The daylily scapes are coming up!
Always a wonderful sight!
If I could only choose one perennial, it would be daylilies – followed very closely by hostas, then asian lilies, then sedum.
These are Purple d’ Oro. Cannot wait, but we have to! Beauty takes its time.
The clematis are beginning to bloom at the townhouse. First the white ones bloomed, and now a new pink volunteer we haven’t seen blooms on before is starting.
I had a few volunteers over the past few years that really took off this year, so I had to buy a couple extra trellises. Not easy in the current shopping environment, but it turned out ok.
Last weekend we went up north. I tell you! It’s amazing how fast things grow up there! You might say it’s wild – lol! The ferns that were fiddleheads last time were waist high!! We have thousands, and unfortunately some have to get cut back so we have a homesite/campsite that is reasonably free from ticks.
The butterflies and bumblebees were enjoying the dandelions. It was a fabulous sight to see. We don’t prevent dandelions up north so they have a nice supply of food.
A walk through the farther trails taught us we have an abundance of wild roses we didn’t know about, and even some scrubby maple trees. (I thought we were too far north for maples.)
By far, however, the big news is … the baby daylilies are doing well up north!! The deer are leaving them alone so far, and they are holding their own with just the natural rain. I am hopeful! The asparagus also survived the winter, and it looks like one asclepias. I cleaned up the raised beds, and put more black dirt in one. Man, I wish I had that $300 back! I don’t like the steel and boxy look nearly as much as I thought I would, and they heaved in the center so they look weird, but oh, well. Live and learn.
The fact that daylilies are doing well up there makes my harvesting decisions much easier going forward. It means I will probably harvest seeds from our townhome gardens again this year, and sow some in the ground up north as well as start seedlings in the winter again. Probably.
It’s also about this time of year, as the summer garden comes into full form, that I start to realise what fall divisions will be needed. The townhouse garden is getting pretty mature, and I will need to divide and split quite a bit this fall. This ‘Rainforest Sunrise’ hosta has definitely overgrown the space.
I love the coloring, and the leaves are a bit more tender, so I will keep the divisions at the townhouse.
I’m tempted, however, to try some of the ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ hosta divisions up north, as the leaves are deer resistant.
So many ideas … but a bit of time to chew on them. For now, the daylily seedlings are all planted except two, which will go into the townhome garden in the next day or so. The lavender seeds are starting to sprout in pots – we’ll see how far they get – and the tulips are fading back and making way for the Asian lily blooms to come center stage next.
A week or so ago we made another trip to the local garden store. 4 additions and a replacement came home with us – two lavender plants, and two more chocolate colored sedum, plus another ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ hosta. It is my favorite time of year to plant, when I know with almost 100% certainty what survived the previous winter, and where I have gaps going into next year.
The only daylilies that are still blooming are the ‘Marque Moon’, and they are wrapping up. That area needed some fall interest. The two new sedum are just what that area needed. They are babies now but will fill the space within the next few years.
The two lavender tucked under the weigelia, right along the path, where I can brush by the leaves and enjoy their scent. I hope they survive the winter and return. They are zone 4 so we’ll see.
In the progression, as the daylilies are winding down, the ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum are now taking the stage. I know, they are kind of like ‘Stella D ‘Oro’ – everybody knows them – but I absolutely love them. Over the years I have propagated many new sedum from our original ‘Autumn Joy’ plants, which were a gift from my Dad. I learned to do that at first because we had a fearless bee chasing Irish Terrier (Darby) who broke off stems in his efforts to eradicate our entry garden of those “buzzing menaces” – lol. From those poor broken stems I rooted sedum plants that within three years formed a hedge! That hedge got too big and I had to gift some, but now, years later, our garden boasts a fall tapestry of their beautiful form and changing color, woven in throughout the landscape. Here’s their first efforts at color morphing this year.
The garden also has an abundance of seed pods. The daylilies are full. The ‘Purple D ‘Oro’ are crazy full this year.
I think I will have quite an April seedling project coming up.
And of course, the weather has been INCREDIBLE! Cooler temperatures soothe my soul. The crisp air renews me.
I already miss the “Wow!” of the new daylily blooms, but to everything there is a season. There’s still a lot of garden left.
It seems that “Poof! There went the daylilies!” Not totally, but last week started a big wind-down. There were lots of “lasts”. Each day we said good-bye to some of our favorite blooms for the year. The ‘Just Plum Happy’, the ‘South Seas’, the peach daylily, the ‘Hush Little Baby’. I miss them already. Even the hosta blooms are winding down and some of the leaves are already starting to look tired.
