Category: Spring in Minnesota

Fill In Friday – Irises, Clematis, First Daylily Scape, and some shenanigans

Let’s see … where did I leave off last week? I think it was with the discovery of the first daylily scapes of the season.

Last Friday I was weeding at the historic cemetery. I was down to the end where there are some mature Stella de Oros. Full disclosure, Stella de Oros are not daylilies I would buy. I do like the color. The size is not the issue. It is just that they are everywhere – in residential gardens, commercial landscaping, everywhere. But … they are daylilies, they are improving in health since the rock was switched out to mulch, and they were gifted to the historic cemetery garden before I started in earnest, so they stay. Stella de Oros also bloom fairly early, so they are a harbinger of the start of the daylily blooms on the way. So, last Friday, as I was wrapping up weeding, I looked over and there it was – a scape, on a Stella de Oro.

Which means the scapes will soon start showing up on other daylilies. And that is my start of the daylily season. Scapes hold buds that bloom and blooms can be not only enjoyed, but crossed, by birds, bees, butterflies … and humans.
It’s almost here!!! Hurray!

While daylily gardeners everywhere await daylily season, irises are in full bloom. The iris bed I made two years ago at the historic cemetery is starting to really shine! Almost all the irises in the lower part of the bed came from a smaller overgrown old garden. They were not blooming there, so I took my chance on color. I lucked out. Last year all those that bloomed were yellow, and this year as the iris bed began to really shine, the color yellow was predominant, save for one purple iris in a line of five that I had added last year from the big old garden. That purple bud showed up late. We shall see what comes next year.

Now here is where I get to share the joys of a community, public garden. 99.5% of the experience is AWESOME. People are so kind and thankful, and it is so fun to meet them and see them over and over. But there are, shall we say, occasional shenanigans. And herein is this week’s shenanigans story. I shall say it did not make me smile and say “silly turkeys”. So here’s the story. I was all excited about the yellow irises because we have 14 veterans buried at the cemetery who came home safely from war. Think yellow ribbon for safe return. We also have a Civil War soldier, James Akers, buried at the cemetery, and he was killed at Gettysburg. I wanted at least one purple iris in remembrance of him, amidst the yellow irises. Think Purple Heart.
And one came up! But it was not meant to bloom there. You see, within the past day and a half someone/something came by and snapped off a bunch of yellow irises and the one purple iris. The yellow ones – in various stages from bud to bloom – they threw around in the mulch and even on the ground,

but the purple one was totally missing. Now what possesses an action like that, I cannot imagine. Irises don’t even smell good, and animals usually leave them alone, so … my guess is shenanigans. Now, I have been putting the best construction on missing plant markers and missing plants, thinking maybe it was squirrels or turkeys, but now I am thinking along other lines. And what is my logic? The turkeys that live inside the fence have a big old garden of irises, even one that made it to bloom. And … they aren’t touching them. Soooo …. probably shenanigans. Decision? The Mahala daylily seedlings definitely aren’t going to the historic cemetery quite yet, and I will not be purchasing any additional plants for the historic cemetery. Just out of wisdom. We shall watch and assess. No big. Just prudence.

For now, we enjoy pics, and see the one purple bud in front.

In the townhome gardens the clematis out back are blooming beautifully,

following the Bluebells clematis out front that just wrapped up.

The Weigelia has also started blooming, and, soon, like the clematis, the hummingbirds will be found enjoying those blooms.

Do you remember the variegated sedum I pulled out and then saw it had a few tiny green buds? I potted it in an old terracotta pot, and it is growing new buds. Yeay! Sedums rock!

The Ninebarks are also doing wonderfully, and, along with the Weigelia, they remind me every year why bushes do have their place.

But, there is a shenanigans story in the townhome gardens too. I suspect they are of the bird variety. After over fifteen years of birds being helpers in cleaning up the shamrocks, we might have a crop of mess makers this year. They have decided to make quite the mess of all the purple shamrocks. No worries. There are so many shamrock rhizomes. I brought them in and will restart them in the house. Sorry birds. No more purple shamrocks fun for you this year.

And that was our week. I hope yours was fun! Catch you next week!

Change, Big Change

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.

Fill in Friday – It’s Bluebells time!!!

Happy (fill in) Friday. Here’s what’s going on in the garden this week.

