We reflect. We are Thankful.

In early January, as our dog Sandy was really struggling, I started this post. As you know, Sandy now has his “wings”. Four weeks ago, today, he got his wings. We miss him dearly. We are so tempted to adopt another dog. But those days are gone. We are being called on to a new direction. Time will tell more.

Here’s the post from early January:

Well, the time for “cozy plus” has come. We are going to reach -21 F tonight (actual temperature, not including wind chill calculations). Now, I have been out in -40F with crazy winds where the prediction was wind chills were -90 F, and let me just say, challenging yourself to walk around in a college campus at 19 years old in that weather was novel. But all these years later, -21 F is “I shall stay inside” time. And to keep my deep winter sanity, my mind is increasingly wandering. You know – a flash of remembrance of a beautiful day volunteering, working on the historic cemetery garden, a flash of a memory of picking up mulch, a flash of a memory of seeing “Hello Yellow” for the first time of the season (last year “Hello Yellow” was the first, and the last daylily to bloom). Stuff like that.
So I am opening the gardening season, just a tiny trickle. Just to keep sane. I hope it works. (Going to TX right now is not an option 😉).

At the end of last year’s garden season I shared that in 2026 I was definitely not going to do as many daylily crosses as I did in 2025, and I was considering taking a year off of doing any crosses at all. I shared how much I was enjoying what the bees and birds and butterflies and wind already accomplish. I shared that I had a desire to go historic for a while, as well, and that I had located sources for those. That is where the planning left off. Since then, I am questioning if I will be able to start the historic daylily idea. The sources went crickets when I asked for availability. I did that specific ask because I saw conflicting information online, and, contrary to my grocery order when substitutions are minor, I want very specific daylilies with those orders. I did consider plowing ahead, and seeing if just ordering would work, but, honestly, I did not have peace about that. So – I am shelving that part of the 2026 plan. And that may be a good thing. I think 2026 is going to be plenty busy, and this rooky hybridizer is going to need all the capacity – energy and real estate – she can muster.

Likewise, I have a decision about another 2025 plan.

Last year I shared that at the historic cemetery there is a family site that was proposed for a garden build out. The plants were to potentially come from the main (fence) garden areas and would be perennial. I was reading about Quiet gardens and thought it was a match for the site. But as I started to plant, it felt very “off”. I will not go into the details, but I called it quits for the year. After discussion with others, the decision to call that work quits for good was made. I think it will be a maintenance issue, and I don’t want to create a weedy, confusing mess for future volunteers.

So, the new garden at the family site at the historic cemetery is off the 2026 plan, and the historic daylily buildout is off the 2026 plan (that one may have a 2027 comeback – we shall see).

And now I can plan the rest. Because I am definitely concerned about capacity in 2026 – regarding both my energy and real estate. Here’s why:

I harvested over 500 daylily seeds last fall.

Last year, from 2024 harvested seeds, I had over 75% germination and survival to planted daylily seedling.

With the exception of the set of three ‘Mahala’ daylily seedlings at the gate of the historical cemetery, which clearly had a digging incident, all the others survived to frost. From experience I am guessing 70% or so of those will survive the winter and re-emerge in spring.

In 2026 I would guess that of the over 500 seeds from the 2025 harvest, I will be very busy finding real estate for seedlings.

And last year’s seedlings will need to stay put,

and the 2024 seedlings may need dividing.

So, time to plan. And no scope creep. 2025 got outta control lol Shall not repeat.

In a few weeks I will put the 2025 harvested daylily seeds in the refrigerator for stratification. And then the season will begin.

I left that post sit for almost 2 months. I just wasn’t up for finishing it at the time.

Today, on February 26, 2026, our weather is gradually warming up. The 2026 garden plan is complete. And we are thankful for many blessings. We will focus on those and also enjoy a beautiful picture of the Red and the Pink Tirzah daylilies from last July. Oh, so fun! Hundreds of seeds from intentional crosses with those daylilies – with Red as the pod parent and Pink Tirzah as the pollen parent, with Pink Tirzah as the pod parent and Red as the pollen parent, and with other pollen and pod parents with Red and with Pink Tirzah.

