Every year I save a few daylilies and hostas from the main cutback. Not many any more because, like I mentioned in my last post, I don’t like cutback with frozen fingers. 🥶
This year. I chose the ones in the pic above.
Is this not a wonderful fall daylily depiction? Wrapping up with their last bit of color 😊They just get fall-er and fall-er.
I think this pic deserves a print out 😊
Last year I had a bit of an issue with daylily scapes being pulled down and eaten by something. Probably something with four paws, but you never know, right? I used quite a few deterrents, all safe, and it was minimally effective. Minimally.
When I put all my 2024 notes and daylily crosses info onto my 2025 daylily tracking spreadsheet, I was reminded again about how much of an issue it was in 2024 – and how much it wasn’t in 2025. At least at the townhome. The historic cemetery, well, I have shared what happened with the Mahala Felton daylily seedlings that I planted by the gate. But that is a bit different, I think. And for this post we are focusing on daylily scapes.
As the 2025 daylily season was starting to produce spent scapes, I began to have the urge to tidy up. I did not, however, do that. This year it occurred to me to me that perhaps my habit of trimming spent scapes was actually attracting playful snackers. Against my preference to clean as the garden matures, I left all scapes on all daylilies until the pod harvest season was complete for that full area.
I also introduced another deterrent this year, and that is lemongrass essential oil (diluted and sprayed on the pavers). And, of course, there are the forget-me-nots, which are also a deterrent.
We are to the end of the daylily seed harvesting season, and I can report – no daylily scapes were pulled down and eaten by critters this year, even the shorter daylilies. All pods made it maturity and were harvested by … me 🙂
I also discovered something new. Spent daylily scapes, when completely dried in place, are very easy to pull. I have a few things in the garden that share that feature, and it is very welcome. Not all of the scapes had dried when the pod harvest wrapped up, so some were cut back when I started the daylily cutback out front, but in the true garden, out back, almost all the scapes were able to just be pulled. There remains just a few from the very last pod harvests.
And with that, the greens are getting another week or so of photosynthesis before I come through and cut everything back. And trim the shrubs. And say sweet dreams. And call it a wrap.
For now, cheers to not trimming spent daylily scapes, to lemongrass essential oil, and to forget-me-nots. I am thankful for no critter interference in the seed maturing process this year.
If gardens have dreams, I wish ours the sweetest.
Yesterday I cut back the last of our small hostas at the townhome, along with the short sedum, and a few daylily greens. It is now full slumber time approaching for those gardens. Today I cut back the remaining hostas, some irises, some very small sedum, and some daylilies at the historic garden. Again today, all the people who came by in the short hour I was there were so thankful and kind. Do gardens positively add to quality of life? Absolutely!
Tonight, I mostly have a sense of “well done”, personally and for all who helped, and I have very fond memories of a very full garden season. I am a bit sad. It will be six months until the garden pops again. But it was a wonderful good garden season this year. And for that I am thankful.
To have fun until the forced bulbs start to push up and until it is time to plant the well over 100 seeds from the daylily crosses I did this year, I have started an indoor garden, on either side of my office desk.
The purple shamrocks I divided and I thought I killed – nope. Back in full force. And the green shamrocks I thought I accidentally froze out and was going to divide like the purple shamrocks – back in full force. Tonight the shamrocks rest but tomorrow they will be back open. I am also going to try to get the orchid to bloom. Fingers crossed.
Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day. Most sincere thanks to all who have served so selflessly. Your service is genuinely appreciated.
It is the end of the gardening season, the middle of the fall, time to enjoy the turning of seasons, and time for a little reflection.
Of course, top of mind, I poured myself into two garden endeavors this year – the daylily crosses and refining and filling up the garden at the historic cemetery.
Of all the daylily crosses I did this year, a whim was the most successful – Pink Tirza X red daylily. 8 seed pods, 60 seeds! What I will do with 60 seedlings of just that cross, I have no idea. And that is just one cross of many this year. I ended up with well over a hundred viable looking seeds, “looking” being the key. The first three hurdles have been passed – successful cross, seed pod survived to maturity, and healthy looking seed. All the seeds are in storage now. But there is much more to go, and at least a few years to see what I got.
This is always a tough transition for me. Friends go south, gardens go to sleep, way more time indoors … but I could probably use a little rest.
