Fall at the door

The daylilies at the townhome are almost all wrapped up. Fall is at the door. With the garden refresh pushed out to next year, it was time to come up with a plan to address the gardening challenges.

Here is a recap of the weekend.

Friday:

Two priorities were top of mind for me:

Moving daylilies that need better sun and/or need dividing, and
Finding a small spot for a seedling bed in a safe place. Well integrated, probably at the back of a cascade, away from frequent lawn maintenance activity.

Saturday:

The three red daylilies, at the back of one garden area, that needed more sun, swapped places with the seedlings, at the front of another garden area, that kept getting stepped on, “weeded”, and blown apart.

We did our own labor for this gardening project. My husband, bless him, did the digging out part for the mature, deeply embedded lilies, and I did the pulling, dividing, moving, replanting part.

I set the garden up for a look I have always wanted out front – red daylilies next to and complemented by the white/cream in the Marque Moons, and in the spring preceded by the BlueBells clematis. The red daylilies we moved are mature, and, even divided, they are still hardy. They are also super recognizable as a plant, not needing to be plucked 😉 Fingers crossed.

Then (angels sing) the seedling bed. It is safely tucked behind the mature garden of daylilies, Blue Mouse Ears, and other “blue” hostas. Noone but us sees the seedling bed, unless they are right up to the house. Noone has to worry about accidentally stepping in the seedling bed. It is not anywhere close to where grass clippings would land and need to be blown. In the fall when shrubs need trimming and leaves need blowing, it will be ready to be cut back. In the spring, for leaf blowing, the lilies will still be in the ground. I am so hoping this works.

There is also a new configuration of another front area. 3 red daylily divisions now fill the space I emptied out last fall. To me, right now, it is not very exciting. It feels like landscaping. But it could be snazzed up a bit to cover up all that rock – maybe a few Blue Mouse Ears divisions. We’ll see. That will have to be another Friday night planning session.

With the initial year’s build out of the little house gardens wrapped up, thoughts turn to fall monitoring and clean up. The new gardens now just need continual weeding as the mulch bed settles in.

There were no gardens at the little house when we bought it, only grass and trees. Year 1 (last fall), while we were doing the reno on the inside, my husband put 5 daylilies in a front grassy area by the sidewalk. That’s where I began the build out this spring, using sedum transplants from an overgrown area in the townhouse gardens. Here’s what that front area looks like now.

It looks like all five daylilies survived, and the three sedum divisions are doing well. I can’t do much more there until we decide on next step home improvements – front porch, siding …

Putting mulch in all the garden areas somehow stopped the deer from munching. I don’t understand that, but my latest theory is that the deer might not care for the smell. I’m just thankful. As long as that continues to work I will stay that course.

I had considered hiring for the landscape build out, but I kept running into roadblocks. I’m happy now that happened. I am enjoying a new process I hadn’t even considered before – the lasagne style build out. Cardboard right on top of the grass, plants in soil, cover with 3-4″ mulch. The transplants, rootings, and cuttings all seem to be doing well with that method. I make sure to give them a good initial watering, and then follow up with watering as needed.

Yesterday’s post showed the completion of the garage to shed area build out for the year. There is a tree that needs to come out yet, and then the rest of the shed side can be finished next year.

As is my nature in projects, I do a test, observe results, and build in layers. That’s what happened on a larger scale in the back gardens. It went from all grass, to a 4′ x 5′ area on the shed side, to a 2′ addition on that side, to a 4′ x 8′ start on the garage side, then hopped the sidewalk to the back of the house where I put in 3 weigelia rootings, and then back to the garage side where I finished up yesterday. Here’s a few pics of the progression.

In the little house gardens, I decided to use grass paths. That will be way less maintenance, and we can just do one mower pass through there. Plus, call me daring, but the lawn at the little house is old, and full of up north flowering weedy things I actually like, so a bit of that along the path is something I liked the look of this year. Reminds me of the wildflower nature areas along the shore, in miniature.

