few days ago.

I remember when the garden out back was pink and purple asian lilies and (purple) Siberian irises – 19 years ago. The Siberian irises were a bit too crowding in the greenery department, and moved to my mother-in-law’s much larger garden. But the asian lilies are still there – they came up peach year two and have been peach ever since. For 18 years. Multiplied and divided and new growth started. Just consistently showing up each year in the same area in the back gardens. Nice.

I added pink Asian lilies year three in another area in the back gardens, and those multiplied and divided and I started new groupings. Every year they come up in the same areas. Nice.

A friend and I swapped divisions of our Asian lilies, and I got some tall white lilies from her. Every year they come up in the back gardens too. Very nice.

Under the linden, the deep pink Asian lilies are also a fixture.

And out front one pink Elodie stand still remains. Asian lilies do not have as much staying power out front, but that one bunch continues.

Much is the same, and much is up in the air. But little by little, we move forward.

It looks like the peach daylilies will kick off the color show.