In the moment

I just love Saturday mornings in the garden, a slow start, just relaxing and taking it all in, getting up to take a pic, making a daylily cross, letting the dog back in the house, or back out again lol, watching the birds, the squirrels, thinking about fun stuff. It’s the best!

Last Saturday morning I got to do that. No deadlines, no strict agenda. Just enjoying what is happening in the garden. There were 2 Pink Tirza blooms, the second to last Marque Moon bud bloomed, a couple Naomi Ruth blooms, a few red daylily blooms, the last mystery yellow freebie bloom of the season, and two glorious Tender Love blooms. And the beautiful hostas are continuing to bloom.
Some daylily crosses were done, some trimming and cleaning up was done, of course a whole lot of pics were taken, and a whole lot of sharing and catching up and rejuvenating.
Sunday was an historic cemetery garden morning. I love early mornings in that garden too. They are very different though. When I go over there, I have planned, I know what I want to accomplish. I don’t sit and relax and daydream. I “do”. Last Sunday I brought the 5 sedum rootings and got those planted. I watered them as I went, I discovered as I dug – where rock was still a bit under the landscape fabric, and plastic under that lol. I discovered ant colonies too, oh yeah. That was definitely “in the moment”. No snakes this time though haha!
The end product for the morning didn’t look like much, baby sedum rootings amid a sea of beautiful mulch, but this morning as I looked at my 2014 – 2023 “this day in years past” photos, it reinforced to me exactly how fast things grow. My 2014 gardens at the townhouse barely resemble my gardens there today.
So on Sunday they looked like this

but they grow fast. Next year at this time, conditions permitting, they will look much fuller and taller.
Next up for planting at the historic cemetery is the daylily seedlings. Then the one side will be done for the year, with space to grow for quite a few years. Don’t forget space to grow 😊
The other side cannot be planted until this year’s daylily order arrives, should be in September.

After I wrapped up the planting at the historic cemetery last Sunday morning, I did take time to wander, the full length of the fence garden, a few times, and when I went to empty the rock I dug out, I also took a look at the large overgrown garden that will be (hopefully) removed this September. That moment will also be very special, a transition to just the fence garden go forward. A good moment. A long planned and awaited moment.

Over the past week, the daylilies in the townhome garden areas have really wound down.

The diploids are getting some crosses with Tender Love.

But the best surprise of all in the past couple days, so far, fingers crossed, is that mystery yellow freebie might actually be a diploid. The start of a seed pod from a tetraploid cross very quickly failed, overnight literally, so the next morning I decided to cross her with Pink Tirza. That now has a seed pod that doesn’t look like it is failing, yet, fingers crossed. Lots to go but that would be very exciting.

There are so many seed pods and so many crosses and so many notes and hundreds of pictures, but the daylily season is winding down now and will soon be a wrap.
So far I am seeing a few seed pods from Purple D’Oro and some Marque Moon crosses fail, but Pink Tirza, Naomi Ruth, Just Plum Happy, Cedar Waxwing, Coral Majority, Tender Love, and the red daylilies have all been very successful. And the self seeders are Coral Majority, Just Plum Happy, a bit of the red daylilies, and one Pink China Doll. What I will do with those seeds is tbd. The historic cemetery will be full, the garden areas at the townhome are full. I think the self seeds will have to go up north.

This morning, as the dawn arrived and I took a look at what the new day had brought, I am very thankful for so many things. For the gardens here, today, in the moment, I am thankful the last Pink Tirzah bud of the 2024 season is starting her one day bloom on the same day as the last two Naomi Ruth buds of the 2024 season are beginning to bloom and a Tender Love bud has already also started to bloom. If I want to try another cross with the red daylilies, they are still blooming too. I have many choices this day, of many types of diploids.
Only one tetraploid is still blooming – Coral Majority. South Seas bloomed her last bud of the 2024 season yesterday, no crosses.

It is Transplanting Day

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Triplets

I love it when there are two daylily blooms on a scape, and three are even better! Two sets of three are quite a treat! The bottom set was tucked under the taller scapes, close to the ground, but not to be missed.

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