Category: Hostas

Refinement

I have figured out what is “throwing” me about Coral Majority. It is in the “pastel” garden area. That area has vanillas and light pink, and even South Seas sometimes goes toward salmon. Coral Majority is bold, and almost looks frayed not ruffled and seersuckerish and approaching marbled in color. Today three bloomed together and they were nice.

It has a lot of pollen, but I really don’t have anything I want to cross it with. I did a “one time” test today with Cedar Waxwing, as I haven’t crossed anything else with Cedar Waxwing this year and it is not self seeding so it will be super easy to track. If that one-time test fails I will not try again, but I am half expecting it to work lol. Something about light pink and bright coral makes me think I won’t like the cross, but maybe …

Sadly the Naomi Ruth x Pink Tirza cross to the last bloom of the smaller Pink Tirza failed only two days after the cross. Quick answer, and not unexpected.

I have taken to notes on my phone notepad to keep quick info, and that is helping. Today I accidentally made a Pink Tirza to Naomi Ruth cross on the wrong scape – one that already has two seed pods from Purple D’Oro, but I made a note and took a bunch of pics so I have it documented if it does form a seed pod, but I am guessing no. Because of that I disciplined myself to stop for the day, a good thing.

I am really, really, really hoping for good weather on Saturday morning. I have week one of “the plan” – transplanting three South Seas self seed seedlings to the historic cemetery garden. They are from 2021 seed, 2022 seedlings, and are starting to get big enough that they are blocking the path to the hummingbird feeder. I will not replant seedlings there. I also need to do weeding over at the historic cemetery, although I will say the mulch is doing a fantastic job keeping weeds down.
And now today’s highlights:

I am getting the Blue Mouse Ears scapes trimmed, always an incremental job. The large Just Plum Happy is in the Grand Finale stage. The hosta in the far back needs to be disposed. I have tried a number of things, including moving it, but it is failing. It happens. I think it is about 18 years old. It has lived a good full life.


Time for hosta haircuts, daylily peak season

Yesterday we had 22 daylilies bloom in the gardens. Today I did my first walkabout and there are even more today than yesterday. Even with the heat and humidity, even recovering from a summer cold, the joy and beauty and magnitude of what is approaching peak bloom season for the daylilies does not escape me. It is awe inspiring!
Early morning on these warm days is the most enjoyable, and I love to capture the early morning beauty before the day heats up, when the garden’s potential is just starting to shine.

Yesterday the Naomi Ruth bloomed for the first time this year.

Today Pink China Doll bloomed for the first time.

And Just Plum Happy is incredible right now.
I love how this scape this morning shows yesterday, this morning, and (probably) tomorrow.

And even though they are the backdrop right now, the hostas also are an absolute delight. Their waves of bloom are gradually giving way to seed production so it was haircut time. I want them to save their strength for next year’s beauty.

And then there is Tirza way in the back of one of the areas. It was a slow start for her here, for multiple reasons, but now she is coming in to her own these past couple years.

In a week or so I will start trimming the Blue Mouse Ears. That is quite a job, so I do a few at a time. And I see they burned a bit in the heat of the past few days. They need dividing this fall, and some may get a new, more shade filled location, and a bit of distance from the daylilies that are starting to cover them up.

They really shouldn’t be covered up. They are far too beautiful to be covered up 🥰

Happy 4th of July!

It is a rainy, chill out sort of 4th of July (American Independence Day) here. Here’s some red, white, and “blue” from our garden.

And a hint of which daylily looks like it is right on the verge of being the first to bloom in the garden this year. It will also be the first time it has bloomed in our garden. Full disclosure, I did not mark it, so until it blooms I will not be able to say for sure, but I believe it is Delicate Design.

Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers

A fantastic 24 hours indeed!
Tuesday I had volunteer time through work to start using up, so I scheduled 2 hours at the start of the day. Hey, calendars determine part of these decisions 😉 Tuesday was predicted sunny a few days before, but it dawned with rain. By 7:30 am it was to a drizzle and I could not stand the wait any longer. I needed my historic cemetery fence gardening fix. Off I went. And as blessings would have it, the drizzle fizzled by the time I pulled up to the cemetery, and stopped within a minute of getting out of the car and starting to work.
This was the first project of the day I wanted to complete – a removable border to keep the mulch in on the new iris bed.

