And the winner is …

The winner of the first “green” spotted in the gardens at the townhouse is …

a sedum!

More to come.

70s ahead.

The amur maple and broken off limb are still sitting in the front yard 😂 The birds and squirrels have been seen sitting around the broken off branch – easy seed eatings, right?

A volunteer opportunity came along today, for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. (Angels sing)

Sooooooo tempted!!! It is even one of those opportunities where I can use my 16 hours of paid volunteer time through work! (That’s how I heard about it 🙂 ) The date listed right now is smack dab in the middle of a busy work week next week though. Still sooooo tempted. To be even a tiny part of that glorious place and love on the plants and be around others who love it and share and learn from and with them? (angels sing again!) Please believe me when I say I love and have loved that place since the kids were very young and we lived 10 minutes away and took them there to exhaust them – lol. Work events there, church events there, anniversaries there. And oh how it has grown! Contemplating. Seriously contemplating. Last time we were there I was actually jealous of the people weeding and working with the plants! It is just quite a drive now to get there. But still contemplating.

Did I say I am SERIOUSLY contemplating? Maybe a Saturday thing.

Planting days are numbered

It started yesterday – winds strong enough to make the falling leaves look like a shower. A cold front moving in. By Tuesday night we are forecasted to have our first frost here. Our planting days for 2022 are numbered. Time to get the rootings planted.

This year I rooted two Autumn Joy sedum from breakage (planted them together), one Sundazzle sedum from breakage, and one coneflower from breakage (planted them together). If they survive the transplant and the winter we will have three new baby sedum and a new baby coneflower in the spring.

The two Autumn Joy rootings I planted out front.

The Sundazzle and the coneflower rootings I planted in the corner by the patio, where I was deliberating what I was going to plant there after we pulled out the Patriot hosta last year. (There is too much sun there for the Patriot hosta.)

As an example, these are Autumn Joy sedum rootings, all grown up 🤗

Triple BZZZ

It is Autumn Joy Sedum time, and the honey bees are enjoy every minute.

Stretch!

I don’t remember the Chocolate Drop sedum and the Sundazzle sedum stretching so much toward the sun in prior years. Maybe. I suppose that will be another research project for the winter.

My daughter-in-law puts the shorter sedum in the front of the taller sedum. I have a couple rootings in the seedling box. I may try that.

Can you see it?

Ever so slowly, the Autumn Joy sedum are starting to pink up.

Better stuff

I say no to some very “good” stuff, so I can make time for better stuff. Sometimes there isn’t a choice, but when there is – think. Time is finite. Use your voice. Make that choice. And then … Rejoice!

Here’s some Rejoice in the Garden time

Walk around the garden. Maybe sit right in the middle of the garden

The start of the sedum blooms (2022)

I am watching and waiting for the Autumn Joy sedum blooms to begin to turn color.

While I wait, the Chocolate Drop sedum and the Sundazzle sedum are beginning to bloom.

Soon

Soon the Autumn Joy sedum buds will start to turn, slowly, from green to pink to magenta.

We need some September color in the gardens. And Mums are not my thing 😉

Their Portion

I have an acceptance that I actually have come to embrace. It is called Their Portion. It goes like this –

The deer at the little house up north got to eat the hostas without me putting up a gate or fence. They brought me so much joy all year, and especially in the winter when there was no gardening (except planning).

We had a compromise – one where they set the terms, of course. They ate the hostas and they left the sedum alone. I could have claimed a planned decoy, but truly, they held all the cards.

Hey, hostas were kind of like perennial lettuce in that scenario 🙂 Acceptance.

The bunnies are more than welcome to start eating the hostas in the fall at the townhouse. Please do! Less for me to cut back! Even chomping down on a hosta bloom or too. Have at it!

Where it gets dicey is digging and chomping of new plantings.

IF we don’t find a little house in the cities where I can freely garden, AND I am relegated to townhome landscaping, I think I will need more “safe places” like this to grow things to bring to the camping/hunting land up north.

So seedlings and new plants are protected from this

Notice the soil “aeration” and the liberal “deadheading”.

Our outdoor buddies bring us joy.

They get their portion.

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.

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.