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 😊
It took a bit today to finally get this blog decided on. There was “Envelope, Please” where I started to share about harvesting the daylily seeds, what was looking good for next year’s potential. There was “Very little left to do in the townhome gardens” where I had started to share the pre-fall progression for the gardens over the past couple weeks. There was “A snapshot of this ‘n that” where I had some pretty things in the gardens to share. All of those were started in the past few weeks and then left to sit. Our aging dog with a heart condition took a few continual turns for the worse, a family member got a very tough medical diagnosis, and the US and world news is … horrifying. Maybe things like this continually happen and we just don’t get a view to it. But it has all been heartbreaking. Praying about it continually, and then doing positive things has been the only way. Our dog is now on medicine designed purely to make his life as comfortable as possible. Our family member is undergoing extensive treatment. And the world, and us in the world, continually mourns losses, but most certainly with the hope of peace for eternity.
And we are still in this world, so we have work to do. And work we will do. Sharing beauty with the gifts we have been given. And experience. And wisdom. And sometimes, as other bloggers have reminded me today, just good old belly laughs. In proper time and measure.
So, for today, I will share a lot of thanks and praise. And some experience, and, hopefully, wisdom.
At the townhouse:
At the historic cemetery:
So today I am not going to endlessly sit in front of our tv watching horrifying things, dotted with advertisements for things I do not need nor want. I am not going to worry about things I cannot do anything more about. I can choose to use that time for more beautiful things, and still know enough to know how to pray, and for what. And that is what I shall do.
Wishing you peace ahead.
Today is my cutoff day for doing daylily crosses. I am, admittedly, a little bit sad, but I know it is a good decision. I don’t want to overwork the daylilies with pods, I am fatigued myself on all the planning and crossing and documenting, and I want to have a fall, too. If I stop now, all the pods should be through the maturity window by the time I want to stop watching for pods that are opening.
So today is it. I had all the crosses done by 10am, and now I watch and wait.
Although I do shudder a bit at the volume of crosses I have done this year, I have lots of good notes and lots of all types of pics. I also have been very pleased with the new seedling planters. I am set up with space for seeds that go to seedling next year, plus ways to protect the seedlings.
I am also reminding myself this is not the end of daylily bloom season, just the end of the crossing season. In fact, the late daylilies are not even at peak. I do, however, have all the crosses I want on those as well. So now I get to enjoy. Just enjoy. And get my creative mind going again on my fall list. What needs to be divided, what needs to go to a new location, what worked with the seedling boxes and what next year will pivot to on that setup.
I am also reminding myself this has been is a big change year for me. This hobby is now solidly very deliberate. I don’t random buy anymore. I don’t walk garden stores, seeing what they have chosen to stock. I like to see what is available through hybridizers and propagators, but I seriously consider things I did not before – timing, color compatibility, height, pollen and pod fertility, ploidy, parentage … It is still super fun, but with a specific focus I did not include before.
What happens next, yet this year? Divisions and transplanting work starts tomorrow. Not of the daylilies with pods, but of seedlings that need to come out of pots and go into the ground, and of hostas that need to be relocated. I am also looking at making sure I have paths for next year’s accessibility. If it is too hard to get to something I won’t use it for crosses. Totally OK, but again, needs to be intentional.
So tomorrow turns the corner to all that. I will continue to share as I go.
Happy wishes to you for good garden time until then!
We are having a “calm” garden activity day again today. The daylily wind down has begun, and we are also having an on and off, sometimes very heavy rain day. No crosses were done today, but full disclosure, yesterday I kicked off the “wacky cross” period. I did an intentional “should not work” cross. It was probably good to take a break today haha.
I did that cross yesterday because I wanted to try a cross between two daylilies I really like. One is a diploid and one is a tetraploid that has a diploid in its parentage. What is the worst that can happen – it could fail? I took the chance. And I enjoyed the two daylilies all day. And more full disclosure, there will probably be a few more wacky tests in the weeks to come 😉 It is getting to be that time of year when I am willing to try those things. You never know. It could work. Last year, on a wind down season whim, I did the somewhat wacky color combo cross that got us the 28 Mahala Felton seeds. 24 are now seedlings. Yes, the parents were both tetraploids, so it was much more likely to succeed, but it was definitely on a whim. A very bold color cross that does not match the color palette I usually aim for. I am now very excited to see just how much it reflects the very bold Mahala Felton that I discovered in my historical research last winter.