And let’s not forget the cabin, yes the cabin. While I was crossing daylilies to make new ones, and doing year 2 at the historic cemetery, my husband was turning an Amish built shed into a cabin. What was just an idea 5 years ago – a brain child out of watching too many videos that looked way too easy, and a long time idea of “something up north” – is now a cabin. Not the Taj Mahal. Not a cabin on a lake – we are terra firma people – but nevertheless a cabin. Yes, crazy stuff. Still an outhouse. Still bears, and wolves, and coyotes, a porcupine, a bard owl, at least one bobcat, deer, bunnies, mice (sorry mice, saying buh-bye to you), red squirrels, grouse, lots of birds, even a nest on the shed porch this spring. But now also a cabin. Better be careful. Maybe a well is next. You never know the crazy stuff we might do.
And the garden at the historic cemetery! Wowsywowsywow! That changed me as a person! It renewed in me that people really do appreciate things. Not everybody – I’m talking to you dog owners lol. Cute as they are, that garden is not for Fourpeds! But by and large, the support has been INCREDIBLE!!!
And, 100% transparent, not absolutely every harvested seed is in storage. I could not resist harvesting one pod from the Stellas at the historic cemetery. For a friend. Not for me. So far. There are still pods that are maturing. Actually, there are still buds that are blooming. Probably because I removed the pods as they formed. We do have a good crop of pollinators over there so I suspect it will an ongoing discipline to remove the pods as they form so we get season-long bloom.
So onwards! No choice, right? The fall candles are being burned, the cozy home stuff is coming out, the garden is going to sleep, the shrubs are being trimmed, the hummingbird feeders are down, soon the garden pretties will come in and be stored, and the seedling box, and eventually the lawn furniture and firepit. But the pictures are available and the fireplace has already been started up, and there are adventures ahead.
For tonight, I started putting button batteries in the tea lights, and I lit a woodsy candle and drank hot cocoa. Fall is definitely here.
The daylily seed harvest is wrapping up. This year I have eight different types that survived the bunnies, squirrels, and sprinklers. Two are self seed and one is an “unknown” after a save from critter curiosity. That leaves five, and the daylily seedling box fits five pots, so, whew! we probably don’t need to put an addition on the daylily seedling “inn” next spring. After discovering what looks like a self seed, self plant, seedling bloom (more on that at the end), I now have a much greater level of confidence that the self seeds and unknowns can go straight into the ground in May. Where they will go, I have no idea. We are choc-a-block full. Time will tell.
The “countdown to season end” planting and transplanting list is also done, and early at that, as the daylily shipment came earlier than I expected. That sprint was something else! Very rewarding, but very exhausting.
After the linden trimming brought a previously shaded area back into the sun, there was no more room for Blue Mouse Ears hostas. I ended up planting the two remaining Blue Mouse Ears hosta divisions into the historic cemetery garden. A little worse for wear after sitting in the garage for a week and a half, but better than to the compost pile.
I hope they make it. They are such a beautiful hosta, and it would be nice to have them in that garden.
All of the other plantings I have put into the historical cemetery, save the clematis that never bloomed and eventually died, are doing well. The sedum rootings are even blooming pink. And the baby daylily pieces are sprouting new fans. For all of that, I am thankful. They love the sun, and the mulch seems to keep them in enough moisture.
I also started the fall cutback at the historic cemetery – the largest patch of Black-Eyed-Susans, the remainder of the milkweed, some irises, and more hosta scapes.
At the townhome gardens, the garden is starting to look more like fall. I decided the little scarecrows would be fun to be put out again this year. I almost feel like they could use some little hay bales. But I don’t do hay (achoo!!!) so … Blue Mouse Ears will have to do.
Sadly, the hummingbirds are pretty much done coming through and we will soon take down the feeders. There are enough flowers for late travelers. They have really loved the second bloom of the Weigelia this year (below) as well as the late blooming Rainforest Sunrise hosta.
The huge flocks of small migrating birds have also wound down. We have been seeing quite a few butterflies now, so we are assuming that is also migration. And seagulls! I wonder if we just never noticed them before here. We had flocks of them at our little house in the mining town on Lake Superior, but never here.
I am thinking that soon the dark eyed juncos will arrive for the winter.
So time is marching on. But for today, on this beautiful fall day, a day of PTO from work, I will just putz in the garden, enjoy what looks like our last week before the cooler weather, and look at our newest addition – totally unplanned, unplanted, a full on surprise until I saw the buds last week and the bloom today – “Panache”. We are calling her Panache because she appears to be a reversion to the grandparents of Just Plum Happy, the daylily in that space. Welcome to our garden, Panache! You are the new latest blooming daylily here!
Besides the daylilies being done for the year and the linden starting to look very fall-ish, and the sedum making me smile, I feel like yet more changes are a-coming.
