Category: Daylilies

Surprise!

This morning I had quite a nice surprise – 6 new Mahala daylily seedlings came up in the little seedling pots! I continue to be amazed at the length of time this year’s seeds have taken to germinate. The Mahala seeds were planted in the starter pots on 4/23! Maybe the July heat, coupled with a few rainy days, was what they needed. With this nice surprise, I will leave the remaining planted Mahala seeds in the pots. Maybe more will still germinate.

Another nice treat – a new daylily I planted at the historic cemetery last fall has also bloomed. Red Volunteer bloomed yesterday. She is every bit as beautiful as I hoped, and pictures do not do her justice. She has such a lovely presence! She will be wonderful part of the garden there.

And, in the weirdest twist of the season, but a very welcome one – one, then a second, then a third, and today a fourth tiny baby hosta started to pop up in the spots where they were completely gone until a week ago, lost, even sunken ground. I have only seen that before when a plant has been dug up but a tiny part was unknowingly left behind. This whole lost hostas thing is so weird. I don’t know what to make of it. I will keep watching for more to revive.

This morning it was finally a bit cooler, so I got out into the garden with gusto. I did the last of the maintenance on the forget-me-nots that were wrapping up bloom, and then I cut the pink asian lilies all back to half height. They also wrapped up their bloom this past week. And, as my disciplined self 😉 reminded me, I needed to circle back and trim the peach asian lily stem I forgot last week, so I did that. It would have been kind of fun to see if it made seed, but, as I discovered this morning, I am already short of seedling box space 😉 We shall stick to the plan. Daylily propagation only.

With the forget-me-nots largely gone, this week I also did some additional research on eco friendly mid-season bunny, squirrel, and other digger repellent. Lemongrass came up in my reading, and I already had some diluted in a spray bottle, so I gave the pavers a spritz. We will see how that goes. So far, whatever was digging in the shamrock plant has stopped.

The daylilies are starting to bloom now, and the garden is ready for me to do crosses. I have cleared the blooming forget-me-nots, made paths again to get to the daylilies that are farther back in the garden, cut back the plants that have already bloomed so they don’t go to seed, and found an additional eco-friendly digger deterrent to take over for the forget-me-nots that have been pared back.

I will share daylily picks along the way.

Peachy

Peach daylily is one of our oldest daylilies. Around 20 years. I bought two colors at the local big box store – pink and purple. Pink became peach and purple disappeared. I gave two peach clumps to my mother-in-law and one stayed here, all these years.
Originally she was in the sun, but then as we went to a pellet grill she ended up way more in the shade. She began to bloom less and less until she stopped blooming altogether. Very sad. Two falls ago I transplanted her back into the sun. Last year she built up her foliage. This year she is back.

This morning it is raining and I almost missed her first return bloom.

Welcome back, peach daylily!

Equal Opportunity


Equal Opportunity will be this daylily’s name. It is a South Seas self seed and I think it is from 2020 seed. (I was way less concerned about documentation back then.) Equal Opportunity has everything on it’s debut – pleats, ribs, ruffles, smooth petals, “seersucker” type petals, along with many patterns. She’s kind of trying it all out. Equal Opportunity will, no doubt, work all of that out over the successive blooms and the year. We saw that with Hello Yellow too, and year 2 she is much more consistent. Oh goodness, she has it going on! It’s almost like she’s got some Pink Tirzah in her genetics. (I think she does shhhh)


Donuts, Bouquets, and lots of daylily seedlings scaping all over the garden!

For the past few weeks the Asian lilies have been blooming, the remaining hostas have been scaping out, and every day I have seen more daylily scapes. The spots where we lost all the hostas have been reassigned to match our new phase of gardening here, clover has increasingly been removed, and bunny deterrents are in place.

Did you know that forget-me-nots don’t even need to bloom to deter bunnies? It is the leaves that emit a scent that the bunnies don’t like. So I am plucking away on blooms as the stems start to fall over. The flowers are pretty, and make nice little bouquets with the daylilies, but the leaves are what deter snacking bunnies.

That being said, I am also judiciously pulling the forget-me-nots where I want paths to legacy daylilies I want to use for crosses. Lots of transition in place, and the forget-me-nots are at the very top of that list. They will definitely stay, just more strategically placed.

Another fun fact – Did you know that gardens also bake donuts? Yes indeedio! Here is proof.