Next year’s plans are to start a garden at the back of the yard and move the alpine currant and the weigelia rootings there. That will free up the current weigelia garden area. If I then make a parallel garden up by the house along the second long downspout, those two garden areas would flank the area where we sit out. I envision hosta and daylily tiered hedges there. I love that combo, and there is just enough, but not too much sun there to nurture both. The mulch should also help.

There is also a thought floating around in my brain to start a sedum hedge on the side of the house, but that might have to be a “slow to go” project. I am no spring chicken, and a couple advil were needed after yesterday’s build out work.

All this depends on the deer continuing to leave the mulched gardens alone. They do seem to be eating the apples from the apple trees, and that’s great. Less for me to clean up.

So at the little house, year 2, initial build out, there is now monitoring left this fall, and at some point, daylily and hosta greens cutback. I plan to leave the sedum standing until spring, as a test, to see if the birds and bunnies enjoy that winter snack.

7 bags of mulch later

The weather up north is getting chilly. Fall is here. The window for transplanting is not very far out.

Before (Sandy, our dog, was supervising)

After

The additions were four Blue Mouse Ears hosta divisions (left front), one large Praying Hands hosta (center), a lot of cardboard underlayment, and seven bags of mulch.

The garden build out up north is for all purposes now done for the year, as well as prepped to receive 2022 daylily seedlings (pollinator creations) and sedum cuttings (propagation) next year. I may bring up a few more daylilies, a sedum or two, and another clump of Blue Mouse Ears to divide over the right side of the Praying Hands hosta yet this fall, but I’m happy as is if I don’t.

My husband is not keen on transplanting the clematis, so those are still at the townhouse. We’ll see if they make the shift.

The alpine currant is still by the shed. It’s a bit too late to move it now, so next spring that will move to the back of the yard.

The weigelia rootings are doing awesome! If they survive the winter, they may also get moved to the back of the yard. I’m now dreaming of daylilies and hostas along both long gutter extensions.

I honestly never thought the gardens would be this far, but I am very pleased the foundations are now in place to build on.

Rest well, new gardens.

That’s a lots of digging

So that’s the plants, so far, that are going up north in the next wave. That’s enough digging for me. It’s a lot of work to dig them out, but that’s only the first part. They have to be protected for transport, the holes have to be dug in the new garden to accommodate divisions, not just plopping in the whole existing plant, next there’s soil amendment, cardboard, mulch, and then watering.

That may be enough for this fall. I’m already having a realization that I will fill more space than I planned, but hey! If I plant along the long downspouts and put in mulch, then my husband doesn’t have to remove the downspouts anymore to mow – right?

Could be this whole area, or 2/3, with a grass area in the middle for lawn chairs. It’s bigger than it looks …

We’ll see.

Huge October

Happy November 1st!

Wow – where do I begin?

October was a huge month for us. Both our sons got married, and we moved into the meat of renovating the new little house up north. Every day was either filled with activities or work or coordinating for upcoming work at the house. It was a time of celebrations and transitions – a time of just being present and not even necessarily being ready to put pen to paper.

Friday night as the work week wrapped up and I looked at options for a quiet weekend moving into November, I began to formalize a project. We live in a moderately sized townhome with minimal opportunity to stow away things and abide deferred decisions. Our laundry room doubles as a workhorse of a storage room. This year it has worked even harder. Everything from extra food storage and supplies to harvested seeds have gone in there from March to September. Then with the October activities, even more items made their way back there. The cluttered state it was in was not good for me – dust catching, unpleasant to look at, and not serviceable to easily access anything. It needed some love – purging and a whole lot of organizing. So you know how it goes – from realization to starting motivation to the thick of it to pragmatism taking over. Today I can walk in there and go “Ahhhhh!” Mid yesterday, not so much. Bonus was finding a 3 wick candle I love, still in the box. Nice!

Today I need to move my attention outside and pull in all the garden decorations. We had a historic (literally record breaking) early snowstorm on Oct 21 and my garden clean-up cadence got a bit derailed. I need to wrap that up before beginning hygge indoors.

My sister put together this wreath for me last year and my mother recently gave me this plate. Going into November, with the temptation to let my energy be pulled away into things that are neither productive nor beneficial, this is a good place to stay grounded.