Space

Space is something I have very little of in the townhouse gardens. It is rare I can add a new plant without it looking crowded. I love the look of daylilies tucked in between hostas, or is it hostas tucked in between daylilies?

However, I made a tough decision this last week. Daylilies gotta go. I know – what? Here’s the deal. The new landscape maintenance team at the townhouse is awesome at blowing cut grass and fallen leaves out of the rock. Really awesome. Really really awesome. The gardens all have rock. There is a lot of collateral damage lately. Mostly to the daylilies. Why have daylilies when they don’t survive for their day? So I made a decision. A lot need to go. Up north. This fall.

What holds up way better against the blowers? Small to medium hostas. I have plenty of those, too. Maybe I should divide a medium-sized hosta and put it in this space.

What about the sedum?

I have mixed feelings about moving the sedum. They are such a resilient plant, and super easy to propagate if they do get damaged. Literally if a stem gets broken, I stick it in dirt, it roots, and I have a new sedum plant.

I really like the fall color sedum provide as well as the 12 month interest. The pollinators LOVE them and the bunnies eat the unbroken stems all winter. When the bunnies do that, it also makes my spring cleanup easier. But for some reason, once the stems are broken, the bunnies don’t seem to have as much of an appetite for them. Very different from the sunflower!

I have already brought sedum plants and sedum cuttings up north and they are doing well with the mulch around them. I suppose where I’ll land is that if any of the Autumn Joy sedum get severely broken this fall, I’ll move those plants up north right away and let them sleep there. Then next summer I can take cuttings and start building a row to make a hedge – maybe on the farthest long gutter downspout.

Careful!

I am being cautious about bringing up plants that are under the Linden tree. There are tree roots, yes. But more concerning are the Japaese beetle bugs. They lay eggs in the soil. I don’t know if the eggs would survive the move, but I really don’t want to give them the opportunity.

So unfortunately, the Marque Moon daylilies, many of the hostas, the pink Asian lilies… Will all stay.

But the hostas outside of that area, and maybe a PurpleD’Oro need dividing and will go up north.

Maybe yet this fall, but more likely next spring.

It’s a lot.

That’s a lots of digging

So that’s the plants, so far, that are going up north in the next wave. That’s enough digging for me. It’s a lot of work to dig them out, but that’s only the first part. They have to be protected for transport, the holes have to be dug in the new garden to accommodate divisions, not just plopping in the whole existing plant, next there’s soil amendment, cardboard, mulch, and then watering.

That may be enough for this fall. I’m already having a realization that I will fill more space than I planned, but hey! If I plant along the long downspouts and put in mulch, then my husband doesn’t have to remove the downspouts anymore to mow – right?

Could be this whole area, or 2/3, with a grass area in the middle for lawn chairs. It’s bigger than it looks …

We’ll see.

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

Daylily seeds – 2021

The daylilies here are almost done blooming. With the exception of the Marque Moon daylilies, which are still blooming, I have trimmed all the daylily scapes that don’t have seed pods, so far. It was an easy job. Our pollinators have been very busy this year, on multiple varieties. Those seeds will go toward making more daylily blooms for up north pollinators, in 3, 4, 5 years. Patience needed.

What’s going – #3

I have 8 Blue Mouse Ears hostas. You might say I am a bit fond of them. They are, well, blue. One of my favorite types of hostas. And they have lavender flowers. And they are disease resistant. And not once has a mammal eaten even one leaf. The leaves are tough.

They have been in my garden for a long time, and they need dividing. So 3-5 will go up north.

I want to put them along the sidewalk to the back yard, but that area needs love as well, so for now they will go along the gutter extensions of the new gutters we needed to put in this past spring. Hint, there were no gutter extensions on the old gutters. Bonus, I don’t think the deer like the new gutter extensions. Hoping to keep it that way.