This is the time of year when looking at the garden could make me sad. I have to discipline myself, to regroup, be thankful, and get my thoughts on how to make the garden even better next year. And we are adding little touches already. More on that in the next few days.
Yesterday morning I committed to our garden donations. The two Aureomarginatas that are 5′ wide each deserve better than the crowded space they have overgrown into. If we ate hosta greens I would keep them, but we don’t. I may save a small division, but that would have to go up north and be put in chicken wire. Much more joyful is the thought of them maybe being divided to share with many and absolutely being primary specimens in neighboring gardens.
I also decided to harvest the daylily seeds again this year, and they are plentiful.
Above are the ‘Purple D’ Oro’ but almost every daylily formed seeds this year. (The peach daylily is our exception.) Those seeds will be my early April seedling project next spring.
Today we were cleaning the garage, going through things. Some things with many fond memories were put aside to donate. We don’t use them anymore, but we know others who are very excited about receiving them and will really enjoy them. So it is with the garden. We grow, we enjoy, we improve, we share, sometimes we pass things on, all with the hope the joy will continue. We can be thankful. We can remember fondly. We can continue to move forward and improve.
We may have almost 6 weeks until the official start of fall, but fall is definitely poking it’s head around the corner here in Minnesota.
Mid-week I also noticed we are past the half-way point of daylily blooms. I still have a wonderful palette of all the colors each day, and seeing what the new day has brought continues to be breathtaking. Sadly, however, we are only a few days away from having some colors wrap up. The peach, the ‘South Seas’ and the ‘Hush Little Baby’ daylilies are at the “one bud left” stage. The red daylilies are not far behind. They bloomed in abundance for the past couple weeks and were absolutely gorgeous individually and en masse.
But … the sedum are looking so good, and their color is right around the corner.
And so begins the “thinking” time of year regarding the garden. First I “think” and think and think and think. Then I plan, then I do. I have some Aureomarginata hostas that are huge and should have been divided last year. Now a year later I have joined our association’s “newly formed” landscaping committee – as in three of us – lol. There are people in our association that have expressed interest in a landscape refresh. We have loosely discussed going more toward perennials. They are beautiful and can easily be trimmed to ground in fall by the landscape service. So I’m looking through my garden and thinking, and thinking, and thinking.
There will be gifting. I love to do that. But what scope? The Aureomarginatas deserve space. Could divisions be a good start at single, easy landscaping for folks that don’t or can’t do gardens, but like them? I suspect that’s where I will reasonably land for this fall. “Do not despise the day of small beginnings” (Zechariah 4:10).
August is here. The grass starts to look tired. Every corner crevice needs to be swept at least once per week to prevent a webby effect, and it’s going from warm to nice to warm to nice.
This week was gorgeous. This weekend was a bit warm – high 80s and humid. Tomorrow is supposed to be 10°F cooler.
The dayliles are still beautiful and the hostas are in varying stages of bloom. The sedum look very full. Soon they will start to pink up.
Tonight I realized I never took a picture of the 18 ‘Marque Moon’ daylilies that bloomed all at once. I enjoyed them tremendously. I was thrilled that the whole wave had blooms today for the first time. I even “rescued” one from not reaching it’s full potential because it was wedged between two stems. I “freed” it – lol and it started to open. Yeay! But I didn’t take pictures. So out I went, after sunset, to see if I could capture it. Instead I scared a robin off its perch for the night. Then I really felt bad.
Maybe tomorrow.
This is the second time I’ve done this in four days, and I did it up north a month ago. I get caught up in the beauty, the whole big picture, the experience of being in the middle of it, and the last thing on my mind is to take a picture. It might be because a picture just can’t capture something that big.
The bees are really enjoying the hosta flowers, the butterflies and hummingbirds are flittering through. It is just all so beautiful. A camera can’t catch it all. I just have to experience it.
Well, here’s some I have captured over the last week. The blue mouse ears are done blooming, as are the gladiolas. But all of the daylilies are blooming at once now and it is … incredible.
The ‘Hush Little Baby’ daylilies I added last year are really a treat right now! I wish I had more! Maybe will divide in a couple years and start another wave going.
On the way home from our recent trip up north, my husband and I were talking about how different “gardens” are for us up north. He said something interesting – In the “city” we plant gardens to bring nature and beauty into our outdoor spaces. We long for it. Up north nature is already there, abundantly.