Sometimes children – grown and tiny bring you along on their journey. So it is that, besides the cabin build-out up north, an enormous gardening opportunity has presented itself, one that, frankly, is even more than I would tackle alone. But the beauty is that it is not mine.
I find myself astonished that I am looking forward to NOT being the owner. What is going on?
And who was it that looked at me oh those many years ago and said, “Don’t let those daylily seeds go to waste! You know you can save them and plant them!” Yes, indeed. In addition to some going up north and maybe some to the historic garden, I think they may look beautiful in your new gardens 🥰
The hummingbirds have been gone for a week and a half, the geese are flocking up and filling the skies with their wonderful honking, we have had our first frost, the shamrocks are out of the gardens and up by the patio, transitioning to their eventual move indoors for the winter, and the daylily seeds are almost all harvested, and in envelopes, safely stored until February stratification time.
We have also worked through a lot of what we brought back from the little house up north. Some was not worth sharing, but definitely needed purging. We are once again in a “manageable decluttered” state. Not perfect, but back to continual maintenance.
I recently planted the two hostas that were really struggling at that little house up north, back into the garden here, the last transitional piece. As a bonus, we hear from our former neighbors that the new homeowners are very nice. A match, and a blessing indeed. We were blessed to enjoy that wonderful home during its, and indeed our, transitional period, and had wonderful memories there to enjoy for a lifetime, including friendships we carry forward.
Now the fall things at the townhouse remain – cutting back the garden after the color is largely gone, balancing between enjoying the last bit, and getting winterized before significant snow flies. It is part of the cycle, and a good time to wind down the garden blog for the 2022 season.
So I bid you a fond adieu until the gardens pick up in spring 2023. I will post from time to time as “share worthy” things come up in the interim, and will catch up next spring for another garden season.
Take care!
It started yesterday – winds strong enough to make the falling leaves look like a shower. A cold front moving in. By Tuesday night we are forecasted to have our first frost here. Our planting days for 2022 are numbered. Time to get the rootings planted.
This year I rooted two Autumn Joy sedum from breakage (planted them together), one Sundazzle sedum from breakage, and one coneflower from breakage (planted them together). If they survive the transplant and the winter we will have three new baby sedum and a new baby coneflower in the spring.
The two Autumn Joy rootings I planted out front.
The Sundazzle and the coneflower rootings I planted in the corner by the patio, where I was deliberating what I was going to plant there after we pulled out the Patriot hosta last year. (There is too much sun there for the Patriot hosta.)
As an example, these are Autumn Joy sedum rootings, all grown up 🤗
As some of you may have guessed, I queue up blog posts. Many are not time sensitive, so whenever they come up is fine. But this one is actually today. Yeay!
Fall! It’s here! And it’s accompanying temperature drops are coming, fast. We already had a frost warning up north, and we will dip into the 30s for lows here next week. The shamrocks will be coming in some time in the next couple weeks, and it is time to finish up any transplanting. The summer of 2022 is gone.
Life has been a little intense, and I, for one, could really use a weekend in the gardens. Hoping for that. There is a chance of rain late tonight/early tomorrow. But looking good Sat/Sun.
We are also getting antsy with “what does our home, go forward, look like” thoughts. We saw something that was enticing, but before we even had time to think – gone. That is the way it still is here. Snooze, you lose.
We need more family gathering space, and definitely more kitchen functionality, so our thinking caps are on. What does that look like?
And, as always, the landscape v garden issue continues to roll around in my head. I garden. I do not landscape. That is who I am. Our living situation needs to satisfy that. As I shared in a previous blog, I don’t want to go weed at a church on Thursday nights. I want to garden, here.
So lots of grey cells firing. Time will tell.
One thing is certain, we are feeling cramped and cluttered with the stuff from the little house up north coming back here. There will be a lot more decluttering/purging blogs to motivate (and entertain) for sure! In fact, I think there is another one coming up, today. Enjoy!
It is a foggy, almost fall morning here in Minnesota. Queue the apple orchards and the fall jackets.
Not quite yet, but soon.
I would leave my recliner and go out in the garden, but there are no daylilies left, I am exhausted from last weekend’s two moves out of the small house up north – one trip to bring stuff to the camper, and then another trip to bring the remaining stuff back to the townhouse. But that is done now, and the up north recliners are perfect for being sluggy, on this damp fall-ish morning. Time time to indulge in an open front door, cricket to bird serenade, with a little side of squirrels playing on the trees. No need to get out the towel to wipe down the lawn chair this morning. I’m good with this.
Susan's Daily Garden 