I have a number of layering (bouquets) in the garden, and I am embracing them more and more as I move into this next phase of the townhome gardens. Maybe the donut will get some friends. We shall see.

On the daylily scene, all daylily seeds harvested here in 2024 are now planted, and the seedling boxes are full, protecting them from the squirrels. I also still have a tray of planted seeds inside. I could make room in the current seedling boxes, but I want to give the Mahala seeds that haven’t germinated just a little more time. You never know.

Sadly, a few of our legacy daylilies don’t seem to be scaping out this year. That means it is division time for them this fall. More shifting. More adjusting to this next phase. And as the garden ages out on legacy plants and adds more daylily seedlings, eventually there will be a whole new look. Free as far as buying plants. And neat to see what is created. Kinda fun.

Fill in Friday – Did you know forget-me-nots repel rabbits?

Daylily season is definitely here. Scapes are popping up on the daylilies, and two seedlings that have never put up scapes before are sporting buds this year. Our longest seedling holdout is even looking like it will finally bloom this year. Very good!

The ninebarks and the weigelia are wrapping up their blooms (at least the first flush), the asian lilies are blooming,

and the first hosta scape appeared a few days ago.

I continue to learn about propagating daylilies in the northern United States. Recently I read that in northern states it can take up to 10 years for a seedling to produce scapes and bloom! I almost gave up on our year one (holdout) seedling! I am so glad I didn’t! Now we wait to see what our pollinators created with that one.
(I harvested daylily seeds from pollinator creations for a few years before I started to do intentional crosses.)

Regarding intentional crosses, we now have a 5th and 6th Mahala seedling. I am shocked! Those were the ones I planted in little seedling pots 8 weeks ago! I guess it just goes to show that daylily propagation really does take serious patience.

Out front, the stonecrop have reached their max height before they start to “donut”. I probably should divide them this year, but I have nowhere to put divisions. Maybe a few could go to the historic cemetery. We shall see how much energy I have in September when it is time to divide and transplant. I just transplanted 7 more irises into the cemetery garden, and it is getting pretty full. But maybe …

All of the Blue Mouse Ears hosta divisions and transplants seem to be doing well, even in the sun at the historic cemetery gardens. Very good news! I will continue to monitor them. I need to divide some more of the more mature ones here again this fall. Last year I was scrambling and tucking them in as tests. But they did so well, now I know what they can handle.

Lastly, the progress on the forget-me-nots. I did a bunch of research and it turns out they are a bunny repellant. That does seem true, and that strategy lends itself to useful ideas, both for where to keep them and where to pull them. They are very pretty amongst the daylilies and hostas. A little bouquet.





Forget-me-Nots

We are in the middle of rain, rain, rain here for the past week or so and now we are heading into almost another whole week of rain lol. But Saturday I got a bunch of work done on the garden. That felt great!

Recently I shared that we lost a bunch of hostas. Those losses have spurred on change. Those losses made me rethink a lot about our garden set up. We lost those hostas because of of a number of reasons – fertilizer and herbicide overspray and then a few of them were expected because I knew tree roots were getting quite close. And because those reasons will not be going away, I am not replacing any of what was lost.

But that was not the end of the story. The space did not look “right”, and because there had been so many hostas there, other things that were previously minor parts of the garden – the forget-me-nots and the clover – began to flourish. Think no barriers like plastic underlayment under the rock …

Saturday I spent time paring back the forget-me-nots and the clover (and quite a few bunny planted raspberry seedlings) in prep for where I want to go with my next garden phase – expanding my daylily propagation work, needing more planter space. Just like anything, times are changing. I am in a new phase of my gardening, just like we all get to new phases of our life, and I need to have a little bit of reassessment of what will work for this.

Saturday I cleared all clover and forget-me-nots out of the front, left very little of it in the corner where the linden is, and cleared it away from the path out back.

I was unsure of what I wanted to do in the area that sustained the largest number of hosta losses, so I left just a little patch of clover and forget-me-nots there. This morning I decided. I moved the green shamrock into that area, and I like it, so the remaining clover and forget-me-not patch in that round of the corner will go.

And then I will tackle this.

I planted the forget-me-nots the year my father-in-law and a sweet neighbor friend passed weeks apart. The forget-me-nots are sentimental. And I have kept them inside the paver trim. Inside 😊 But I hardly think that stepping on forget-me-nots is a great way to remember those we have lost, and stepping on forget-me-not is definitely not part of my daylily propagation “vision ”, so, as they bloom and begin to fade, they will be pared way back. A heartwarming sprinklng that enhances the daylilies and remaining hostas out back.


