Today the last Purple D’Oro of the season bloomed.
I will miss them.
They have provided abundant seed pods, and I will harvest them and see if the seeds produce seedlings.
Tag: Daylilies
Division – of the good kind
The last red daylily of the 2020 season in our garden bloomed yesterday.
Other daylilies have already wrapped up or are wrapping up.
Our attention remains on their beauty, both this year and in future years, and also turns to the potential of the gardens around us. It is time to start planning to “dig and divide” – a good thing.
Friday a fellow gardener and I walked the association with the purpose of planning the plantings for the final projects this year. In that discussion, the topic came up of what divisions from our garden will go to other gardens. My friend has a saying, “We garden for others”. There is wisdom in that perspective. Gardening fills our mind and gives us hundreds of happy hours each year, and part of that is because it gets us thinking of what others may enjoy.
This year we are dividing some of our “Blue Mouse Ears” from the garden here and giving them new homes when we rehab the Welcome Garden. Another hosta, an “Elegans” is being divided and going into a neighboring homeowner’s garden. Our garden stays fit and trim, our association’s landscaper does the heavy lifting of digging and dividing 😊, and if I make room, I get the opportunity to consider what new (ahem daylily) additions make sense to introduce next year 😊😊.
Planning moves, and more mid-July daylilies
About this time of year I start to assess fall moves to optimize next year’s garden. Last fall we moved out two large Aureomarginata hostas from our garden. They found new homes around the association where they weren’t crowded and could really shine, and did really well this year in their new locations (yeay!). My repurpose for that newly empty space in our garden, unfortunately, did not go as planned. The tulips did “meh” and the asian lilies gifted to me did not do well at all. Reason? Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel and friends thought they were their food. I have since purchased repellent, and that seems to be working. There is still, however, a large empty space in two areas of the garden.
Meanwhile, in another area of the garden, a delightful Ivory Queen hosta gets overexposure to the sun each year.
Time to give it a new home, in the more shaded area where one of the Aureomarginata hostas was. It will fit that space well, and look nice amongst the other “blue” hostas.
Maybe I should move this Patriot hosta too – to the more shaded spot where the other Aureomarginata hosta was.
It will fit in well and brighten up an area that gets pretty unremarkable after the asian lilies bloom.
With two hostas moved out of sunnier areas, does that mean that I now have spots for two new sunshine loving daylilies? Possibly … Hard to say …
And now for a few last pics of the mid-July daylily blooms.
We interrupt mid-July …
We interrupt mid-July pictures for a few “today” pictures.
If you look closely, in the last picture you can see that the Purple D’Oro daylilies are starting to form seed pods. The Purple D’Oros will live on in the existing plants, the pictures, and, hopefully, in seedlings next year. We’ll see 3-4 years from now what we got with a little help from our friends the butterflies, the bees, and maybe the hummingbirds.
And now back to mid-July
July daylilies and hostas part 2
More July garden pictures.
Full of color
The gardens have been absolutely full of color for the past few weeks. Almost everything was blooming at once – all the daylilies except the Marque Moon – and all the early blooming hostas, plus some late clematis and the hibiscus. I spent all the free time I could spare just enjoying it. Words don’t fully describe the beauty so here’s a few pictures. More to come over the next few days.
Daylilies are blooming
Yesterday the daylilies in our garden started blooming.
Today, even more!
Asian lilies wrapping up
The red asian lilies wrapped up their bloom last week.
Along with another asian lily bunch.
The white asian lilies are the last to bloom and still have a few buds.
We also have a few Elodie bulbs in front from 15 years ago that bloom lightly. T I should refresh those. They have been gorgeous over the years.
Scapes!
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.
Clematis blooming, settled on daylilies up north
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.
Susan's Daily Garden 