One of the last hostas to bloom in our gardens are the ‘Rainforest Sunrise’ hostas. The leaves are gorgeous all season, but the wine colored scapes and lavender blooms are icing on the cake as the gardens wind down.
The sedums are pinking up too. It’s that time of year.
And yet another sign of fall, this weekend the farmers market had apples! I absolutely could not resist! Crisp air, crisp apples. Embrace the season.
While we were up north we literally watched the leaves start to turn yellow. Each day there was more and more yellow.
Now back at the townhouse, the linden is turning more and more yellow. Soon we will have a carpet of leaves in both places.
While we were up north the last 2 daylily buds also bloomed. I have already harvested our first seeds – from the ‘South Seas’ daylily – just one pod. While we wait for the other seed pods to mature, it will be time to start trimming.
I take about six weekends to hand cut everything back. This weekend it will be all the asian lily stems. Our friend the bunny has put a hurt on a bunch of them, so literally some of them are just stems.
What a wonderful spring and summer garden we’ve had! Lots to remember! Now, while we enjoy fall, it’s also our time to prepare well for next year.
What? Bunnies are garden friends? Sure. Why not? I have stopped putting out coffee grounds until the final application in late fall so the bunnies are getting quite bold. They have kicked off the fall trimming season, starting with the asian lilies.
Go bunnies. Get chubby for winter. Less going into compost.
I will put out coffee grounds again when needed.
A week or so ago we made another trip to the local garden store. 4 additions and a replacement came home with us – two lavender plants, and two more chocolate colored sedum, plus another ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ hosta. It is my favorite time of year to plant, when I know with almost 100% certainty what survived the previous winter, and where I have gaps going into next year.
The only daylilies that are still blooming are the ‘Marque Moon’, and they are wrapping up. That area needed some fall interest. The two new sedum are just what that area needed. They are babies now but will fill the space within the next few years.
The two lavender tucked under the weigelia, right along the path, where I can brush by the leaves and enjoy their scent. I hope they survive the winter and return. They are zone 4 so we’ll see.
In the progression, as the daylilies are winding down, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum are now taking the stage. I know, they are kind of like ‘Stella D ‘Oro’ – everybody knows them – but I absolutely love them. Over the years I have propagated many new sedum from our original ‘Autumn Joy’ plants, which were a gift from my Dad. I learned to do that at first because we had a fearless bee chasing Irish Terrier (Darby) who broke off stems in his efforts to eradicate our entry garden of those “buzzing menaces” – lol. From those poor broken stems I rooted sedum plants that within three years formed a hedge! That hedge got too big and I had to gift some, but now, years later, our garden boasts a fall tapestry of their beautiful form and changing color, woven in throughout the landscape. Here’s their first efforts at color morphing this year.
The garden also has an abundance of seed pods. The daylilies are full. The ‘Purple D ‘Oro’ are crazy full this year.
I think I will have quite an April seedling project coming up.
And of course, the weather has been INCREDIBLE! Cooler temperatures soothe my soul. The crisp air renews me.
I already miss the “Wow!” of the new daylily blooms, but to everything there is a season. There’s still a lot of garden left.
It seems that “Poof! There went the daylilies!” Not totally, but last week started a big wind-down. There were lots of “lasts”. Each day we said good-bye to some of our favorite blooms for the year. The ‘Just Plum Happy’, the ‘South Seas’, the peach daylily, the ‘Hush Little Baby’. I miss them already. Even the hosta blooms are winding down and some of the leaves are already starting to look tired.
This is the time of year when looking at the garden could make me sad. I have to discipline myself, to regroup, be thankful, and get my thoughts on how to make the garden even better next year. And we are adding little touches already. More on that in the next few days.
Yesterday morning I committed to our garden donations. The two Aureomarginatas that are 5′ wide each deserve better than the crowded space they have overgrown into. If we ate hosta greens I would keep them, but we don’t. I may save a small division, but that would have to go up north and be put in chicken wire. Much more joyful is the thought of them maybe being divided to share with many and absolutely being primary specimens in neighboring gardens.
I also decided to harvest the daylily seeds again this year, and they are plentiful.
Above are the ‘Purple D’ Oro’ but almost every daylily formed seeds this year. (The peach daylily is our exception.) Those seeds will be my early April seedling project next spring.
Today we were cleaning the garage, going through things. Some things with many fond memories were put aside to donate. We don’t use them anymore, but we know others who are very excited about receiving them and will really enjoy them. So it is with the garden. We grow, we enjoy, we improve, we share, sometimes we pass things on, all with the hope the joy will continue. We can be thankful. We can remember fondly. We can continue to move forward and improve.