May the daylilies bring many more years of enjoyment and pure beauty!

How do we get through this last month of winter?

We have had our February thaw, followed by a blizzard with ice underneath the snow, and now we are back into freezing temperatures. Which will be here for a while yet. How do we get through this last part of a Minnesota winter?

I try to enjoy all of the expanding daylight. The candles and lights of the holidays aren’t the ticket anymore. I get up early most days and enjoy the sunrise with some sort of hot beverage.
This last month of winter is not the month I take on a lengthy, boring, “I wish I didn’t even have this on my list” project.
We try to eat healthy, but nothing crazy depriving. My husband is an excellent cook. I am an ideas person. And a “keep the kitchen clean and organized” person. Today the idea was to use up some rotisserie chicken. I got the kitchen ready. He went to work. Fresh mushrooms, two peppers, a half bag of those tiny potatoes, the rotisserie chicken, two cans of cream of chicken soup, a dash of milk and some seasoning. Simmer for an hour. The house smells so good! And the soup/hash/concoction was so yummy!
We work to keep food treats in moderation. Not eating celery when we want chocolate chip cookies, but moderation is wise.
Have a daydream project. Mine is – you guessed it – garden planning, prepping what I can, and then blog posting and reading and replying for fun. Maybe just a tad of history. If I am so inclined.

Which leads me to ‘Hyperion’. I am daydreaming. I don’t need it. At all. And I have no idea where I would put it. But wouldn’t another diploid be fun?

Hyperion is an old daylily. It is both pollen and pod fertile. It is tall. I like its simplicity. And it is fragrant. Pink Tirzah could use a new option. In 3 years lol. Unless I buy locally. Then maybe I could get self-seed.

You see how this goes.

Yah. Winter here is long. Very long.

It begins 2022

Gardening 2022 has begun here. The daylily seeds have gone in the refrigerator for stratification, and plans for the garden adjustments and potential additions are beginning to take shape. This year the plan is to add pumpkin. Pumpkin (singular) you say? For sure! One 20 something pound pumpkin that will celebrate his first birthday in a few months. One little pumpkin that has diverted his Gramma’s attention just a tiny bit away from garden expansions and Grampa’s attentions as well. For instance, Grampa came to Gramma with a plan to capture rainwater from our new gutters up north into raised bed rain gardens. Oh be still my pitter pattering heart! Less watering concerns? Would that be awesome? More time for growing pumpkin ❤️

More to come. As it takes shape. You know how this goes.

In the meantime, the gardens rest. All of them are still under lots of snow.

Yes, those are squirrel tracks. But that too is a story for a different time.

The little and the simple things

The little and the simple things are what is mattering most to me lately. Going “glamping” at the little house up north for 4 days over New Year’s weekend – with two lawn chairs, carpet remnants, a 50 year old polyurethaned card table, a cooler, and an air mattress. We had so much fun!!!

Seeing the deer tracks through the snow in our small yard for the first time. Taking our dog out before bedtime and walking out to see two deer right there. Driving through changing scenes of thick frost on the trees – in sepia, in green, in blue as the sun hid and then set.

Hearing stories about the well known deer in town. Hearing stories about the apple picking bear in town. Feels very familiar. Maybe there’s a message in there. I just don’t know what it is yet. Grow pine trees? Something will materialize.

Happy Leap Year!

Wow! February 29! Spring is around the corner, right? I hope so.

We filled February with a lot of activities, and the month was fun, but I’m so ready for gardening season.

My daylily seeds are in the refrigerator getting prepped for planting in two weeks. The days are getting longer, but the snow piles remain. Still, my shamrocks are back in bloom, and, right on cue, my hibiscus bloomed for the first time this year on February 26th. How does it do that so consistently? Soon another bloom will brighten a couple days.

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Outside at our townhome, the sedum I left for the birds fed another as well. Can you tell who else liked it?

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Glad to see it go to good use!

Up north we have ample snow as well – ample as in higher than the bottom of the doors the last time we made a day trip. But soon the wonder of the thawing woods will arrive. We’ll see how our fall planted bulbs fare, and if the asclepias and coneflowers made it through the weedy hugelkultur garden and the long winter. Dare we plant daylily seedlings? Still undecided.

