Category: Summer in Minnesota

oh yeah!

Yesterday I walked out to the start of Just Plum Happy season. True, my husband’s favorite daylily, “Just Plum Happy” had it’s first blooms Tuesday. But yesterday …

Persian Market opened

That is the one who’s sister bud got blown off by the landscape maintenance. She shined bright today. Even at 9:45 at night she was still gorgeous.

Tuesday the peach daylily wrapped up the season

and yesterday was saying goodbye til next year

wherever that may be. I am hoping what this picture also shows is the first day of a pollinator created seed pod. If possible. Her season was only three blooms long because her sister scape was one of the very few scapes damaged during the roofing project. We are thankful for the three blooms we got.

The South Seas daylily was taking the day off after a magnificent display Tuesday.

And the Blue Mouse Ears hostas have reached their crescendo and are winding down for the season. They, like us, are not fans of the heat, and are settling in to be a lovely green/blue backdrop for the rest of the season.

The spiders love to use them for web making, and when they are blooming the spiders get their way. All bets are off when they start to go to seed.

Finally, one of my dozen 2 year old daylilies also bloomed yesterday. I have to look up the name. For now it is Beautiful, Early Morning Tulip Shaped before it opens, Gorgeous Peachy Pink daylily.

Yah, that’s it. For now 🙂

oh, okay …

The forget-me-nots continue to co-exist with the clover, continues to co-exist at the base of the daylilies, and next to the Blue Mouse Ears hostas.

So much prettier than just landscape rock. Reminds me of old English gardens. Depth.

I wait all year for this day

I wait all year for this day – the day the first daylily blooms. Yesterday the buds looked like this:

Today:

Early this morning I also watched as a robin chased a squirrel. I think the days of that squirrel causing mischief are numbered – hahaha! There is a new sheriff in town and I suspect there are some baby robins involved.

Tonight we barely made it home from our walk, and the skies just opened up. In full disclosure – we saw it coming and we knew it was close. Afterward though – a rainbow.

And I got a trip in to the co-op to get fresh veggies and a few treats with a friend.

A good day.

Now if I could just figure out what broke off an entire daylily scape on one of my new(er) – 2nd summer – daylilies. A trailcam sort of camera may need to be trained on that area. So curious. Seems too tall for a bunny and we have never had deer at the townhouse. But maybe …

I did not plant this abundance

Up at the camping land there is a whole lot I did not plant and I do not need to keep cultured. Of particular wonder are thousands and thousands of wildflowers.

It wasn’t always that way. If fact, the first year we owned the land, we showed up one night to a shock – the trail in and the whole campsite was wall-to-wall ferns. It had grown to 4′ tall in a few weeks. It was 1:30 in the morning. We went to bed and dealt with it the next day.

I remember back then we hadn’t even brought a mower yet. The ferns have very strong stems so we used the brush saw. That, however, was arduous, so not too long afterward, a weekend’s rental of a brush mower to work on all the trails followed. It was a dramatic difference. We were concerned for a bit that we had gone too far. But 1/2 hour after cleaning the trails, the trailcams showed deer eating again. They loved it.

The trails now are not at all fern covered. If left unmowed they are wall-to-wall wildflowers. The deer can be seen going side to side, back and forth, eating dandelions early in the season, and then wildflowers.

The ferns are still in the woods – over 4′ tall and lush.

Bunimous has decided

Bunimous (named because he is dinosaur sized as rabbits go – haha 😂) decided which Asian lily blooms I should have in a vase. He must have started his munching but then left a broken stalk for me. Thanks Bunimous!

In the background is the daylily seeds result for this year – one for sure. I think the other two are grass – I think. Those two will go up to the camping land in a spot that gets enough sun and does not totally dry out. If they surprise me, AWESOME! If not, they will be in good company. More to come on that and change of seed soil in future blogs.

The asian lily below just bloomed. That plant is one that fell in the category of “tulip” syndrome. It bloomed strong year one, faded year two, and is now “iffy,” for blooming each year. Like the faded tulips, I leave it in the ground just to see if it will do anything. And it provides early greens when the garden is first coming up in spring.

The clematis could be trimmed, but hey! It covers the boring bare rock 🙂

Are those scapes?

It took forever this year to get the first scapes on the daylilies! That matched perfectly with so many other things I have needed to be patient on recently. It seems to be a theme …

Anyway, the first daylily scapes are here!!!

Fittingly, the first ones (I saw at least) are on the South Seas daylily – yes, my favorite.

Another very close favorite is the Purple D’Oro, and that has a few new scapes too.

The most surprising of all is the peach daylily that had the smooshing and breakage from the roof project now has a scape! Hurray!!!