We are also starting to approach the seed maturity window. After months of watching and tending the gardens pretty intensely, I like a little more freedom in fall when the bugs are down and the weather is getting nicer. I have learned from experience that I sometimes miss seed pod maturity when I get busy like that in the fall, so any seed pods I really really really want to catch need to be crosses done in the next couple weeks. The rest need to be ones I am ok potentially going to direct sow, or the squirrels or bunnies or birds 😉
On the bloom scene, we had one “first time seedling bloom” today. It was the last seedling scape of the season that was still pending bloom, and the reveal was a bit unexpected. It was a seedling I moved more into the sun last year. For expectation, I was going on my early years style of documentation. I was hoping for the Purple D’Oro that was in my documentation of the area I moved it from, but as the scape matured and the buds began to move to bloom, I began to suspect it was not going to be much like a Purple D’Oro. It was too tall and started to show red on the bud a few days ago. Still, I held onto hope that it was a very cool pollinator cross. Alas, today when it bloomed it looked exactly like the red daylilies we have en masse out front. It even has the signature curls at the end of the petals. That I absolutely love.
Seedling red daylily is definitely pretty, but not new. The red daylilies used to be in the area where the Purple D’Oro seedling was. I am guessing the Purple d’Oro seedling I documented did not survive and the red daylilies had a direct sow self-seed in that same area. Stuff happens. It will probably go up north as one of our “parents”.
And that leads to a further discussion on the plan that is forming for next year. It does go a few years back, for sure. Back to the years when I moved at least part of the garden to the little house up north (that we sold). In those years, we were moving toward a more “structured” look at the townhouse. At least in the front of the townhouse. We moved the red daylilies at the townhouse out of a more shady area in back to the front of the house and into much more sun. We had started with just a few big box bare roots and had grown them to the point where we had a lot of them. I wanted to further the development of our “red, white, and blue waves” theme out front. That was an awesome decision. And we are now “there”. In Spring the Bluebells clematis starts the wave. Then the red daylilies start blooming. For colorful interest, once they get going, we have at least a dozen and around peak two, even three dozen red daylily blooms each day. That wave gradually moves toward the less sunny area, and the red daylily blooms continue well into August. Just about that time the Marque Moon buds start to mature, and by the time the red daylilies start to wind down, the Marque Moon (creamy shimmery white) start to bloom. Even though they are old now and in the Linden roots, they still make a show. And the whole pattern ends at the Linden changing colors. There also used to be quite a few big hostas there, but I digress. The blue flowering hostas that are now in that area are earlier blooming, the Blue Mouse Ears divisions.
As I gradually move the daylily propagation to our land up north, the wave pattern will become de facto at the townhouse and will start to wrap around the back. Probably a different color scheme. Probably keeping more pastels. Simplified as I stop planting seedlings here. And with that decision made, now I can also start to look at what needs to be divided this fall and use that as my starting template to also bring mature daylily divisions up north. I want them to self-seed up north. I have pretty much fallen in love with self-seed, and I am thinking it will be quite a bit of my go forward approach. We have soooooo many pollinators up north. If the deer can be kept away from the daylilies, I am so excited to see what self-seeds we get. The daylily divisions we bring up can be our mature daylily test subjects, to see how the deer react to a few unprotected daylilies. Unlike the seedlings, in the spring, when the mature daylilies start to grow, I will need to remove the cloches. We shall see how that goes. It will definitely be a determining factor in the fencing approach. Step by step. This is a long game.
For today, before it rained, I worked on maintenance. One of those things was beginning to remove the scapes from the Blue Mouse Ears hostas. They are done blooming and I do not want them to spend any energy producing seed. I will be dividing more of the Blue Mouse Ears this fall, so I want to preserve their energy to help them handle division as well as possible.
And I did grab some pics to share before the rain started.
The South Seas only have five buds left after today. In our garden, 2025 is, without a doubt, the year of South Seas and family, and I am so excited to continue that as one of my focus lines.
The Coral Majority looked way less “wild child, tie dye” today. She and South Seas are the pollen rock stars this year.
And Pink Tirza wrapped up bloom out back today. I got two “wish list” crosses from her this year.
Naomi Ruth also continues to delight.
I am fully enjoying the 2025 blooms and even having a little extra creativity. And little by little we are moving into the staging for next year’s gardens and the start of the seedling garden up north.