Fill In Friday – Irises, Clematis, First Daylily Scape, and some shenanigans

Let’s see … where did I leave off last week? I think it was with the discovery of the first daylily scapes of the season.

Last Friday I was weeding at the historic cemetery. I was down to the end where there are some mature Stella de Oros. Full disclosure, Stella de Oros are not daylilies I would buy. I do like the color. The size is not the issue. It is just that they are everywhere – in residential gardens, commercial landscaping, everywhere. But … they are daylilies, they are improving in health since the rock was switched out to mulch, and they were gifted to the historic cemetery garden before I started in earnest, so they stay. Stella de Oros also bloom fairly early, so they are a harbinger of the start of the daylily blooms on the way. So, last Friday, as I was wrapping up weeding, I looked over and there it was – a scape, on a Stella de Oro.

Which means the scapes will soon start showing up on other daylilies. And that is my start of the daylily season. Scapes hold buds that bloom and blooms can be not only enjoyed, but crossed, by birds, bees, butterflies … and humans.
It’s almost here!!! Hurray!

While daylily gardeners everywhere await daylily season, irises are in full bloom. The iris bed I made two years ago at the historic cemetery is starting to really shine! Almost all the irises in the lower part of the bed came from a smaller overgrown old garden. They were not blooming there, so I took my chance on color. I lucked out. Last year all those that bloomed were yellow, and this year as the iris bed began to really shine, the color yellow was predominant, save for one purple iris in a line of five that I had added last year from the big old garden. That purple bud showed up late. We shall see what comes next year.

Now here is where I get to share the joys of a community, public garden. 99.5% of the experience is AWESOME. People are so kind and thankful, and it is so fun to meet them and see them over and over. But there are, shall we say, occasional shenanigans. And herein is this week’s shenanigans story. I shall say it did not make me smile and say “silly turkeys”. So here’s the story. I was all excited about the yellow irises because we have 14 veterans buried at the cemetery who came home safely from war. Think yellow ribbon for safe return. We also have a Civil War soldier, James Akers, buried at the cemetery, and he was killed at Gettysburg. I wanted at least one purple iris in remembrance of him, amidst the yellow irises. Think Purple Heart.
And one came up! But it was not meant to bloom there. You see, within the past day and a half someone/something came by and snapped off a bunch of yellow irises and the one purple iris. The yellow ones – in various stages from bud to bloom – they threw around in the mulch and even on the ground,

but the purple one was totally missing. Now what possesses an action like that, I cannot imagine. Irises don’t even smell good, and animals usually leave them alone, so … my guess is shenanigans. Now, I have been putting the best construction on missing plant markers and missing plants, thinking maybe it was squirrels or turkeys, but now I am thinking along other lines. And what is my logic? The turkeys that live inside the fence have a big old garden of irises, even one that made it to bloom. And … they aren’t touching them. Soooo …. probably shenanigans. Decision? The Mahala daylily seedlings definitely aren’t going to the historic cemetery quite yet, and I will not be purchasing any additional plants for the historic cemetery. Just out of wisdom. We shall watch and assess. No big. Just prudence.

For now, we enjoy pics, and see the one purple bud in front.

In the townhome gardens the clematis out back are blooming beautifully,

following the Bluebells clematis out front that just wrapped up.

The Weigelia has also started blooming, and, soon, like the clematis, the hummingbirds will be found enjoying those blooms.

Do you remember the variegated sedum I pulled out and then saw it had a few tiny green buds? I potted it in an old terracotta pot, and it is growing new buds. Yeay! Sedums rock!

The Ninebarks are also doing wonderfully, and, along with the Weigelia, they remind me every year why bushes do have their place.

But, there is a shenanigans story in the townhome gardens too. I suspect they are of the bird variety. After over fifteen years of birds being helpers in cleaning up the shamrocks, we might have a crop of mess makers this year. They have decided to make quite the mess of all the purple shamrocks. No worries. There are so many shamrock rhizomes. I brought them in and will restart them in the house. Sorry birds. No more purple shamrocks fun for you this year.

And that was our week. I hope yours was fun! Catch you next week!

Fill in Friday – Decision on daylily “farm” approach

I did it! I have been talking about maybe doing this for a while. On and off for 3 years. But with the loss of the 11 hostas, I finally made the decision. The daylily “farm” can be handled with raised boxes. It can. Truly.