The Bluebells clematis is strutting her stuff. Serious strutting. And her “kid” from last year is mini strutting lol. The birds are going bonkers around mama Bluebells. Absolute bonkers. It probably doesn’t hurt that they also have a mini birdbath nearby. Hubs reports that the birdbath seems to be more noticed this spring than in years past. Now we just need to keep it filled. And yes, that is one of our hummingbird feeders. It is just about hummingbird time. We are expecting to see them any day now.

I dunno what the hostas are doing. They are almost all super sluggish this year. Did they get a telegraph from the hostas at the historic cemetery and now have mulch envy? Seriously. The Elegans are totally MIA, and a bunch of others are very diminished compared to prior years. I’m not sure what to think.

The hostas that are doing super well are the Blue Mouse Ears divisions. Yeay Blue Mouse Ears!

Only two tulips bloomed, and they are done.

And this is what crowded daylilies do 😭. I need to get them moved this year.

For comparison, this is the same type, but divided last year.

Update on the daffodils? Still no blooms. Definitely no bags of 50 this fall. Final decision. Shifting to grape hyacinth 💕 Final decision.

And lastly … dadadadahhhh! The shamrocks are all now out. The last one went out yesterday. But very naughty squirrels are digging on the smaller pots.

My thoughts are repeatedly going to – Why do I feel like the townhome gardens are shifting? They feel so different this year. Are they turning into my daylily “farm”? Do I not need a bigger space to continue my projects? We shall see.

The good, the sad, and the work to do

The long wait is now over. Things are popping all over the gardens, and I am starting to see what made it, what didn’t, and what work there is to do.

At the townhome gardens, sadly, it looks like we lost two sedum. How that happened for one of them is a mystery to me. That one was our only variegated sedum, and I will miss it. It had been there for a long time, maybe over 10 years, so I am a bit surprised. I won’t replace it with another sedum, but I may put a daylily there this fall. Potentially a seedling. But first I want to refresh my memory on how strongly the sprinklers hit that area. I don’t think the variegated sedum died from sprinkler damage, but I want to make sure it is a safe place.
The other sedum that didn’t come back was under the linden. That one never did well. It just never took off. I won’t put anything in that spot to replace it because the daylilies are also starting to underperform there. There are a lot of linden roots. It is a spot I will leave as “rock only” as things fail.

On the flip side, we have a bumper crop of Bluebells clematis volunteers, and those are in the “work” category. I need to transplant them to another area. This area is not optimal 😂

The volunteers are from our large Bluebells clematis that always performs very well, and I suspect I will continue to have volunteers over the years now that it is well established. Last year I allowed one to grow around the red daylilies, and this past weekend I dug that out and transplanted it into the spot where another clematis volunteer (different type) was way underperforming. Hopefully this volunteer does well. So far so good.

And then there are the missing hostas. There are three in particular that have no sign of anything, and that is a bit concerning. Two I was going to give to my Dad, but the third was one of my long-time faves, and if it doesn’t come back, I will miss it. BUT I have made a decision. If it doesn’t come back, I will convert that real estate to daylily space. That hosta really always amazed me because it should never have done so well there for so many years. That spot really is more of a … daylily sunny spot. But I put it there in my early years of creating our gardens, and it went to town for well over a decade. Probably 15 years. So if that hosta is gone, I will greatly miss it, but it will be replaced by a purchased daylily this fall. (Yes, I have my sites on a few candidates.) Then that entire area will be daylilies, with a few remaining Asian lilies, a few remaining tulips, and a legacy Autumn Joy Sedum.
For the other two “missing” hostas, if they do not come back, I will not replace them. The area where they were was getting way overcrowded, hence why they were going to find a new home with my Dad. And, my Dad just had a bunch of trees removed so they may have not done well there anyway.

