Reassess

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At the end of January, after almost a year of significant health challenges, we lost our 15 1/2-year-old dog. We knew that outcome was coming, and we were pretty aware of how much we would miss him. But it has been hard. He was our constant sidekick, and that included in the gardens. He was also our last dog. We have had dogs for 30 years as a family, and we do rescue, so they often come from tough past care and experiences. We loved every dog, dearly, but it is time to wrap up that part of our life.

2025 year was a pivotal year in other ways as well, and we are assessing other things now too.

In 2025 I went a tad much on daylily crosses. It is a lot of creative fun to plan the crosses, to see what blooms each day and do the available crosses, to see the crosses form pods and mature to harvest readiness. But mid-September last year it switched to “too much”. Last year I harvested 521 seeds, with 19 successful intentional (not pollinator) cross types, 17 of which were new. There was a lot of harvest related work, including storage work that went way too far into fall for my preference. And now, in Spring, I have 521 seeds in dry cold stratification. (More on that below.) Every single one of those seeds will require planting, monitoring to seedling, hopefully making it to seedling, and then planting in its 3-year home (to bloom). I loved previous years when I did much less. Last year was too much. So, we reassess.

As part of the assessment, I considered that, yes, gardening is my primary hobby, but it is my – hobby. And true, I added garden blogging 8 years ago, and last year I added historical research, but those are also hobbies. To keep at that scope, I am solidifying my decision, for 2026, to pare way back on doing daylily crosses. I will probably do 5-7 intentional cross types, as I did in pre-2025 years, but I want to spend a boatload of time just enjoying the gardens, including watching the pollinators enjoy the gardens. From there we will see where it goes. I do want to head farther down the historic path of daylily gardening, and I am still working on getting Flava (historic) daylilies, but if I can’t get them this year, that’s ok too.

Now for actionable info – As I mentioned above. I do dry cold stratification for my harvested daylily seeds. Yes, I am seeing that is not the currently documented best practice, but again, I am a hobbyist, and I am aiming for minimal complexity. Here’s my timing this year. On Feb 7 I put the 521 harvested (stored by cross, type and date) daylily seeds, in envelopes, in plastic bags, into the side door of our refrigerator. Super high-tech stratification 😉 In April I will plant some seeds indoors in trays, just because in April I get impatient for garden activity. However, the vast majority of my harvested daylily seeds will get planted in May, in multiples, by type, into medium pots, and the medium pots will go into protected seedling boxes where they will “sink or swim” outside. I know. Blasphemy! But this is the method I arrived at quite a few years back, and how I do this every year. Last year I had about an 80% seed to seedling success ratio.

More to come. As always, I will share as we go along 🙂

Cozy Time

We had some beautiful weather in the beginning of the week. I even got over to look at the historic cemetery.

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To my detriment, I suspect lol. I started thinking about spring, and gardening, and all of my ideas for the upcoming daylily season ….

We are now headed back into sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures for a few days and cold through to the start of February. I am not deterred, however, from enjoying the days. Not my first time to this “inevitable”. I am invoking layers and layers of cozy. And focusing on wonderful. The white squirrel crossing our patio toward the door, and only moving away after our dog approached, the way the sun hits the old prism on the window ledge and makes sparkles. Blue hour (before sunrise and after sunset). And then the layering begins. A good cup of coffee while snuggled with our 15 1/5 year old dog who is (amazingly) still with us. The smell of brownies baking while snuggling our 15 1/5 year old dog and watching the prism sparkles slowly move. A delivery of 3 ring binders, plastic sleeves, photo splits, so I am ready to start the next phase of making our nostalgic greeting card binders – while the fireplace warms the room and the wind howls outside and the brownies bake and our dog snuggles closer and makes a little contented sound and I sip my tea and watch the sparkles fade in and out with clouds and sun. Layers and layers of Cozy. It is the only way to get through a Minnesota winter. Or the only way I get through a Minnesota winter 🥰

And don’t forget the June in January pics. These are from June 16, 2024.

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The potted plants are my beloved shamrocks. I overwinter them. Right now they are crazy good indoors, in my office/sunroom.

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I hope you also are invoking cozy ❤️

Be Blessed 😊

A White Squirrel, Our Dog Having Fun, Very Full Hosta Garden, and Asian Lillies in Bud

For many years we have had white squirrels in our neighborhood. True albino. We even took pics in the beginning and sent them in to some sort of tracking site.

This pic dates back to Jan 9, 2019


And for our June in January pics today I have a few. The first is our dog mid-stride, front paw tucked, up north last June 9. WAY in the back is the outhouse. The lanterns mark the way at night 😉

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This next pic will not be a view we see again. It was the very full hosta garden under the linden on June 9, 2024. Mysteriously we lost 18 hostas between fall of 2024 and spring of 2025. We shall not focus on theories, but rather, enjoy the picture, and know that the empty spaces, where the hostas were, found new occupants in 2025.

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And this pic is quintessential early June (June 9, 2024) in our back townhome garden – the peach Asian lilies still in bud, a set of tulip leaves fading (one looks like it may have provided a bunny meal at one point – nothing left where the tulip bloom was), and I also remember that hosta, where a leaf looks a bit eaten, was actually from being stepped on and crushed. Stuff happens.

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Enjoy!

I hope you have a good evening!

Be Blessed!

Teapot Bouquet and a Hosta

Here are a couple fun pics – both from 2023.

