My mind wants to go to the historic cemetery garden and while away a couple hours trimming and weeding and dreaming about next steps, but the hot humid weather reminds me to be careful. Maybe an early morning this weekend. In the meantime, unknown big ruffled yellow daylily bloomed again today. Doggone if I can figure out what it is. It might have been a freebie with order, that was mismarked? It sat there not blooming for 3 seasons and now that it is showing off I cannot find a saved tag that matches up. Those crazy busy unorganized years are biting me now. But she sure is beautiful!
And two more Purple D’Oro blooms today.
I should do some crosses but I just haven’t decided on which ones this year.
And in the meantime I should also remove the old blooms, but I just cannot force myself to do that either. The bees are having so much fun! What will they accomplish? And at the same time though, wherever will I continue to put seedlings from harvested seeds from their work? I am so out of space. As if on cue, Bunny helped with one, bit it right off, its fair share for us enjoying its shenanigans.
The unplanned seedling from Marque Moon is getting a yellow bud. An Enchanted April coloration would be so bonus!
Albeit fun, and a great challenge, it has been a multi-year process to get the first daylily seedling to produce scapes in our townhome gardens. And even so, it is pollinator created, from Marque Moon, not an intentional cross. But I am very C C pleased. It is progress. And I have learned a bunch that should help get our intentional crosses from 2023 on better footing than their predecessors.
Here was my happy discovery today
I am expecting blooms that look like Enchanted April or Admiral’s Braid, the parentage, but we shall see.
I have taken a bit of a meandering path to get to today’s happy discovery. Here is a bit of history and my personal experience so far:
Planting direct sow, into the ground, is a slow boat. My first daylily seedling attempt was doing that with pollinator created seeds from our South Seas daylily 5 years ago. Those seeds were viable, but produced a very slow growing daylily clump. Less than 6 hours/day of sun exposure probably also had a small impact. I moved it into more sun last fall and it now looks more robust, but still no scapes.
Planting daylily seedlings in a raised bed, in a sunny location, without watering beyond rain, even if it is hugelculture, does not work. Also not protecting from deer does not work. I did that combo 4 years ago. None survived. I wish I had that money back! Those frames are now disassembled and what was remaining of the hugelculture decomposing has been smoothed out.
Planting daylily seedlings in a sunny, perpetually somewhat moist area probably did work, but we sold that little house so I cannot say for certain. It looked successful when we were there.
Planting daylily seedlings into a well watered garden with less than 6 hours of sun produced slow growing seedlings that are now only turning around because they were transplanted into more sun this spring.
Transplanting daylily seedlings into a well watered and well drained very sunny location produced very robust 2nd year plants this season so far. One of those is the daylily with scapes, year 2.
Trying intentional crosses without planning and looking up ploidy doesn’t work. Nuf said there.
I stratify in Feb/March, and then after Easter, I plant the same type/species/crosses seeds together in a pot, indoors, covered with plastic. Yah, I know, unconventional. I have tried all the conventional methods without success. Can you say gross, mold, dead seeds? In May I usually put the pots out in the outdoor seedling box, covered loosely in plastic, with the screened cover over top. I have been fooled, and put them out too early (think late snow), but the seeds and seedlings seem to be smart. They just take their good sweet time, and commence growing when it is consistently warmer again.
I do need to get back to being much more diligent with my labeling and record keeping (diagrams). For labeling, I was careless this year and tucked the empty envelopes with the seed info into the seedling box. The ones written in pencil washed off in the rain. That I do regret. I also need to keep diagrams of where I plant in the garden. My record keeping workaround is going to be a printed out photo with labeling. My planting is in clumps, so that should be a satisfactorily resurrected method from my past to re-employ 😊
Hopefully more of the seedlings will produce scapes this year.
Last year was my second year of trying intentional crosses to create new daylilies. This is something just for fun for me, and an opportunity to learn more and try out new challenges. I am not doing it to create anything certified. Nothing fancy. I put all the “same cross” into one pot. This is, as the old saying goes, “for kicks and giggles”.
The crosses between Marque Moon and China Doll were definitely the most successful last year. Of 38 seeds, we have eleven seedlings. We also have other seedlings – of the pencil mishap variety. I labeled some batches in pencil and it got washed away. On those I can guesstimate, but I cannot say for absolute certain what they are. Although a bummer, I’m still happy those worked, and if/when they bloom I will have fun guesstimating what they were.