Now, I say “farm” very lightly. I know it is not a farm. Of course I do. And if I could, I would have a great big daylily farm. But it ain’t happening. Our land up north is for our off-grid time, and that is not changing any time soon. So, my personal townhome style daylily “farm” is going to expand, but just not in a conventional farm way. I am going to work with what I have, to do the most I can do with what is in my heart. And that is to continue to be creative, do intentional crosses, harvest those seeds, and work to bring them to seedling, plant, and something new and hopefully fun for bloom. I also am fascinated by what the birds, bees, and butterflies accomplish with the daylilies, and I am not going to count out continuing to harvest those seeds as part of my daylily “farm” effort 🙂

Hello Yellow is a self seed daylily, and it has a very special place in my garden mama heart.

So there you go. A townhome style daylily “farm”, doing intentional crosses and harvesting the bird, bee, and butterfly contributions as well. As our oldest grandson says, “Do It!” Yes, I think I will 🙂


In a previous post I fully discussed the loss of 11 hostas in the townhome gardens. Although I miss the big, beautiful hostas, I shall not be replacing them. It would be foolish. The same issues that most likely led, or at least added to their demise, remain. Fertilizer and herbicide overspray will not be going away, and growing tree roots were already expected to make part of the garden ground unusable at some point in time. We love those big beautiful trees as well! Bottom line, the time is now here. I need a new format. I can think and think and think, but I still come up with the same solution for my daylily “farm” – raised box containers. That is the only way I can see this working, long term.

So, decision one is made – raised box containers are needed. I have one, a wonderful cedar container with a wire mesh lid that my children made me for my 60th birthday. It is wunderbar! But they aren’t making me more, so I went shopping. Here were my “must haves” when shopping for the raised box container(s):

  • Must be secure from squirrels, bunnies, and birds who dig. (We will assess if birds try to nest there. I hope not.)
  • Must be low maintenance. Nothing “fussy”. No need to continually paint or stain, not flimsy.
  • Preferably can be left outside year-round. Maybe I will holiday decorate with them. Aw, who am I kidding? Probably not. Maybe I will put bird food in them lol
  • Must have drainage.
  • Not metal. I want a daylily “farm” but not a livestock metal trough look.
  • Must be raised enough to miss as much applied fertilizer and herbicide overspray as possible, and in fact, it would be great if it stopped those granules in their tracks, so they didn’t go farther into the garden.

The options available are pretty impressive! I ended up choosing an HDPE raised bed box. One at first, as a test, to see if I like that particular product. Yes, plastic. It is made of the same type of materials as my path, which is 20 years old and no problem. I get it, plastic is a dirty word, but I bought eco-friendly and sustainable. No, I did not research the company to see if it really is eco responsible … I am hoping what they claim is true, but I am not growing food, and I do not expect to need to continually replace them 🙂

The new raised box(es) will hold all daylilies in progress, from seed to season’s end seedling. (It will be an expansion of my existing seedling box.) I am keeping my tried and true one pot per harvested seed type method. The boxes will hold those pots. There may be exceptions where I use multiple pots per seed type. Right away I am thinking about the 60 seeds I harvested from the same cross type last year. But by and large, one pot per harvested seed type. I will use cloches (wire baskets) over the top of the pots that are designed to protect the seedlings from diggers and mess makers. I already have those. And, best of all, the raised bed/box is not slotted nor elevated on legs. It will make a border on the inside edge of the rock that acts as protection from granular fertilizer and herbicide overspray on the garden on the other side of the raised box. Hurray!!!

So that is my next steps plan. Nothing is perfect, but it is directionally correct, and we shall hope it is successful. Plus, it is portable, meaning I can take it if we ever do move to another home.

I will begin with the first box this weekend, and if I am pleased, I have room for another box right away this year. As mentioned above, I have 60 seeds of the same intentional cross to get planted by the beginning of June, plus all the other assorted intentional crosses and self-seeds. They all need a summer home to get started, and whatever goes to seedling will need protection once they get planted this fall. Fingers crossed, the solid raised box with cloche method takes care of all of that.

And yes, if all 60 same cross seeds germinate and go to seedling, I am fine with that. I did some significant family genealogy this past week and the results had an unbelievable tie in to the parents of that daylily seed. Almost freaky weird uncanny. So that seed is now also dedicated, and seedlings will be shared 🙂