January

It’s January. I’m missing my gardens. I’m missing any gardens. Off to our local gardening center I went today. This is a thing I do – wander around, maybe buy a watch ’em grow garden, and maybe something additional. I suspect, no I know, I am not unique in doing this.

Today I got both. I could not resist.

The watch ’em grow garden

And a beautiful cyclamen

So fun!

I also bought a set of seed pods for when I start my daylily seeds. Now I’m committed to that because I have all the materials. I had started down the path of saving toilet paper and paper towel rolls to cut up as soil holders, like last year, but then I saw that the pods are ok for daylilies, so I’m going to try them. This will be my first year of growing only daylily seedlings. I had a bumper crop of ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylily seeds last fall, so I’m hoping to get something from those. Plus a few from our other daylilies. I’m also hoping this is the year I see flowers on the seedlings from the daylily seeds I planted out in the ground the past couple seasons.

And I’m playing again with the idea of trying to find a way to have daylilies up north. I know! How many times will I go back and forth on this? It’s just that I dream of naturalizing them. I know, however, they are deer yummies, and our trailcams have lots of deer on them. I have the two (failed hugelkulture) raised bed gardens up there from last year. I may try a seedling or two in there – from the ‘Just Plum Happy’ abundance. I could recycle some of my chicken wire from last year here to protect them. I know – ugly! We’ll see. Lots of time to decide.

A quiet season

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It was a quiet holiday season again, something we guard very closely. We remember the years of frantic shopping, endless activities, everyone cranky because they were exhausted. We don’t do that anymore, thank goodness!

Our big holiday immediate family meal is Thanksgiving. We have one extended family gathering as well. Then we have small gatherings with family and friends, just the way we like it – very personable, very relaxing. My personal favorite is that the closer we get to Dec 24, the more we slow down. By the eve of Dec 24 we are tucked in at home, spending time reflecting, being thankful for our salvation, thankful for our provisions, thankful for family and friends and meaningful lives.

It was another peaceful holiday season. And for that, I am thankful!

Heirloom Seeds and the Shamrocks

Yesterday I bought heirloom seeds for our test garden up north – pickling plume lettuce, scarlet kale, asparagus, echinacea, zebrina hollyhock (one of my all time favorites), and some more milkweed. I’m getting excited to get started. It feels a bit like old times when I had seed starting trays by our west facing patio door. I suppose I will start the seeds indoors again, but will wait for a month or so. My guess is we won’t plant up there until the end of May or even early June.

Yesterday I also did some “indoor gardening” on the shamrocks and the amaryllis. The shamrocks are the healthiest they have ever looked in March.

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Usually by this time at the end of winter they are very scraggly and I can hardly wait to get get them back outside in April so the birds pluck away all the dried stems in between the live ones and use them for their nests. This year it may be a bit longer.

The amaryllis did not bloom for the second year in a row. I suspect I should follow best practices going forward and put it in a dry dark place for a few months. I am, however, tempted to send it to compost in the spring, along with a leggy succulent. We’ll see.

The Robins Return

Over the past couple days we’ve seen a few more robins in the trees. Today dozens at a time were flying in.

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Tonight we’re having what is supposed to be the last sub-zero night of this long winter (-6°F). I hope they were able to tuck into warm places.

Snow is on the way for the weekend, but the temperatures are slowly warming. Soon we will see kids out wearing shorts on 40°F days! It’s a sure sign we are all ready for the massive mounds of snow to start melting.

Beautiful day; more snow on the way

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Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day following an almost aqua colored night due to the upcoming super snow moon. Last night’s sunset, however, told a “not yet” story as clouds rolled in for the 6-10″ of snow we are supposed to get today. It looks like we are headed into our typical March snow pattern, with big snowfalls followed by slowly increasing temperatures. It may not feel like it today, but spring is on the way.

Up north, it may take longer. We hear the snow is waist deep. But Minnesotans are hearty folk 😉 One gentleman told us he and his wife snowshoed out to grill shrimp on the fire. We are dreaming of that day! Maybe next year winter we can do that.