Every time we go up north new massive waves of flowers are blooming. We’ve seen some of those waves for years. The applicability of those experiences to what we are doing is now slowly dawning on me. Yes, the different waves were technically “planted” over time, but they are naturally all over – in fields, in the ditches, in the woods. I don’t need to create “garden” beauty up there. It’s already there for me to enjoy.
This last time the tiger lilies were blooming. I realized when we were on the way home I didn’t even take pictures. Wow! I was “in the moment”. I just enjoyed their beauty, for long walks, and for miles and miles of driving.
Perspective is coming forward. My tiny attempts to bring “garden” beauty to our land up north have quickly been overtaken by the massive natural beauty that is already there – a gigantic garden, planted over thousands of years, doing its thing naturally and with more beauty than I could ever put together. My part as a gardener in that environment is to realize it and just enjoy it.
Now, if we ever move up there, we may want to grow some food, and that will take more work. And at the homesite area we are slowly clearing we eventually want to have a clover “lawn”. But that is a topic for another day.
Back at our townhome, I confirmed what I suspected – I missed the first ‘South Seas’ daylily blooms of the season. But before we headed up north I caught our first ‘Purple D’ Oro’ daylily blooms, and when we came back we caught the first ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylily blooms
along with a couple ‘South Seas’ blooms.
Today I caught the first ‘Hush Little Baby’ bloom
and the first red daylily bloom (in the way back)
along with over a dozen ‘Purple D’ Oro blooms.
And after work, after our dog got his daily walk, I spent an hour putzing in the gardens – trimmming here, weeding there. It’s all good.
As I enjoyed my “putz and pamper” time this past weekend, I had time to reflect on the gardens so far this year.
After a very long winter, and months of feeling like a horse at the gate, we are running quite fast now – both here and up north.
The cherry trees wrapped up their bloom here quite a while ago, but a pleasant surprise was that we got a glorious “re-do” during one of our trips up north. Such a treat to get multiple blooming schedules.
At the townhouse, sadly, my favorite long-lived bunch of purple tulips has faded. They were an icon each spring. I will try to find something just as iconic, but maybe a different species. Not sure what yet, but it might be harvested daylily seeds. Just thinking at this point.
The new tulips I planted here last fall were glorious this spring.
Now the blooming season of early clematis has also passed and the weigelia has hit it’s peak bloom. Soon the asian lilies will start blooming.
What I did not expect was a hosta bloom so early – yet here it is, beginning to form. And on the ground in that garden the forget-me-nots are beginning to pop up.
To watch here this year – two plants from 2017 harvested daylily seeds – both from ‘South Seas’ – one of my favorites. We’ll hopefully see a bloom or two on them this year, and discover what we got with the help of our pollinator friends. What I know for sure is that daylilies are deer munchies, so I have decided they will not be making the trip up north, as divisions or as seedlings.
In pots, the hibiscus and the gladiolas here are squirrel favorites. I have put chicken wire around a number of the potted plants and bulbs – not a flattering look – but needed.
The Aureomarginata hostas here are gigantic again this year, the daylilies I added last year are looking good, and the Blue Mouse Ears are more full than ever.
Which leads me to options. Up north, the trail cams are showing us oodles of deer, a coyote, lots of bunnies, and a bear. Makes sense – there’s lots to eat, including wild strawberries all over the property that just wrapped up their season. I wanted to divide the Aureomarginata hostas and bring them up there but it’s probably not the smartest. I will be fighting a munching battle that will only make me sad.
There’s also a sedum that has been crowded here for a couple years. I wanted to bring it up north and put it in the sunny garden to let it shine. But despite web lists that say sedum is on the list of “deer-resistant” plants, I am hearing reports that they too are tasty morsels up north.
What did work in the year one test garden up north is two types of seeds directly sown into the raised beds – malva zebrina hollyhock, and cinnamon mint. Some free carrot seeds are also sprouting, and two asclepias plants have survived, so far. Coneflower seeds did not sprout, asclepias seeds did not sprout, and all of the kale and asparagus died back. I think it needs more water than we can provide. We are just depending on watering when we are up there, and rain.
And, after much deliberation, and my husband mentioning he doesn’t think he’d like the look, I have given up the idea of using a dog kennel as a critter-proof option. Alas, I don’t like the look of chicken wire here. I probably wouldn’t really like a dog kennel asthetic up north.
So the lesson so far is – some things will stay townhouse garden plants, and we will embrace what’s already on the land up north, plus seed sown additions that can survive with just rain, and that are not attractive to critters.
I heard lupines may be an option. They do naturalize beautifully …
Susan's Daily Garden 