Category: Squirrel story

A Very Satisfying Accomplishment, Time Now to Enjoy

Today I finished planting the 2025 harvested daylily seeds. It was so incredibly satisfying to refresh my pivot table after entering today’s accomplishments and see … no lines left. Hooray!!! It was an experience. A shall not be repeated experience. Way, way, way too much “fun”. But everything is accounted for and reconciled. Now we wait to see what nature does.

First fun story – After planting all the daylily seeds, I realized I have four labels/tags left. They were from a very welcome discovery today. I thought I was out of labels. And I was not going to buy anything more for the 2025 harvested seeds. I was cutting up the flat side of the plastic trays from the 4 pks of cream cheese danish, cutting strips, and using that for labels! So today, after finding the forgotten stack of labels, and using them, there were four left. A confirmation to stick with the “only four” crosses I have planned this year? I think so 😉

Second fun story – About 1/2 hour after I finished planting the rest of the daylily seeds and had put away all the supplies, we were sitting outside relaxing. In hummed … the first hummingbird to visit this year! It looked big and healthy. It hummed in, looked around, and hummed back out. It is May! The hummingbirds are back! You can bet the first of the feeders has food cooling down right now and will go out shortly.

And for beauty – The gardens look awesome. They are filling out so nicely. It should be a few more weeks and the Asian lilies will start to bud out. And the clematis out back are starting to vine so they should have blooms to share in a few weeks.

Time now for patio time – for long morning coffees, or a beverage of choice in the afternoon. Just sitting, chatting with neighbors, and relaxing as much as a gardener can. We can. With some occasional “let me check one thing” moments 😉

I leave you with another picture of one of the white squirrels, from this morning.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

White Squirrel – and we still need protection for the seedlings

Screenshot

Oh yes, the white squirrels are super fun. And they, like their grey buddies, would love to dig in whatever it is that I have in the seedling boxes.

And we have our first Autumn Red cross seedling up. And screen will be going on the seedling box shortly 🙂

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Be Blessed!

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.

Sunflowers 2022?

Last year I accidentally grew a sunflower. Whether or not it was from bird seed falling into the pot of daylily seedlings, I cannot say. It was fun for the birds for sure. I suspect the squirrels swung on it and broke it, after which I cut it back and the next morning the cut piece was gone. Bunny?

We had a bumper crop of sunflower seedlings in the rock outside the edge of the patio this spring. I let a small section survive weeding, pending possible transplant.

I have a couple boring areas where transplants would look nice but the shells that get dropped are not good for other plants, so probably a no go there.

Might be adios to sunflowers in the townhouse garden this year. Maybe they can go up north.

Winter visitors and frogs playing checkers

During the winter we have dark-eyed junkos come to visit.  They seem to live in our large pine tree during the winter, as they fly in and out of there quite a bit.  We love seeing them, and want to continue to encourage them to return late each fall.

We are considering adding back bird feeders at the townhouse.  They need to be in the rock, per the townhome covenants, but I think we have a space. 

Last fall I brought a ‘Patriot’ hosta, that was in a corner by the patio, up north.  The hosta was in too much sun, and it burned every year.  I am taking a chance, of course, that it will be deer food up north, but I would rather feed the deer up north than burn a hosta at the townhouse.

That corner is now open.  If we put a feeder there we would, again, have our acrobatic squirrel buddies antics, but our bird feeders are already squirrel worn, and they could “spread the love” to the dark-eyed junkos on the ground.

Not a “Do” yet. Thinking we’ll wait til late next fall.  Perhaps a seasonal thing.  Feeders in the winter, hanging sturdy solar lanterns in the summer?

In the meantime, what should go in that corner?  Not a sedum – too many bees in the fall.  Not a daylily – too close to the edge and will get blown by the landscape maintenance.  What is sturdy and blower proof?  Maybe just a garden figurine.  Now what do we have already that could be put there?  Frogs playing checkers?  That will do 🙂

Fun story

I had a sunflower seed germinate in my pot of daylily seedlings this year. Whether or not it was from birdseed I cannot say.

It grew to be a full sunflower plant with 4 mature flowers, and it looked like a 5th on the way. The birds were digging it. I was digging it. Then the squirrels dug it. Actually they probably swung on it. It started to bend. Then the next morning it was broken.

Since I had put zero effort into it except watering the pot, I was not too sad. I cut the stalk and brought the pot of of daylily seedlings up north to plant. The next time I saw the sunflower (now just the stalk) it was under the pine tree. The next morning it was totally gone.

Nothing from that sunflower went to waste. A cooperative effort between the birds, the squirrels, and the bunnies I suspect.

  • birds digging it

  • birds digging it