Which leads me to story time. When I started our gardens at the townhouse many many years ago, I was head over heels in love with hostas. I planted boatloads of different hostas. I visited hosta gardens. I bought “hosta of the year” varieties I liked. I was gifted hostas. My Dad even bought me hostas from a neighborhood gardener he called the “hosta masta” (master, that is 😊). I have grown and divided all kinds of hostas for over two decades. I even tried my hand at harvesting hosta seeds and seeing if I could grow hostas from seed. (Not for me.) I love hostas. And I will keep the hostas I have that are still doing well. But that era was that era, and the garden “container” is the garden “container” (not getting any larger), and I am not getting any younger. So … in a finite space garden … hosta attrition makes way for daylilies, if the space is sunny. (Amazingly, I did have some huge hostas that did very well in relatively sunny spots. Go figure).
In this new era, I have my daylily seedling beds, and they are doing well. Those were solidified as the plan last fall. I also have one 6th year non-blooming daylily seedling in a different area, and I just can’t seem to move that one out, but we shan’t dwell on that. I figure at some point when the garden “container” is full, I will know it is time to stop doing daylily crosses, and then I will sit in my patio rocker, with a beverage of choice, and just enjoy. Haha, I can hear family and friends alike laughing uproariously. But that will be a few years yet. Hopefully quite a few. Because goodness! I have 60 “same cross”seeds I still need to get into pots in the seedling planter, and if even half of those go to seedling, oof! Realistically, experience tells me “probably not” and I will most likely end up with optimistically, 10 seedlings from that 60, to be planted in the 2025 seedling bed this fall, and watched for bloom starting next year.

At the historic cemetery, I am gonzo in love with what I see so far – legacy plants are doing so much better in year 3 of the mulch bed. The iris bed is in year 3 now, year 2 for watch to bloom, and I already see multiplication. Daylily seedlings I planted last year from here look great. Daylily purchases I planted last fall are coming up. Even the Blue Mouse Ears hostas made it.

Overall, so far, so very good.

Weeding time at the historic cemetery is down to an hour per week – amazing what the mulch bed tamps down. The only thing I want to work on is the aging creeping thyme. It needs some cleanup, and I may grab some irises from the old garden bed and do some fill in there. Otherwise, one hour per week weeding, watch for the garden to do its thing, and maybe, optimistically, try a few crosses.

Waiting, waiting, anticipating

Is it my imagination, or have the bird picked the majority of the small twigs leaving only the larger pieces?

I have seen the cardinals carrying pieces up into the big pine, but the robins don’t seem to be interested in the twigs. They prefer the bird bath.

I should get the shamrocks out. The birds pluck the dead shamrock stems for their nest materials. But the temperatures still are a bit shy of the minimum temperatures. I could keep them up to the house, but I think I’ll wait just a tad more. They always go through a bit of shock, and they are still doing well inside. They can stay in for a bit longer.

Additionally, I am waiting on the new daylilies I planted last fall to show up. I found one has come up when I did my walk about today. It is right next to the parents of prospective “Mahala”. Coincidence?

While I wait, I am seeing daily progress. Not only are the Purple D’Oro transplants up, but so are the Purple D’Oro 3 year seedlings. They appear eager to get going. And fingers crossed, bloom this year.


Figuring Stuff Out


Any perennial gardener will tell you that we are an interesting bunch this time of year.  We are raring to go, but the weather teaches us patience.  I am soooo there these past few months.  And compounding that is a not so little journey I have been on to get ready to retire. 

So this story goes back a few years.  I have known I needed a plan to successfully retire for quite a few years.  I have watched various female family members “fail” at retirement, and return to work.  I didn’t want to have that scenario, so I started to consider options.  I started to look at my bucket list.  We had done the camper on land up north.  But to do a garden up north we needed a well. That was tbd.  Our getaway, but potentially a retirement location to build out.  If I could handle not being in a neighborhood. We had also renovated a little house in a mining town off Lake Superior.  I could have turned the whole back yard into a garden and spent winters on lots of seed projects. It also had a neighborhood. All of that would have been a success from my viewpoint but my husband was very unhappy.  Not with the location, but with the house.  After we sold that house, I needed to do more definition of the items on my bucket list.  I kind of stalled out there.  More like gave up for a while.  But eventually I got back into gear and came up with next steps.

I had started to volunteer garden for a local historic cemetery. I knew I could stay very content from the beginning of May to the end of October, gardening between the townhouse and the historic cemetery.  I had bumped up against my energy limit last fall while planting all those new daylilies and divisions, but I knew that was a big season finale.  With everything planted and the historic cemetery garden switched over from rock to mulch, I knew 2025 and forward were right-sized – enough challenge but not too much either.  Where the problem came in was November through April.  I simply didn’t have room for big seed projects, and I needed something to do in our long cold winters, preferably with a neighborhood or some type of consistent socialization.