The first one is a teapot that my Mom gave my sister as a fun little treat. Not expensive. Mom said dollar store. My sister had it at her place for a while and then asked my Mom and I if either one of us wanted it next. I said yes. I have had it out every January to Easter, a promise of springtime to come. Bonus – I don’t have to pull any fading flowers or change any stale water 🙂 I have never used it for a teapot, I just enjoy the decoration. Why I took this pic back then, I’m not sure. Sometimes the prism I have on a window ledge (from an old wind spinner that came apart) will cast a cool rainbow of color. Maybe it just didn’t come through on the picture, but I saved it anyway? The binder in the background is our household management binder. I must have had it out that day (January 8, 2023), along with, it looks like, a photo frame. Might have been a busy day or so, and when I sat down to relax in my recliner, I thought it all looked cool together 😉 Anyway, it came up in my pics today, and I thought it would be fun to share 🙂

The second one is today’s “June in January” picture. It is one of my favorite hostas, and one that survived last year’s loss of so many hostas, thank goodness. It was just putting out blooms from a scape on June 8, 2023.

Be Blessed!

A New Year

Hi All, and Happy 2026! I hope all is well! It has definitely been a bit since I posted, and I am looking forward to sharing again!

Let’s see – we left off at the gardens – townhome and historic cemetery – having wrapped up for 2025, and moving toward their winter sleep, as well as all the daylily seeds having been logged and stored until 2026 stratification. I was working on deciding if I was going to continue hybridizing daylilies in 2026, and in 2026 I was planning to head more towards daylilies that would have been around in early American gardens.

Throughout the rest of the fall, I enjoyed a very nice, long season with family and friends, old and new. Then, just about the time the snow started to fly, the holidays arrived. This holiday season I picked up an old hobby again and resolved a long-time research effort.

The first – picking up an old hobby again – was scrapbooking. Over the holidays I decided to start going through decades of holiday greeting cards I had saved. This was already a work-in-progress, but barely. I had previously sorted some cards by person/family into plastic sleeves in a large 3 ring binder. There was, however, also a box and a basket of cards that were part of my envisioned work. I got about sorting them, and from there, after a short detour where I considered and decided against configuring the binder by years, I settled on an approach. I realized I didn’t want an archive; I wanted the finished product to be more of a blessing. The project took on momentum. I needed it because, as you can probably imagine, yes, that approach involved purging some of the greetings. That is always a moment for pause. But from then on, the project itself became a blessing. I finished it between Christmas and New Years. And it has also already blessed others. Truly. Like my sweet husband asked me to bring it to our family Christmas celebration.

The second – resolving a long-time research effort – may be controversial. Here goes:

Every year as we approach the holidays I kind of cringe. Not only does the commercialism make me want to go on a no buy season, but I had also heard over 30 years ago, from my pastor, a Christian pastor, that Jesus was not born on December 24th, or 25th. My mind started. Why would we say He was? Give gifts that proport to represent that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”? Over the years I have done boatloads of research and gone through various iterations of properly celebrating Christmas. You know, twisting and turning with stuff like “If 3 presents were enough for Jesus, then 3 presents each are enough for us”. I have been mindful to keep things properly focused. I spend a lot of time in reflection and prayer and gratitude. I spend time in fellowship. And of course we have family time. But – I like truth, so I kept searching. Because JESUS WAS BORN, and I do want to celebrate that.

This year I came to a peaceful decision that celebrating Jesus’s birth on Dec 24th/25th, although most likely not historically accurate, was reasonable, as it is quite likely that is around the time He was conceived. Not born like we know born, but when He became human. And that is why He came. For us. Humans. The rest of the weight of that truth I cannot just impart. It is a matter between God and each person to accept, or not. And I am not writing a research paper, I am sharing an experience, so I will not site references. Just like consuming any information, the best approach is to search it out yourself. I can, however, share. I would recommend keyword searching the statements below.

Jesus was conceived. Jesus was born. Jesus lived. Jesus was crucified for us. Jesus paid the price for our sins, so we do not have eternal separation from God. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus ascended into heaven. Jesus waits for us to join Him at the appointed time.

So, after years of wrestling with the historical knowledge that Jesus most likely was not born on December 24th, this year I celebrated Jesus’s conception on Dec 24th/25th. And will in the future.

So those were two BIG highlights, for December.

On New Years Eve our family and friends prayed and prayed and prayed as a family member was given an incredibly precious gift from someone very far away. That gift is a crucial part of their ongoing physical healing journey, and we continue to pray and pray and pray. Prayers of thanks, and prayers for healing. God is good. God’s timing is perfect. God’s plan is not always our plan.

And now we are at January 7th. It is time to get back on the laptop and share some beauty.

The first pic is my finished, stuffed to the gills Christmas card binder. Next to a nostalgic magazine. The binder is FULL. Lots of love in there 🙂 And yes, I have some even older Christmas cards still in storage. The approach on those is TBD.

For 2026, besides trying to decide if I will continue to hybridize daylilies (or just see what the bees, and birds, and other insects and the wind accomplish), I have decided that if we as a culture can do “Christmas in July” (don’t get me started) I can do June in January. So, this is a pic from our slice of getaway in the land of coyotes and wolves and bears oh my 🙂 on June 7, 2025. Enjoy!

Be Blessed!

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One of my favorite fall looks

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Every year I save a few daylilies and hostas from the main cutback. Not many any more because, like I mentioned in my last post, I don’t like cutback with frozen fingers. 🥶

This year. I chose the ones in the pic above.

Is this not a wonderful fall daylily depiction? Wrapping up with their last bit of color 😊They just get fall-er and fall-er.

I think this pic deserves a print out 😊