Category: Daylilies

Change, Big Change

As I looked at my photos of previous years this morning, it became crystal clear – the townhome gardens are changing. A lot.

It is a bit of a shock this year with the loss of a number of hostas. OK, 11. A large number of large hostas. The full realization is here. The edges of the gardens probably are not the safest place anymore – fertilizer and herbicide overspray and drift. And the aging of the garden by the linden, with its roots, has arrived.

I should probably be more upset. The big beautiful hostas! Why am I not very upset? Did I not really care about the hostas?

And then it occurs to me that nature is giving me cues. It is time to pivot. A pivot I have been thinking of accomplishing in other ways. Nature just beat me to it.

Likewise, a big portion of my time allocation has also pivoted this year. Again, the change outcome is something I was already working toward. It is just different timing and a different path.

So, where am I with the gardens?

At the townhome gardens, I greatly miss the 11 hostas, but I will not replace them. Something benefitted from them and they returned to nature. Their time here is done.

I am firmly on the path with the daylily propagation. I don’t expect that to change before I hang up my gardening hat, whenever that may be. I have longed for a space to daylily “farm” for a while, and my mind is reminding me words have power, be careful what you put out there, what you share as your desire for next steps, what you wish for.

So the space is now there, admittedly needing a new configuration or format. More portable if I want. But the timing. Is the timing right? It feels like nature has run ahead of me this time. I need to make the next move but I am not quite ready. I am not “for sure” on what I want as the next step format. I am going slow, checking things out, how I want them longer term.

So let’s see – What is right in front of me? What do I already have in motion?
Let’s start with the “Mahala” seedlings. What???, you say! Did some seeds go to seedling? Yes, but only two. Out of 25 seeds. Not my usual yield ratio, but ok. And maybe nature is saying that is enough. One for either side of the historic cemetery gate. But wait! Mahala was not about the historic cemetery. In fact, nothing I have read about her mentions her involvement in the acquisition or care of the historic cemetery. I wished. I was hoping it was part of her and William’s homestead, but I cannot find anything at all to support that. Everything I have found leads to an understanding that it was entirely someone else’s land before it became the historic cemetery. So then – the “Welcome” is like the welcome she extended to those who stayed at the Buckhorn. The Buckhorn was not on William and her land nor was it their building, but where they were based out of, where their presence was first established in this area. Perhaps my tiny part was to decide which harvested seed was to be dedicated and named for Mahala, and then nature decided, and will decide, how much “presence” those daylilies have. Perhaps a very simple “Welcome” duo of daylilies in Mahala Felton’s honor have been initially chosen by nature to move forward. I have done my part. Now we wait a few years and see how they develop.

And that may also be the townhome garden message overall for this time. I have done my part, I have things still to do with the daylily seeds harvested in 2024, and the seedlings from previous years. Now we see how things develop.

For sure the rest of the 2024 daylily cross seeds need to go in the seedling box by the beginning of June. That means the Mahala seeds need to get into the ground by the beginning of June, and for that I invested in cloches. I bought a set of 20 for long term planning, so I have plenty. A couple could even go to the historic cemetery. But watering there is manual, and markers for the daylilies I planted last year are also disappearing, so I may keep the seedlings here until fall. TBD.

One thing is for sure, I am done with the “one seed in a little pot” method. I have done it my last time. I should know better. There is a reason I stopped doing that. It is way too tedious and, for whatever reason, for me it yields way less results. It looks nice, little pots all lined up in a tray, with covers to start, but no. Done with that. All harvested daylily seeds, intentional crosses or volunteers, will go in a pot – one pot per type. Easy peasey lemon squeezey 😊

That I know for sure.

Fill in Friday – It’s Bluebells time!!!

Happy (fill in) Friday. Here’s what’s going on in the garden this week.

The Bluebells clematis is strutting her stuff. Serious strutting. And her “kid” from last year is mini strutting lol. The birds are going bonkers around mama Bluebells. Absolute bonkers. It probably doesn’t hurt that they also have a mini birdbath nearby. Hubs reports that the birdbath seems to be more noticed this spring than in years past. Now we just need to keep it filled. And yes, that is one of our hummingbird feeders. It is just about hummingbird time. We are expecting to see them any day now.

I dunno what the hostas are doing. They are almost all super sluggish this year. Did they get a telegraph from the hostas at the historic cemetery and now have mulch envy? Seriously. The Elegans are totally MIA, and a bunch of others are very diminished compared to prior years. I’m not sure what to think.

The hostas that are doing super well are the Blue Mouse Ears divisions. Yeay Blue Mouse Ears!

Only two tulips bloomed, and they are done.