Before we understood exactly how dense the plants and shrubs on our land up north are, I planned our northern Minnesota “year one” test garden. A very compelling idea was to use hugelkultur. Hugelkultur calls for raised garden beds. The bottom layer is tree trunks and large branches. Then smaller branches and twigs. Finally, atop it all is soil.
We gave it a try. I bought two steel raised garden forms. We had abundant tree material. Plenty of soil topped it off. In went both seeds and seedlings. The seeds sprouted but stunted. We realized we could not rely on just rain – we needed to be there to water, which we weren’t. Then the ferns poked through the open bottom and the hugelkultur. Now it looks like a fern garden. I couldn’t even bear to take pictures.
I think it’s an awesome idea, but our experience was that it still requires just as much weeding and watering as a normal, in the ground, garden.
We are hoping some of our work will survive. We put some winter hardy perennials in – malva zebrina hollyhocks, asclepias, coneflowers, and asparagus, and we’re hoping those make it through the tough winter. The carrots, cinnamon basil, and kale we already wrote off as critter food (deer, rabbits …).
Yesterday was an overcast day, with a bit of breeze, and rain on the way. Perfect day to put additions into the garden.
Saturday I visited the local garden store. I decided to bring home three additions. One was a chocolate colored sedum, to fill in a spot that previously had a chocolate drop sedum. It did not return last year but I held out hope. It did not return this year so I decided to get another chocolate colored sedum to match one we alread have (SUNSPARKLER Plum Dazzled) and see how that goes.
The other two additions are coneflowers. Years ago, at our house, I had a 20′ x 20′ wildflower and daylily corner. I really enjoyed that. We need a bit of late summer/early fall color on our path by the linden, so I tucked the new coneflowers in there (POWWOW Wild Berry).
Today also started the daylily wrap up. Our last ‘South Seas’ daylily bloom of the season was today.
I suspect the last ‘Hush Little Baby’ bloom of the season will be tomorrow.
It’s all good. Today I watched as the bees and butterflies flitted from bloom to bloom on the hostas. They do the same on the daylilies. Next year they’ll do it all again. And maybe those seed pods that are forming on the daylilies have something beautiful in store for us down the road.
We may have almost 6 weeks until the official start of fall, but fall is definitely poking it’s head around the corner here in Minnesota.
Mid-week I also noticed we are past the half-way point of daylily blooms. I still have a wonderful palette of all the colors each day, and seeing what the new day has brought continues to be breathtaking. Sadly, however, we are only a few days away from having some colors wrap up. The peach, the ‘South Seas’ and the ‘Hush Little Baby’ daylilies are at the “one bud left” stage. The red daylilies are not far behind. They bloomed in abundance for the past couple weeks and were absolutely gorgeous individually and en masse.
But … the sedum are looking so good, and their color is right around the corner.
And so begins the “thinking” time of year regarding the garden. First I “think” and think and think and think. Then I plan, then I do. I have some Aureomarginata hostas that are huge and should have been divided last year. Now a year later I have joined our association’s “newly formed” landscaping committee – as in three of us – lol. There are people in our association that have expressed interest in a landscape refresh. We have loosely discussed going more toward perennials. They are beautiful and can easily be trimmed to ground in fall by the landscape service. So I’m looking through my garden and thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
There will be gifting. I love to do that. But what scope? The Aureomarginatas deserve space. Could divisions be a good start at single, easy landscaping for folks that don’t or can’t do gardens, but like them? I suspect that’s where I will reasonably land for this fall. “Do not despise the day of small beginnings” (Zechariah 4:10).
The past few days have had just a hint of fall – a bit of crispness in the morning air, a few early leaves dropping, the seeds from the amur maple turning pink. (I will be pulling hundreds of seedlings again next spring, but right now they are beautiful.)
And the ‘Marque Moon’ daylilies are blooming abundantly – 28 blooms a few days ago!
The hummingbirds are also beginning to come by much more often, so both feeders are back out, and the butterflies are stopping long enough for me to catch a pic.
I am also starting to see the daylilies produce seed pods.
There will still be plenty of very warm days, but fall is starting to peek around the corner.
August is here. The grass starts to look tired. Every corner crevice needs to be swept at least once per week to prevent a webby effect, and it’s going from warm to nice to warm to nice.
This week was gorgeous. This weekend was a bit warm – high 80s and humid. Tomorrow is supposed to be 10°F cooler.
The dayliles are still beautiful and the hostas are in varying stages of bloom. The sedum look very full. Soon they will start to pink up.
Susan's Daily Garden 