Category: Garden

It all began here

Bonus story today 🙂

Yesterday we were talking with my mother-in-law and she asked, “Did you give me some peach daylilies?” Indeed I did.

I have one here as well. I bought three and put two in front oh those many years ago – 16? Those two out front did not do as well in that location, so I pulled them out. I didn’t have a place for them and my mother-in-law was tearing out grass along the side of her yard and putting in a new garden. Those two daylilies have done so well there!

Oh the gardens that have grown at her house! The creations, the fish pond, cyclops the one eyed fish who wintered in a big aquarium in their basement, flowers, fruits, vegetables, my first iris rhysomes were from her. My in-laws showed up after we bought our first house – with a tin garden bucket of 40 purple iris rhysomes. It all began with that, my friends. Those 40 iris rhysomes were 400 3 years later. I gave them to neighbors and got others back. Some of those gardens were still going strong when we moved. I leave a trail of gardens all over – hahaha!

The soil of my gardening mind had been tilled at a very early age with weekend visits to my own grandmother, and work in her vegetable garden. My mother also had gardens along the way. And my dorm room was full of houseplants that moved through to our first apartment. But my mother-in-law gets the credit for giving me a love for perennial gardening, almost 40 years ago. And now, she is enjoying my gifts back to her. The sister to the two that are blooming in her garden right now is blooming in my garden right now. In fact today.

Flowering edibles

A friend recently gave me a couple zucchini starts. Blast from the past – like 30 years past – when I started and was growing vining edibles on the edge of our back yard. And the parcel of land next to us got sold. And construction started. And the vining edibles got scraped up and plowed into the construction dirt pile. Ugghhh. Well, I reasoned, I am the only one in our family who likes zucchini anyway. The melon plants would have been nice though. Lemonade out of lemons, friends gave me some of their harvest many years. I purchased from the farmer’s market as well. And this year I tried again, and planted those little zucchini starts from my friend in a plant pot, just to see what happened. In a pot because that meets association bylaws. Which I can understand. But we did have one resident a few years back who grew corn. Not in pots. (LMBO!!!) And, as an aside, we have lived by corn fields, if not right on the edge of corn fields, for 32 years. My dream house is either on the edge of a corn field or on the edge of the woods, with a little brook, which we doggone near have at the little house up north, but I digress – widely. Back on topic 😉

The zucchini starts grew and yesterday a flower bloomed. A couple verses have come to mind. First was the Job verse (1:21) “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” But, as sad as it was that the landscape maintenance kid stepped on my Praying Hands hosta and smooshed it, stepped on and broke off two daylily plants, and trimmed shrubs that were coming up on flowering season, I hardly think that even remotely approaches Job. The next thing that came to mind was “When the Lord closes one door, somewhere he opens a window.” Sound of Music. I can fly with that. And indeed I did make that little angels singing sound when I saw the first flower on the zucchini plant. Free flowers, I thought! Yellow! Trumpet shaped when they open so maybe the pollinators will even enjoy them! And if I can get a tomato cage (my daughter-in-law had an extra one a month ago), I can even train it. Lord knows it may meet it’s untimely demise if I don’t do something to keep it from the weed whipping and spraying/blower maxing/don’t bother to look where you’re stomping jubilance.

The zucchini loves this corner spot. The spot the Patriot hosta didn’t like (way too sunny). The spot where I considered growing a few sunflowers – hahaha!

Yes those are forget-me-nots in the rock – that I keep well away from the lawn. Yes, those are marks from my favorite lawn chair – I don’t care. Look at that big healthy hosta next to that zucchini in a pot.

Grow little zucchini starts! Grow and prosper!

A Rollercoaster

Hobbies – what a treat. Something you choose to do, without a time clock accountability, however you can, when you can, if you can. Something you get lost in.

It takes a while to find a hobby that is satisfying and fulfilling enough to keep you coming back. I have many friends who love to craft – make beautiful home-made cards, scrapbook, sew, knit, crochet, quilt. I have a friend who is an author. We have friends who are certifiable MENSA people, who hold patents, who design medical devices that save lives. I have a sister, and we have a son who, in their spare time develope finance and budget and investment spreadsheets with formulas that make my eyes cross. My husband LOVES to cook, and wander around grocery stores looking for ingredients for his creations. Who does that? – lol – JK. Good thing because when he doesn’t cook I revert to a very predictable set of easy favorites!

I like to design gardens, dig in the dirt, maintain those creations, and continuously enhance them. Therein lies my 3 1/2 year rollercoaster. From the (now) camping land, to the (now may get sold) very little house up north, to the townhouse LANDSCAPING (read July 15, 2022 for explanation), there have been continual roadblocks. Because I like to garden where I live. Not six blocks or six miles or 360 miles away. I like to tend my gardens. I like to get up and watch the sky turn from dark to barely light and see the lilies barely open, see the “outside” of the buds as they turn into petals that fold over and show a completely different coloring inside. I like my coffee outside in the garden after I have had a few walks around in the “barely there” light. I like the rotations from shade to sun to shade and sitting for hours on a Saturday just looking – in my scrubby clothes, jeans pulled up from the bottom to my knees (as my husband says “pirate” style), hair a mess, dog on my lap, hopefully presentable if neighbors stop by to see what’s blooming. I don’t want to go weed at a church every Thursday. That is not what makes me tick. I want to be IN the garden, where we live.