And this is what crowded daylilies do 😭. I need to get them moved this year.

For comparison, this is the same type, but divided last year.

Update on the daffodils? Still no blooms. Definitely no bags of 50 this fall. Final decision. Shifting to grape hyacinth 💕 Final decision.

And lastly … dadadadahhhh! The shamrocks are all now out. The last one went out yesterday. But very naughty squirrels are digging on the smaller pots.

My thoughts are repeatedly going to – Why do I feel like the townhome gardens are shifting? They feel so different this year. Are they turning into my daylily “farm”? Do I not need a bigger space to continue my projects? We shall see.

And just like that

Two weeks ago it seemed like the gardens were on hold. This week things were full speed ahead. But today with a rain and cooler weather, I am once again spending my time indoors. No worries. It is a good time to finish this blog post. It is a longer one. I need to cut it off, wrap it up, insert the pics, add the tags and categories, and get it out there. Here goes.

Top of mind is still the prospective “Mahala” daylily seeds – With the seed planting underway, I am trying to figure out what I will do to protect the seedlings when they need to go into the ground. The seedling box is not a season-long option with the small seed starter cups I used for those seeds. I used special seedling cups for them, with little greenhouse style covers. I am hoping that will be very successful for germination, but if so, they will need to get into the ground within a month. The little cups will be too restrictive for their roots.

If they are successful and germinate and go to seedling, where I think I am heading is something called a “cloche”. It is a wire mesh cage topper that is placed over the seedlings to protect them. In our case that protection time would be the 2025 gardening season. The cloche solution would allow any seedlings a full season to grow and mature in the ground. Then in the fall the cloche would be removed and in year 2 forward the “Mahala” seedlings would be just like any other daylily in the gardens.

I like the cloche idea as a next step. It keeps with “simple”, and it looks nice. It is also a sustainable one-time purchase if I want to continue the early seedling process in future years, for future dedicated seeds. And it doesn’t add another seedling box to be stored over the winter, a definite bonus.

For right now I am still watching to see if we get seedlings. If we don’t get seedlings, we don’t need cloches. But, fingers crossed, we will need them.

In the meantime, the established gardens are popping, so there has been plenty to do.

In the townhome gardens, everything except two late daylilies, a few missing hostas, and two sedum, have popped, including the bushes. One day the ninebark bushes didn’t even look like they had buds. Two days later they were leafing out. And yesterday I noticed the weigelia bush is taking off too.


For daylilies, all the longtime daylilies, including those I divided and transplanted, are back. There are two daylilies from last fall’s order that I am still watching for. In a funny twist, they are supposed to be part of my “control” daylilies to compare against what works at the historic cemetery, and also, an easier way to do and monitor crosses. It is much easier to step out the door at the townhouse and do a cross than get in the car and drive to the historic cemetery. Not that I don’t intend to do crosses there. I do. But it will just be a little more time consuming. Full transparency, though? The historic cemetery garden is easily two weeks ahead of the townhouse gardens. It is an all-day sun, retaining wall, mulched garden. The two control daylilies that are missing from the townhome gardens are already up at the historic cemetery garden. I am kind of bumming, kind of thinking, “can you say extended crossing season?” We shall see what actually blooms. Hopefully both of the missing control daylilies will still show at the townhome gardens as well. One is a tetraploid, and one is a diploid. The tetraploid is one of my faves. It is one of the “parents” that are waning in the townhome gardens and also one of the “parents” of a cross I am watching to bloom this year. I was hoping to use the newly planted one this year, but eras change, and the torch may be passing to a new “rock steady”. Long story short, it will be a bit before I can fully say what we have to work with at each location for 2025.


Regarding daylily seedlings, awesome news … at all of the gardens the seedlings are back. I am especially excited to see one particular set of 2024 seedlings (an intentional cross), and am hoping it blooms this year. As I had also hoped, all of the 2023 seedlings are quite a bit larger. Hello Yello is three times larger! She will be a focus again this year. I think she is a tetraploid, as a tetraploid cross went to pod last year whereas a diploid cross didn’t. But that tetraploid cross pod started to fail, and then Bunimous Rex (our beloved neighborhood resident very large bunny) or a naughty squirrel got it. I know for sure it was not one of the white squirrels. Na-ah. They are very well behaved. Maybe this year some of the shorter crosses also need cloches lol. We shall see.

On the hosta scene, Blue Mouse Ears continue to amaze me. Last year’s divisions are popping up.