I heard it again this week, and it is absolutely true: A garden is never done. Thank goodness 🙂
Today Tender Love bloomed for the first time this season. She is quite fragrant, and is a large bloom.
The bluejays have been visiting regularly. This morning I was slow to fill the birdbath so the visit was short.
And Red Volunteer bloomed for the first time in our townhome gardens.
I was anticipating this bloom after seeing how beautiful Red Volunteer bloomed her first year, this year, at the historic cemetery.
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.
About this time of year I start to make my fall list of garden changes/updates/refreshes. It can get to be quite ambitious in my mind, so getting it in black and white is important. To set healthy limits, I have a moratorium on in-ground to in-ground transplanting from late June to the beginning of September. That timeline gives me time to focus on the daylilies during bloom, and it helps give me a chance to fully assess the gardens’ future needs. It also keeps me remembering that the September heat adds to the transplanting effort and curbs my “enthusiasm”, which in turn keeps the list manageable.
So the list has begun. #1 at the townhouse is dividing and transplanting more of the Blue Mouse Ears hostas. This one is already part of a long-term change for the gardens. Those Blue Mouse Ears started fairy ringing a few years ago. I divided and transplanted a few clumps last year and they are doing well, even scaping out and blooming.
The divisions this year will follow last year’s pattern, moving them more into the shade. I want to reestablish a path to the back of the garden again, so the hostas I divide will move into that area, giving more layering, which also keeps weeds down, and then the space where the Blue Mouse Ears hostas will come out of will become a footpath again.
The forget-me-nots are winding down their bloom and getting pulled out. They are biennials so as I pull more and more, only leaving them for a bunny deterrent, they will stay – but in significant moderation. I do miss them a bit, but you can imagine what I don’t miss. I don’t miss how the tall stems cling to anything fabric. So the decision is – they are awesome bunny repellent but they are not going to be taller parts of “bouquets” going forward. They can stay low. A sweet sentimental part of our garden.
The peach asian lilies are done blooming, and they have now been cut back to half height. All except one I missed. I do like that they not only look tidier but that cutting them back preserves their energy from going to seed. Oh, believe me, I am tempted to let the one I missed go to seed, but I researched to remind myself on why I don’t grow Asian lilies from seed, and to get success with bringing harvested Asian lily seed to bloom it takes a series of stratification steps, followed by 3-7 years as a seedling, before bloom. I think I may say no to that wonderful opportunity this year at least. Probably longer.
Speaking of years, 7 years in to my daylily propagation journey, I am now growing enough daylily seedlings, to bloom, to keep me (and the historic cemetery) more than good. This year we have three new daylily seedlings with scapes, and the 2024 seeds are popping up more for the future. The cloches are on the seedlings, and the Mahala Felton seeds that don’t germinate this week are going into the shamrocks with their dirt. They still will have a chance, just not a dedicated space.
And the shamrocks? I don’t know what is going on there. Birds or bunnies or squirrels or something are starting to dig at those pots again, so I am going to do an experiment. I am going to put them in the ground in a spot where we lost a hosta. That spot is already growing some shamrocks from bird, bunny, or squirrel damage I missed collecting earlier this spring. We had a friend who somehow managed to grow them perennially, outdoors, in the ground, here in Minnesota, even though they are not supposed to be winter hardy. At this point they are getting distroyed anyway, and I have plenty saved in the house, so no big. It will be an adventure. Could be I grow them as annuals in our garden forward. Or we could have a new perennial. We shall see.
Finally, I have a seedling from the early years when I was doing uneducated crosses that is baffling me. I have looked and looked at pics and notes, and it sure looks like I successfully crossed Pink Tirza with a tetraploid. That’s what the envelope said (my handwriting) when I planted it. That should not have worked, as Pink Tirza is supposed to be a diploid. Very odd. Maybe something got crossed before I did the cross. We shall see how that matures.
Other than that, Red Volunteer bloomed its first bloom since I planted it last year at the historic cemetery, and I missed it. Hey, that’s how it goes. It has another bud that looks like it might bloom soon – maybe the 4th of July 😊
And finally, July 2nd was the 162nd anniversary of Gettysburg where one of the historic cemetery’s residents, James Akers, was killed in action.
This year I finished up adding purple irises to both sides of the fence garden. I am hoping they bloom for Memorial Day next year.
Wishing you a wonderful 4th of July if you are in the United States, and a beautiful week ahead.
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.
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.
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.
Susan's Daily Garden 