Category: Daylilies

Daylilies and Sun

The difference sun makes to daylilies. The top two daylilies were last year’s seedlings. The next one is this year’s but broken off by those naughty squirrels digging. The fourth is this year’s and not broken off by the squirrels. The 3rd and 4th were grown in full sun almost all day. Hopefully transplanting them to a little less sunny spot will be ok. If not I will move them.

Daylily decisions

At the townhouse I have, for the past five years, harvested our unintentional crop of daylily seeds, grown them to seedlings, and planted them in our gardens. I made a seedling bed that then got overshadowed by our new grill and the seedlings are not sending up scapes. They need more sun.

I also finally got my stuff together this season and found an online site that shows ploidy (and parentage). Glory! My nerdy self is going gonzo trying crosses! And I am getting intentionally planned seed pods! Now whether they are successful to bloom, we shall see. But – I need to make room, here.

For years we have done a delicate dance. Hubs loves to have townhome services. I would love a back yard I could convert from a chemical and water needy space to a daylily, hosta, and sedum oasis. But that is not our reality. So, I am working within the container I have now, and continually working to optimize it. Oh wow! Did I just combine minimalist, decluttering, and optimization principals all in one sentence? What has become of me? Is there any hope left? JK 😉

Anyways …

I have daylily seedlings in the ground, daylily seedlings in pots, and daylily seeds being made. And I want to see what they ALL do. Not have the deer eat them up north. Or have them dry up for lack of watering while we are not there. Plus, I want to re-buy the daylilies I bought and then planted at the little house up north we sold last year. Not many. 5 or 6. May as well make it 6.

YIKES!

I’m sure I will figure SOMETHING out. At least a next step. For the need this year. Directionally correct, gradual progress, and all that …

Two more “lasts”

Our gardens are not tiny, but they are small enough that I notice bloom “lasts” for the season. Rain is coming, but thankfully it held off until mid-morning so I could enjoy a couple more “lasts”. Tirzah bloomed her last today, as well as Cedar Waxwing.

I am hoping Tirzah’s baby sister gets to be as tall as she is in the next couple years. She is truly strong enough in her presence to only require one in a space. I cannot find her ploidy, and I have not been successful with crosses. She just may not want kids scattered about!

But she is one of my faves. I will miss her.

Self-care days

Work has been crazy busy, family stuff is busy, the up north cabin project is ongoing. Lots of stuff.

Thursday I was looking forward to some self-care days. It was such a treat to log off work Friday, shut ‘er down, and just breathe. No big weekend plans. A chill Friday night.

I was also really looking forward to gardening at the historic cemetery today. Thursday we found the remaining brown mulch we needed to finish the rock to mulch swap. It has been a challenge. A lot of the stores have sold out their open pallets and wrapped their unopened pallets to send back. My friend found some at, of all places, the nicer grocery store in town, and for an awesome price. Between my friend and her husband and my husband and I, we got all the remaining mulch we needed. This year. It looks awesome!!! It was not without a few challenges – like a downpour this morning, but we are there. When the iris transplants are done, I will take final pics and share.

When back at home mid morning today, I went about our gardens.

The raised, covered seedling planter – where I put pots with daylily seeds to grow unbothered by squirrels and bunnies – needed to go back into the garage until next spring, the forget-me-nots and clover needed paring down, the hosta scapes that wrapped up this week needed cutting back, the daylily scapes with no seed pods needed cutting back, and the shrubs desperately needed serious trimming. Back in shape now.

Today was the last bloom for one of the Just Plum Happy daylilies

I will need to get after cutting those scapes back.

But probably not tomorrow. Tomorrow is forecasted to be a rain day. All day.

Time for some non-gardening self care, decluttering, donation drop-off, putzing around the house, reading a book, doing laundry slow and relaxed. Just a non-gardening rainy chill day.

Lasts and good results, so far

“Last” daylilies (for the season) are starting to occur. Purple D’Oro bloomed her last today (for the 2023 season here).

She has been cavorting with China Doll, with some good initial results. Amazing what happens when a diploid gets together with a diploid 😉

We shall see.

South Seas also bloomed her last for the season here today.

She has been hanging around with Marque Moon lately.

We shall see how that goes.

That IS a Tirzah

Last fall when we did the transplanting of the red daylilies, I moved some small daylilies out front that were getting trampled. I made a diagram, and thought I captured everything. I planted a very small, very smooshed daylily plant (no blooms) opposite the peach daylily that had been one of my first daylilies. I thought it was a seedling from a seed from a non-intentional cross from Purple D’Oro. I labelled it that way. It bloomed this year. It looked amazingly like a Pink Tirzah. Amazingly like a Pink Tirzah – but much shorter than our other Tirzah. Much shorter.

Today that daylily bloomed for the last time this year – no more buds. I am convinced it is a Pink Tirzah. Which means that it is not a seedling from Purple D’Oro. Drats. Maybe one will bloom next year.

Purple D’Oro has many seedlings from seeds again this year. And many seed pods again this year.

Hosta updates

Gardens are an experiment. Things are constantly changing, growing, crowding, needing thinning, transplanting … Sometimes it requires patience, and sometimes we get very quick answers. So it is with the proposed woodland hosta garden at the historic cemetary. The deer have spoken. They, or their buddies the turkeys love them! It was a fun trial, but no woodland hosta garden will be built at the historic cemetery. What survives in the full sun of the fence garden will be it for hostas there.

It is also bunny time at the townhouse gardens. Thinking the last blooms on this hosta will be her dinner in the next few nights.

We think it is a her, as she had a very persistent visitor a few weeks back – that we have not seen before.

Sadly, we are thinking this was also the work of the bunny. Compost time. The daylily seedlings in that pot are ready to be planted so those will be a project in the next few days, along with the other potted daylily seedlings.

And the hostas that are done blooming are all getting haircuts. I made the “no hosta seed saving” decision a while back. We do not need any more hostas 😂