I think if I could only have one type of hosta, it would be Blue Mouse Ears. Yes, Rainforest Sunrise and Guacamole and Elegans and Praying Hands and Touch of Class. But goodness! Blue Mouse Ears year after year after year checks all the boxes – sun tolerant, disease free, drought hardy, and they reproduce very well. So well that they got divided and placed all over last fall. They are now coming up where we transplanted divisions – both here at the townhome, and at the historic cemetery.


The Asian lilies are also coming back.

Not terribly strong. They are quite old. But they are returning.
And … the clematis the lawn maintenance guy tried to pull last year? Back! Hahaha! I thought it was a goner, but nope. It’s back.

The daffodils I planted last fall are largely a no show. There are a few coming up at the historic cemetery, but most of the daffodils coming up there are the ones I planted in fall of 2023. And yes, I planted them correctly lol. It seems they did deter moles, as was my primary reason for planting them. They just didn’t bloom well. And that’s OK. The bags of 50 are coming to the end of an era. This fall I want to change things up a little and force grape hyacinth this coming winter. They also deter moles. And I can do smaller pots for forcing. If I want to.

And then there are the tulips. Of all the multiple (lots of) tulip bulbs in the townhome gardens that produce greens, only two have buds.

Yesterday after the greens of a few got stepped on while we cleaned the windows, I tested digging one out. I had kept my hand shovel out after digging and transplanting Blue Bells clematis volunteers.

I thought I might be able to dig the non-blooming tulips and consolidate them to one area (or bring them up north to naturalize or be deer food). Well, I probably should have gotten out the full-sized shovel. Instead of the bulb coming up, the stems broke off first. At which point I thought, “Why are you doing this? Pull the other stems and be done with it for another year.” I would like to say I did that immediately. I did for one more bulb. And then I remembered the next one I went to pull actually bloomed last year. They can fade back. Maybe next year I will feel differently.

To wrap up the afternoon yesterday, while I was in a cleanup mood, I tested to see if the variegated sedum (that it looked like we lost) was really a goner. It pulled out super easy, but wouldn’t you know it, there were little green sprouts. Dang! So, I searched around for a place where I could put it to give it one last chance. Aha! A swaparoo! A two-for. I moved the small Pink Tirza I want to use for crosses again this year to a more accessible spot,

and the variegated sedum went to a more secluded spot to R&R and hopefully come back stronger next year.

With that done, I called it quits. I was kind of still working off a crummy mood from something else. (What is it that makes normally sane drivers turn road risky on rummage sale days? Yikes!) I got myself a sweet tea and sat and looked at how nice the newly relocated Pink Tirza fit into its new home. That was a very good choice 🙂

And then, this morning on my walkabout I noticed … we did not lose the Guacamole hosta, as I feared. It is slowly coming up. The two Elegans, not looking good. Oh well. The circle of life.

Have a great weekend. I may take some time off early next week to put the finishing touches on something I will be kicking off next weekend – the Mahala Felton historical blog series. One post per week will be devoted to getting all the Mahala Felton research I have done out into the public domain. It has been a worthy endeavor, and I really want to share. The tie in is to the historic cemetery. More to come on that.

Inching Closer

It is about this time of year that I start to see the daylily seedlings visibly emerge from the soil. The well-established “parent” plants emerge first. But then, inevitably, I will see something that really jazzes me. A couple weeks ago it was the re-emergence of last year’s Hello Yellow. Hello Yellow was our first seedling that progressed from harvested seed to seedling to bloom, and in record time (year 2). Coincidentally, I find it quite fun that our oldest grandson, who knows nothing of my daylily work, has made it quite clear that his favorite color is yellow. Grandmas notice these things.


In the past couple weeks, my most promising seedlings from 2024 (2023 harvested seed from crosses) emerged. They are what I hope will be “Pink Moon”, an intentional cross that yielded 11 seedlings, and it looks like 7 winter survivors. Potential “Pink Moon” is on watch for bloom this year, but daylily propagation from seed is a long game. It may be a few years yet until bloom. I hope we see “Pink Moon” bloom this year, but it may be longer, or never. For reference, I have a South Seas self-seed that is on year 6 with no bloom. I keep saying if it doesn’t bloom “this year”, it’s going up north to feed the deer, but … I just can’t seem to do it. Maybe this fall, but doubtful. I have my 2, 3, and 4 year seedling beds established, and it is nowhere near where the 6-year-old non-blooming South Seas self-seed plant is located. Maybe it will surprise me. Please surprise me 6 year old South Seas self seed daylily.