Now admittedly, I am not a spring chicken with unlimited energy, and I also have some health stuff.  But our house is pretty clutter free, so it stays pretty easy to clean, and the garage only takes a day in spring and a day in fall to get into maintenance shape.  There is just not enough to keep me busy November – April in retirement.  But I came up with a plan for that too.  I would work toward going back to contracting, and look for 6 month contracts November through April, when I was ready, and see how that went.  

Simultaneously, as part of my volunteering, I had a plan to do posts for our local historical society to keep me busy this past winter and to bring more proactive attention to the historic cemetery.  Between contracting and writing, I knew I could keep a good level of challenge.  And, of course, normal life has normal family and friend activities.  All was in hand.  

What I did not expect was the level of historical research I got interested in.  I wrote a few high level, season appropriate posts and then I started on a deep dive.  And that, my friends, was how the Mahala project was born.  That project has kept me very busy, through the deep of winter, past a layoff I suspected was coming but may have shortened my runway to retirement, and now almost a month into spring.  The research is now done, and I need to start writing. And I need to get what I hope are the “Mahala” seeds to go to seedling and, hopefully bloom.  But before I plant those 28 seeds there is a second baby shower to attend for our third grandson, and then Easter.  And it would help if I could get the shamrocks outside so I can have that indoor space for seed planting, but it needs to be consistently 40 degrees Fahrenheit at night before that can happen.  Oh, bother 😘

I am applying for jobs that really look super interesting, as they come up, but my guess is this is either retirement time, or a winter contract will pop up in due time.  We shall see.  There is a lot that is out of my hands.

Yesterday was cool. All that got done, garden-wise, was a walk over at the historic cemetery. My husband showed me some new things in the woods – a buck rub,

and I noticed a bird has a very nice nest in a tree along the edge of the adjacent corn field.

I also noticed the old garden has turned into a food plot for the deer lol


More to come. 

My trusty side kick is here to spur me on.  I guess when you are a centenarian in dog years you can nap on a pillow, on blankets, on a recliner 😂

The Sedum

Many years, probably decades ago, we received a few Autumn Joy sedum from my Dad. He overbought and we were the lucky recipients. Those Autumn Joy sedum far outperform all our other sedum, and for almost two decades I have rooted collateral damage, divided them, and used them to fill in for plants that died out. When our Irish Terrier used to attack the bees on them, in the potting soil the broken stems would go to be rooted. When bunnies and squirrels get a little crazy, in the potting soil the broken stems go to be rooted. When I make a weeding or trimming error, in the potting soil the affected stems go to be rooted.

However, when I cut the sedum back in the fall, as much as I try to keep the stems close to the rootball, in the spring it always looks like the picture below. And I, in cleanup mode in the spring, have learned to leave those alone. Because if I don’t, I will have an early spring need to reroot stems, usually when all my dirt is still neatly in bags in the garage.

Not to worry. Soon the new growth will cover them. And in the fall the old stems will be easily removed, when I cut the sedum back again, and create next spring’s cut stems … that I will leave alone 😊

Slight pause

First I paused garden work to have a weekend with our oldest grandson. And then this happened.

It built up from there, but thankfully the heavy rains from the day before were not snow. It all melted the next day.

Yesterday we got another snow storm, but today that too has pretty much melted, at least on the street, driveways, and sidewalks. Such is early spring. Go, stop, go, stop. Soon snow will disappear from the forecast, and it will be consistently warm enough to not question if garden season really is here. The tulip bulbs that are popping up greens are sending a hopeful message.

A good week

Spring garden cleanup is done.
At the historic cemetery, everything that needed cutting back and cleaning up is done. There were a lot of oak leaves on the ground cover, and it needed serious trimming, but it is looking very healthy with all of that done.

Instead of bringing the forced daffodils up north, I planted them at the cemetery where it looks like moles are trying to make inroads.


At the townhouse, the linden had shed a lot over the winter. The sticks from the linden that were in the grass are now either to compost or in the rock for the birds to find for nesting.

The rocks that moved out of the trim are back in, the winter lanterns are back in storage, the spring and summer garden decorations are back out,

the bird bath has been filled for the first time,

the forget-me-not foliage has been pulled (and trashed, not composted, so any leftover seeds can’t germinate in unwanted areas),

and I have started to put coffee grounds on the perimeter of the plants (in the rock, to slowly settle in).

This is always such a fun time of year – getting back in the gardens, cleaning them up, getting ready for the season ahead.

Next up is mulch at the cemetery garden. Just a topper.