It has to be removable come late fall because the snow plow/blower will suck up even pavers set on end.
Now maybe the perfectionist in some will say, “Why not right on the edge?” Well, at first I had the mulch mounded, and it was going over the top of the border if I placed it right at the edge. But as projects go, I just had to see if I could make it work right on the edge. I smoothed out the mulch, repositioned the border, and called my friend the site manager, who said “Hello crazy lady!” Hahaha! I asked her if she and her husband were coming over because pics weren’t sending and I needed a second set of eyes. You know what she said? “No, because it’s raining.” Now, first of all, in case you think that was not nice, she is my friend, so she was just having fun, but I tell you, the drive is short from our part of town, and it was not even drizzling at the cemetery when I called her. So I was being blessed for sure!!! Here is the pic I was trying to send her.

I made the decision, I liked the border farther back for now. Maybe I will plant ground cover in front. You just never know what I might do in a garden when I set my mind a-going. I might plant more irises in that bed and move the border forward yet this year even. You just never know with me 🙂

So I got done with the border, poured in my last bag of mulch to chock-a-block full top it off, micro-weeded the right side of the garden, took a few more quick pics, and went back home, to my office, and logged in, 7 minutes late. No worries. It was all good. Work knows what a crazy lady I am too, and that they will see me work way more than 7 minutes late cuz, well, you know, I am one of those weird people that like what I do for a paycheck. We are out there, right? 😉

At the end of my work day the dog got extra lovins because I was going to leave him yet again, but only for an hour or so, to go to the historical society meeting at a historic factory turned hotel, condos, pub, and event venue. So fun!!!

Here are pics of the setting. It was an absolutely beautiful night! No rain there!

Still, I couldn’t stop there. I had spotted the first daylily of my gardening season in bloom at the cemetery in the morning. But my phone was in the glove box, all the way at the other end of the fence garden, and you know, I was running late dadeedadeeda …

So I had to, I just had to, get a pic of that first daylily blooming. Yes, it is the overused Stella D’Oro, but … it is the first daylily of the year in the gardens I love and work in.

I returned home a very happy crazy lady! And our dog celebrated with the zoomies.

This morning, I was treated to a fully opened peach Asian lily and the first opened hosta blooms.

I tell ya, it was a wunderbar 24 hours!

And I think the baby bunny must have had fun too.

Dang it! Now I have to start using that cordial glass again!

What’s blooming?

Back from some PTO from work, it it time to catch up.

First, very exciting, I have 11 intentional daylily crosses growing into plants. Crosses that made seed, stratified, sprouted, and are now looking like baby daylilies (because they are lol). Blooms are a few years out, but that is very exciting.

Up north, some grapevine hyacinth that were from a watch ‘em grow garden (forced) a few years ago are blooming away. Very encouraging that the deer are not eating them. I had hoped they would escape being munchies.

Yes, hidden in the woodland foliage, but that is fine for now. I am adding to that area. I just planted some forced daffodils, and they, too, should be deer resistant when they come up next and subsequent years.

At the townhouse, the bluebells clematis wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

They now have their puffs

The tulips, of course, are done blooming. We only had a few this year.

At the historic cemetery the daffodils did well year one.

And the transplanted irises did very well and are continuing to bloom.

Right now at the townhouse the wiegelia is in full bloom.

The first hosta scape is about to bloom.

And the forget-me-nots are starting to bloom.

Lastly, one of the ninebarks is also blooming.

At the historic cemetery, the transplanted daylily won the race to show the first scapes and buds.

More transplanting there to be done this year, for sure – daylilies and irises. The iris bed is coming along nicely. A lot more work to be done there, but little by little. Today it was a bit of border, to keep the mulch from washing out. One more box of 12 sections and that should do it. And then clean up what is on the sidewalk. But more on that later.

The old seedling bed, the last potted plant

The old seedling bed is no more.

I have tucked the last of those seedlings into a more sunny area

and made room for hostas to go into that more shady area.

The last hosta cutting (which was an accidental pulling) is also planted in another shaded area. (I have pulled out some non-productive clematis.)

Now any more transplanting I get done in the townhome gardens this fall is bonus.

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! (In the US) The unofficial end of summer. Soon school buses will be picking kids up again, harvest activities will be planned, and gardens will pick up speed toward eventual winterizing.

But for today, we are enjoying some early morning time outside and I am increasingly enjoying the new daylily seedling bed. It is holding up well and encouraging me to get the hostas out of the other side with very similar exposure.