Now to 2025. This year’s seedling project is what I hope will be “Mahala”. The Mahala Project is named for a history making pioneer woman for this area. Mahala Felton was the first white woman settler in our area. She and her husband William and one of their sons came to our area when there was no hotel, no railroad, not really any way of getting anything substantial across the Mississippi in our area. She was well respected by native and settler alike as she and her husband ran the first “hotel” (which was a converted, multiple purpose trading post). I began my research as what I thought would be a 15–20 hour endeavor to write a facebook post for our local historical society. But there was so much history that kept unfolding. So much that I went on a discovery that kept me happily busy for a great portion of the deep of winter. The more I discovered, the more questions I had. Eventually though, my project management skills turbo-charged and I realized I was having scope creep. I was amazed and impressed with all I had discovered about Mahala Felton, but it was time to stop the research. I had dozens of resource citations, and what will probably be at least a dozen pages of excerpts when I finally write it all up. We shall see. But along the way, I decided to name a daylily seedling “Mahala Felton” and plant it in the historic cemetery garden. Full transparency, I had entertained the daylily dedication idea previously, but now I had more pieces to the puzzle. Funny how things unfold, all in good timing, if you listen to your gut, and your heart.

This past week I took 25 of the 28 harvested (and now proposed as “Mahala”) daylily seeds and planted them to seedling pots. This is a huge (and probably not to be oft repeated) departure from my normal process of putting all of a type of cross’s seeds in one pot and seeing what comes up. I try to keep things simple, but for this one I decided to give conventional practices one more try before I abandon it all together. I have my doubts as to its efficacy, so, just in case, I kept three of the seeds aside and will plant them with my normal process when it is warm enough to do that. With that process I have a seedling box that protects them from bunnies and squirrels and all those types of dangers, a necessity around here, and I will need to employ that with whatever comes up from the 25 as well. I hope at least a few seeds are successful, as I would like to plant one on each side of the gates, as a nod to the hospitality Mahala shared with all. A “welcome” of sorts. And I would like to plant one in the garden down by their marker.

We shall see how it goes. All 28 seeds could decide not to go to seedling. In that case, I have another cross from last year that produced 60 seeds (yes, 60) and maybe that is destined to be named “Mahala”. You never know. You do the crosses and you see what happens. It’s an adventure.

The good, the sad, and the work to do

The long wait is now over. Things are popping all over the gardens, and I am starting to see what made it, what didn’t, and what work there is to do.

At the townhome gardens, sadly, it looks like we lost two sedum. How that happened for one of them is a mystery to me. That one was our only variegated sedum, and I will miss it. It had been there for a long time, maybe over 10 years, so I am a bit surprised. I won’t replace it with another sedum, but I may put a daylily there this fall. Potentially a seedling. But first I want to refresh my memory on how strongly the sprinklers hit that area. I don’t think the variegated sedum died from sprinkler damage, but I want to make sure it is a safe place.
The other sedum that didn’t come back was under the linden. That one never did well. It just never took off. I won’t put anything in that spot to replace it because the daylilies are also starting to underperform there. There are a lot of linden roots. It is a spot I will leave as “rock only” as things fail.

On the flip side, we have a bumper crop of Bluebells clematis volunteers, and those are in the “work” category. I need to transplant them to another area. This area is not optimal 😂

The volunteers are from our large Bluebells clematis that always performs very well, and I suspect I will continue to have volunteers over the years now that it is well established. Last year I allowed one to grow around the red daylilies, and this past weekend I dug that out and transplanted it into the spot where another clematis volunteer (different type) was way underperforming. Hopefully this volunteer does well. So far so good.

And then there are the missing hostas. There are three in particular that have no sign of anything, and that is a bit concerning. Two I was going to give to my Dad, but the third was one of my long-time faves, and if it doesn’t come back, I will miss it. BUT I have made a decision. If it doesn’t come back, I will convert that real estate to daylily space. That hosta really always amazed me because it should never have done so well there for so many years. That spot really is more of a … daylily sunny spot. But I put it there in my early years of creating our gardens, and it went to town for well over a decade. Probably 15 years. So if that hosta is gone, I will greatly miss it, but it will be replaced by a purchased daylily this fall. (Yes, I have my sites on a few candidates.) Then that entire area will be daylilies, with a few remaining Asian lilies, a few remaining tulips, and a legacy Autumn Joy Sedum.
For the other two “missing” hostas, if they do not come back, I will not replace them. The area where they were was getting way overcrowded, hence why they were going to find a new home with my Dad. And, my Dad just had a bunch of trees removed so they may have not done well there anyway.