And then there are the squirrel mishaps – where they seedlings were outside the box and the squirrels dug in the dirt. Those were a loss. Those very naughty squirrels!
Learning as we go here. This year I will do only two or three types of intentional crosses so that everything fits in the planter, protected by the screen.
Today was transplanting day. I had thought about it long enough. It was time for “Do”.
First up, this beauty moved. Poor thing. Believe it or not, she is a coneflower. She needs more sun.
She will either go to the historic cemetery garden (pending approval) or to the new daylily seedling bed. (More on that later). In her place, initially, went the Praying Hands hosta, but later the Praying Hands hosta moved and the Patriot hosta went in the old coneflower spot. I didn’t think I would get to moving the Patriot hosta today, but Yeay! Now the Patriot hosta is in the shade most of the day, tucked in by the Weigelia and up front with the red daylilies, white-ish Marque Moon daylilies, and Bluebells clematis (which, by the way, do rebloom). Pulling out that Patriot hosta was very hard. I am probably going to feel it tomorrow, but It was burning up in the sun year over year, and, recently someone’s dog was finding it interesting 😞
Here she is in her new location.
Next up was an un-named hosta. I used to know the name but I can’t remember it off the top of my head, so it shall be named “un-named”. It was one of my very first purchased hostas. I bought it from a lady who was having a plant sale out of her yard. It has been in the spot I pulled it from today for at least 15 years, and probably longer. It was fading. It needed new digs, and some dividing. She went to the middle back of one of the patio area gardens, in back of the old seedling bed.
The Praying Hands hosta was there for a year, but did not thrive in that spot. Last fall, we moved the Praying Hands hosta back from the little house up north (that we sold) and plopped her there. Poor thing. She will do much better quietly going about her business in a less visible role, in the spot where the peach daylily used to be.
The peach daylily, poor thing, languished in the shade when we had our smaller Traeger, and this year she did not bloom at all in the shade of the bigger Traeger. She needed to get back in the sun. She got to go to the spot where “un-named” hosta was. I’m thinking she will think that is “just right”.
And … 5 year old South Seas daylily seedlings got her chance to have more sun. She now sits between South Seas and tall cream colored daylily, in the spot where Patriot hosta used to be. I hope she blooms next year. If not, up north she goes, where she runs the very high risk of being deer yummies. Just sayin’. Bloom please.
Still left is the potential new seedling bed. It would be here.
That area was supposed to be the pepper bed but believe it or not, the peppers didn’t like it. So daylily seedling bed it might be.
The other option is to put them in with mature daylilies. And give them one year to bloom.
(They are unintentional crosses, so that is less likely. Now that my intentional crosses are going to seed I may stop harvesting any other seeds, to keep the daylilies from expending extra energy. All up in the air this fall. First I need to see how the intentionally crossed seeds perform.)
And last year’s seedlings? They will be tucked into the front of the old seedling bed to see if they can get a bit bigger with more sun. They are still pretty small.
But that is for another day. I am being wise. I have to work tomorrow. The seedlings bed decisions can wait for another day, or week.
This is my first ever daylily seedling to have a scape. It is not our first seedling – that one is still TBD. But when I saw this today my gardener heart was happy. It is from a pollinator created seed, and it got repeatedly trampled on from the lawn maintenance, but I moved it last fall and IT SURVIVED!
So much else also going on, and I will put a post together tonight hopefully with all that.
For now, here’s pollinator created Purple D’Oro seed seedling first scape. I will follow up with progress too. Bunny better stay out!
And hopefully this is the springboard to successful intentional crosses.
Oh boy! I was afraid of this! My garden blog ideas got together for lunch with my decluttering thoughts, and collaboratively raised a question. A very small one in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless …
“Are these seeds worth putting in an envelope and saving for next spring’s planting?”
There – it’s out there.
These are seeds from a 2 year old, first year blooming daylily that enticed pollinators, and then enticed the bunny, probably “Gigantus Bunimous”, to try it’s luck at midnight dinner, and, alas, must have been driven away, or preferred something better. It was left on the ground 5 feet away from the daylily, but I knew where it came from because I was watching, hoping, the pod would produce viable seeds.
Remember, I am a gardener, not a landscaper. I rescued that seed pod from being breakfast for the squirrels, and put it in the seedling box, on the off chance it was mature enough to somehow produce viable seeds. And seed it did produce. But they do not look viable. And they are sitting, where? On my clutter hot spot – the dining room table.