So … I am on the hunt AGAIN for a solution. Because looking at bushes lined up like soldiers at the townhouse doesn’t do it for me. Because our camping land already has more beauty than I could ever put together, and on a much larger scale than I would ever attempt. Because my husband doesn’t like how small the very small house up north felt when we actually began spending days there. And because we have grandbaby pull to the cities.

A nice small, easy to manage house, with an old back yard I can turn into a garden with grass paths and no ridiculous cycle of fertilizing and watering so the grass gets to a height you don’t like and you cut it – week after week. Ok, I will stop on the lawn speech 🙂

There is a solution out there. I hope it arrives by the time I retire. I am really hoping.

I wait all year for this day

I wait all year for this day – the day the first daylily blooms. Yesterday the buds looked like this:

Today:

Early this morning I also watched as a robin chased a squirrel. I think the days of that squirrel causing mischief are numbered – hahaha! There is a new sheriff in town and I suspect there are some baby robins involved.

Tonight we barely made it home from our walk, and the skies just opened up. In full disclosure – we saw it coming and we knew it was close. Afterward though – a rainbow.

And I got a trip in to the co-op to get fresh veggies and a few treats with a friend.

A good day.

Now if I could just figure out what broke off an entire daylily scape on one of my new(er) – 2nd summer – daylilies. A trailcam sort of camera may need to be trained on that area. So curious. Seems too tall for a bunny and we have never had deer at the townhouse. But maybe …

New seedling planter

I recently had a milestone birthday. The kids, as always, asked what I would like. I told them I wanted something special that would be fun for years. I asked for a long rectangular planter with a squirrel and bunny proof lid to grow my daylily seedlings each year.

Wow! It is beautiful, and perfect for me!

They bought the planter part, and put that together, and then designed and built the squirrel and bunny proof part. The top is built with a lip on the frame so it doesn’t slide around, and it just lifts off, so no hinge, no chain, and no tipping if there is no weight in it yet each spring.

I want to be able to move it at leisure, so no dirt directly in it either. (They brought me 3 buckets of dirt from the local garden store.)

I used to plant the seeds indoors in March, and have a table of seedlings indoors for 10 weeks, but last year I said no to that, and now plant all of the seeds from the same parent together in a pot (or two if there are a lot from that plant). I do that in late May, because we can get frost even until Memorial day, and I want those plants to be hearty. They get covers until germination and about an inch or so of seedling, and then – open air. I know – but last year I had a bumper year compared to other years with other methods.

This year I used five plant pots – two pots with seeds from Purple d’Oro, one with seeds from Marque Moon, one with seeds from China Doll, and one with seeds from South Seas.

I identify the parent plant just for fun, but, in reality last year’s seedlings all got planted in one new garden, with no markers identifying the parent plants. I know! 😦 But I’m not the propagator. The bees and birds are. I’m just in it to see what happens. So far a lot of greens, but no blooms. Yet. Still fun 😊

I only have one daylily from the direct sow years. It is four years old. I am hoping it finally blooms this year.

“Baby” from “South Seas” parent, surrounded by forget-me-nots that will bloom next year.

I have 15 plants from the potting method – three from two years ago when they were started indoors, and a dozen from last year when they were started in a “community pot” of same parent, outdoors. All still waiting to bloom. Some still tiny.

This takes patience – haha!

But it is fun.

Hats off. Weekend fun.

The buckets and plant pots that protected the daylilies, hostas, and sedum during the roofing project are off, but will have one more appearance in the next couple weeks when the gutter and fascia work is going on.

After that very long, hard to wait but dreading the potential collateral damage May, it was great to get back in the garden.

First up was removing the remainder of the tree seedlings. That got done yesterday. The total of buckets this year was down from the past few years – 5, compared to the usual 7. Hurray!

The dying tulip greens that got smooshd also got pulled. They were done anyway.
sadly, also a daylily piece from the project smoosh, but next year …

Then the pollinator created, harvested daylily seeds from 2021 finally got planted. Another post on that coming soon.

The sunflower seedlings also all got pulled. They were an experiment, but the rolling roofing dumpster made that decision for me. My husband was very happy – hahaha!!!

Today my thoughts turned to the front entry garden. It needs love.

One of the Blue Mouse Ears hostas out back also got a little smooshed with the roofing project. That was ok because it needed to be divided anyway, and the flowers get hit by the sprinkler, so moving the whole plant is probably a good idea. Blue Mouse Ears are the perfect size for the entryway area, and with dappled sun due to the Amur Maple they will look great for years to come. That area also had the remnant of a Rainforest Sunrise hosta I mostly moved up north, but it got a bit smooshed too so this will not be it’s shining year. I had to cut away the smooshed leaves. No worries, it will pop back next year. But besides a center hosta and the few Blue Mouse Ears divisions, and the low growing sedum, what to put in that area for color? No to annuals I think. Daily watering – ugghhh. That is for bird baths – haha! No to sedum divisions – the two low growing sedum are enough. Asian lilies seem to die out there, and the stems are not great after bloom either. They require layering to cover those up. So it may be daylilies. I am concerned about the dappled sun, but maybe. Still contemplating.

Finally, the center of one of the back garden areas was pretty bare. Plenty of baby forget-me-nots that will bloom next year, but it needs something additional. I pulled a nice daylily from there to go up north last year, and right afterward I saw how bare that area was and regretted it. Bummer. So that area needs love. But low investment. Trying out the green shamrock. Not sure. Might need a trip to the garden store.

So that was the weekend garden fun. Super enjoyed it.