Which leads me to story time. When I started our gardens at the townhouse many many years ago, I was head over heels in love with hostas. I planted boatloads of different hostas. I visited hosta gardens. I bought “hosta of the year” varieties I liked. I was gifted hostas. My Dad even bought me hostas from a neighborhood gardener he called the “hosta masta” (master, that is 😊). I have grown and divided all kinds of hostas for over two decades. I even tried my hand at harvesting hosta seeds and seeing if I could grow hostas from seed. (Not for me.) I love hostas. And I will keep the hostas I have that are still doing well. But that era was that era, and the garden “container” is the garden “container” (not getting any larger), and I am not getting any younger. So … in a finite space garden … hosta attrition makes way for daylilies, if the space is sunny. (Amazingly, I did have some huge hostas that did very well in relatively sunny spots. Go figure).
In this new era, I have my daylily seedling beds, and they are doing well. Those were solidified as the plan last fall. I also have one 6th year non-blooming daylily seedling in a different area, and I just can’t seem to move that one out, but we shan’t dwell on that. I figure at some point when the garden “container” is full, I will know it is time to stop doing daylily crosses, and then I will sit in my patio rocker, with a beverage of choice, and just enjoy. Haha, I can hear family and friends alike laughing uproariously. But that will be a few years yet. Hopefully quite a few. Because goodness! I have 60 “same cross”seeds I still need to get into pots in the seedling planter, and if even half of those go to seedling, oof! Realistically, experience tells me “probably not” and I will most likely end up with optimistically, 10 seedlings from that 60, to be planted in the 2025 seedling bed this fall, and watched for bloom starting next year.

At the historic cemetery, I am gonzo in love with what I see so far – legacy plants are doing so much better in year 3 of the mulch bed. The iris bed is in year 3 now, year 2 for watch to bloom, and I already see multiplication. Daylily seedlings I planted last year from here look great. Daylily purchases I planted last fall are coming up. Even the Blue Mouse Ears hostas made it.

Overall, so far, so very good.

Weeding time at the historic cemetery is down to an hour per week – amazing what the mulch bed tamps down. The only thing I want to work on is the aging creeping thyme. It needs some cleanup, and I may grab some irises from the old garden bed and do some fill in there. Otherwise, one hour per week weeding, watch for the garden to do its thing, and maybe, optimistically, try a few crosses.

Hello Yellow

Hello Yellow, our first seedling from harvested seed to bloom in our garden, is up for the third year. Year one she was a seedling, year two (last year) she bloomed – amazing for year two! And now she is up a third year.

My notes are she successfully crossed with Just Plum Happy to form a seed pod (so as a tetraploid) but then the pod started to fail and then a bunny got it.

Hello Yellow is of unknown parentage. Nevertheless, she has a special place in my heart, and will remain in our garden.

BITA, kinda


It’s that time of year again – Butt (kinda) In The Air, looking really close at the ground – are we there, are we there? I am looking for daylilies.

So far, the Purple D’Oro were up first, then the Tender Love, then the red Daylilies in the sunniest area, and today … dadadadahhh … potential future “Mahala”s parents are now both popping up.  So there is potential for more “Mahala” seeds to be made this year if the seeds from last year germinate.  An encouraging development for this gardener on this cool and windy April day. 

In addition, Pink Tirza, South Seas, Marque Moon, and unidentified Yellow Double freebie are all also popping up (I did look it up last year.  I just don’t remember it.  And I am too lazy to go back and look right now  haha). Unidentified Yellow Freebie Double was, I am certain, an error in freebie-ness.  I don’t buy doubles, or choose them as freebies, and it was not particularly encouraging for crosses, but it is yellow. It can stay.  

So, so far, I know I will be crossing for “Mahala” seeds, and I will be crossing for “Red Tirza” seeds.  They were both great seed makers last year.  Unless I don’t get blooms from the parents (highly unlikely) I will do a repeat.  Probably even if the seeds don’t germinate super well.  But I know they will, I just know they will 😉

South Seas gets to rest this year.  I crossed her hard last year and the bunnies got most of those results.

I am also looking for a cross for our oldest grandson.  He already loves to garden, and if that continues I will be thrilled, and teaching him to do crosses.  Hey, my favorites daylily source comes from three generations of guy daylily gardeners!  

For now, an example of a beautiful sight.

sdlg, and do I care

”sdlg” is used in daylily data to signify unregistered or unlisted parentage (seedling crosses). This has been a non-issue for me in the past, but I am bumping up against it a little bit now in my research while planning crosses.

Do I now care?

No. I am a hobbyist. I am focusing on fun and maybe a dedication project from time to time. I don’t ever see a day when lack of daylily parentage information would cause me to not use it in a cross. In fact, for the Mahala project, both daylilies in that (hopefully successful) cross don’t list any parentage at all. It actually fits the project to a “T” – a lot of unknowns. And that is ok.