Discipline!
Will they go in an envelope, or out to the garden for critter enjoyment?
I recently had a milestone birthday. The kids, as always, asked what I would like. I told them I wanted something special that would be fun for years. I asked for a long rectangular planter with a squirrel and bunny proof lid to grow my daylily seedlings each year.
Wow! It is beautiful, and perfect for me!
They bought the planter part, and put that together, and then designed and built the squirrel and bunny proof part. The top is built with a lip on the frame so it doesn’t slide around, and it just lifts off, so no hinge, no chain, and no tipping if there is no weight in it yet each spring.
I want to be able to move it at leisure, so no dirt directly in it either. (They brought me 3 buckets of dirt from the local garden store.)
I used to plant the seeds indoors in March, and have a table of seedlings indoors for 10 weeks, but last year I said no to that, and now plant all of the seeds from the same parent together in a pot (or two if there are a lot from that plant). I do that in late May, because we can get frost even until Memorial day, and I want those plants to be hearty. They get covers until germination and about an inch or so of seedling, and then – open air. I know – but last year I had a bumper year compared to other years with other methods.
This year I used five plant pots – two pots with seeds from Purple d’Oro, one with seeds from Marque Moon, one with seeds from China Doll, and one with seeds from South Seas.
I identify the parent plant just for fun, but, in reality last year’s seedlings all got planted in one new garden, with no markers identifying the parent plants. I know! 😦 But I’m not the propagator. The bees and birds are. I’m just in it to see what happens. So far a lot of greens, but no blooms. Yet. Still fun 😊
I only have one daylily from the direct sow years. It is four years old. I am hoping it finally blooms this year.
“Baby” from “South Seas” parent, surrounded by forget-me-nots that will bloom next year.
I have 15 plants from the potting method – three from two years ago when they were started indoors, and a dozen from last year when they were started in a “community pot” of same parent, outdoors. All still waiting to bloom. Some still tiny.
It is finally feeling like garden season, and some hope after a tough few months for the whole world. The pandemic has brought so much fear and sadness, and our hearts go out to all the families who have been affected and all who have lost loved ones. It is sometimes hard to imagine it has only been a few months. The heartbreak is incredible, and it seems like much longer. I just couldn’t get motivated to share garden news amid all of the tough news. But as sad as this sounds, at some point I decided reading and listening to so much aweful news and fearful projections was not good. I started to trust it was ok to severely limit partaking in media coverage and updates. It took a few weeks, but now some joy is starting to overcome the awfulness of this pandemic. And as the gardening season is fully arriving, it is bringing some positivity, very much needed during this difficult time.
Through the winter I dreamed and planned gardens. The association board work took form and the garden refreshes for this spring, now being done by an incredible local professional, are underway – 22 gardens at homes, and removing bricks, pavers, plastic trim, and various rock and mulch from around 42 trees and putting in only mulch. We hear it is healthier for the trees. A couple larger gardens integrated around trees will remain with rock, to be done in future years. The garden outside our home is one of those, and our landscaper reports the tree is well established and very healthy. Mulch may come in future years.
From my personal overwintered plants, the hibiscus is now back outside, as is the green shamrock. The green shamrock has mostly gone through its spring die off. I watched as the robins do what they do every year – pluck the dead stems by the beakful, and fly them up to their nest. It is the annual cycle. The robins get their materials, and the shamrock gets hardy and fills out again.
Of over 100 daylily seeds I planted this winter in pods indoors, 13 daylily seedlings came up. 11 daylily seedlings survived. In previous years I have direct sown our harvested seed in the ground at the townhouse. A few lilies have grown from that and this year I am anticipating seeing what the pollinators produced three years ago. For the extra work, this winter’s results were not awesome (I don’t think?) but it was an experiment. We’ll see if I do a repeat.
The gardens here are popping back like crazy right now, and it looks like everything made it through the winter. It’s pretty full, so of the daylily seedlings from this winter, I’ve decided to keep the 2 ‘South Seas’ parentage seedlings here, and 4 of the ‘Purple d’Oro’ parentage seedlings. 5 ‘Purple d’Oro’ seedlings are going to be in the year 2 test garden up north, with chicken wire the first year, to give them a safe start. I am hoping they eventually naturalize, and am optimistic, as I see entire fields of lilies up north that have made it. We’ll see.
Susan's Daily Garden 