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.

What goes – #6

How about trellises?

This clematis is not happy. It produces vines with very fragile leaves that faint in the summer heat. It needs mulch not rock – to keep it’s feet cool. Its trellis will move with it. Tall. Draw the eye upward.

What goes – #5

I suppose I should plant some Asian lilies in the garden up north. Maybe some peach ones, a few Elodie ones that shot up stems and leaves this year but no flowers, some random ones that look like they might prefer mulch to rock.

Worth a try.

What goes – #4

We have 3 Just Plum Happy daylilies. 1 is doing fabulously, and is a main anchor in one area of the townhouse gardens.

2 are struggling- crowded out by a large hosta that will stay.

The two struggling daylilies go up north where they can spread their leaves and scapes and shine.

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.

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.

What goes – #2

This summer our ac went out. The footprint of the new ac unit was a bit larger, necessitating the removal of a couple trellises and the corresponding clematis.

Truthfully, that poor clematis was traumatized long before. It bloomed late spring. Some years it was spared the wrath of the previous ac’s wind, but many years I had to make a decision – humans fade from the heat, or the clematis fade from the wind off the ac. Believe me, I held out many years. Every year I thought, “I need to move that.”

Continue reading “What goes – #2” →

That’s not a weed

It might be time to move some more things if your association landscape maintenance company repeatedly blows the daylilies so hard the petals come off,

and even sometimes the flowers break off the stem,

and you watch one of the workers try to pull a mature daylily up as if it’s a weed.

This is what it looked like before – mature enough to bloom.

This is what it looks like now

This is what the coneflower looks like now – stems broken, petals sheared off.

No question about what happened. I watched from inside as it happened.

I had planned to leave a bunch of the plants I have bought and raised from seed here, as they have thrived here and many people have enjoyed them, but they are just getting destroyed.

It is very sad. I may need a bigger garden up north.