Surprise!

This morning I had quite a nice surprise – 6 new Mahala daylily seedlings came up in the little seedling pots! I continue to be amazed at the length of time this year’s seeds have taken to germinate. The Mahala seeds were planted in the starter pots on 4/23! Maybe the July heat, coupled with a few rainy days, was what they needed. With this nice surprise, I will leave the remaining planted Mahala seeds in the pots. Maybe more will still germinate.

Another nice treat – a new daylily I planted at the historic cemetery last fall has also bloomed. Red Volunteer bloomed yesterday. She is every bit as beautiful as I hoped, and pictures do not do her justice. She has such a lovely presence! She will be wonderful part of the garden there.

And, in the weirdest twist of the season, but a very welcome one – one, then a second, then a third, and today a fourth tiny baby hosta started to pop up in the spots where they were completely gone until a week ago, lost, even sunken ground. I have only seen that before when a plant has been dug up but a tiny part was unknowingly left behind. This whole lost hostas thing is so weird. I don’t know what to make of it. I will keep watching for more to revive.

This morning it was finally a bit cooler, so I got out into the garden with gusto. I did the last of the maintenance on the forget-me-nots that were wrapping up bloom, and then I cut the pink asian lilies all back to half height. They also wrapped up their bloom this past week. And, as my disciplined self 😉 reminded me, I needed to circle back and trim the peach asian lily stem I forgot last week, so I did that. It would have been kind of fun to see if it made seed, but, as I discovered this morning, I am already short of seedling box space 😉 We shall stick to the plan. Daylily propagation only.

With the forget-me-nots largely gone, this week I also did some additional research on eco friendly mid-season bunny, squirrel, and other digger repellent. Lemongrass came up in my reading, and I already had some diluted in a spray bottle, so I gave the pavers a spritz. We will see how that goes. So far, whatever was digging in the shamrock plant has stopped.

The daylilies are starting to bloom now, and the garden is ready for me to do crosses. I have cleared the blooming forget-me-nots, made paths again to get to the daylilies that are farther back in the garden, cut back the plants that have already bloomed so they don’t go to seed, and found an additional eco-friendly digger deterrent to take over for the forget-me-nots that have been pared back.

I will share daylily picks along the way.

Forget-me-Nots

We are in the middle of rain, rain, rain here for the past week or so and now we are heading into almost another whole week of rain lol. But Saturday I got a bunch of work done on the garden. That felt great!

Recently I shared that we lost a bunch of hostas. Those losses have spurred on change. Those losses made me rethink a lot about our garden set up. We lost those hostas because of of a number of reasons – fertilizer and herbicide overspray and then a few of them were expected because I knew tree roots were getting quite close. And because those reasons will not be going away, I am not replacing any of what was lost.

But that was not the end of the story. The space did not look “right”, and because there had been so many hostas there, other things that were previously minor parts of the garden – the forget-me-nots and the clover – began to flourish. Think no barriers like plastic underlayment under the rock …

Saturday I spent time paring back the forget-me-nots and the clover (and quite a few bunny planted raspberry seedlings) in prep for where I want to go with my next garden phase – expanding my daylily propagation work, needing more planter space. Just like anything, times are changing. I am in a new phase of my gardening, just like we all get to new phases of our life, and I need to have a little bit of reassessment of what will work for this.

Saturday I cleared all clover and forget-me-nots out of the front, left very little of it in the corner where the linden is, and cleared it away from the path out back.

I was unsure of what I wanted to do in the area that sustained the largest number of hosta losses, so I left just a little patch of clover and forget-me-nots there. This morning I decided. I moved the green shamrock into that area, and I like it, so the remaining clover and forget-me-not patch in that round of the corner will go.

And then I will tackle this.

I planted the forget-me-nots the year my father-in-law and a sweet neighbor friend passed weeks apart. The forget-me-nots are sentimental. And I have kept them inside the paver trim. Inside 😊 But I hardly think that stepping on forget-me-nots is a great way to remember those we have lost, and stepping on forget-me-not is definitely not part of my daylily propagation “vision ”, so, as they bloom and begin to fade, they will be pared way back. A heartwarming sprinklng that enhances the daylilies and remaining hostas out back.

Garden cadence

The cadence of the garden continues. It is now tree seedling plucking time. Maples of different types, linden, and cherry. This year does seem lighter. Our Amur Maple threw a lot of seed, but not as much as I remember. I am thinking the squirrels harvested a lot. And now we will not have it going forward. We lost it in the big ice and heavy snow storm. I am tempted to save one seedling. We will see.

Usually I get seven buckets like this. I doubt we will have more than two this year.

Just about the time each year that I am plucking tree seedlings, the pines begin to show new growth (candles). I noticed today they are starting.

And the forget-me-nots are starting to bloom. They bloom on last year’s growth – they are biennial. I planted them the year my father-in-law passed, and they bring me great joy.

I am careful to keep them contained, as, like the joy they bring, they can take over a garden and move onto a lawn.

And today I moved the purple shamrock out from the protection of the patio, to it’s summer spot under the linden.

I am ready, and I know that after it goes through it’s normal transformation to being used to the outdoors, it will again look like this

Finally, it is time, I suppose, to cut the plastic back again from the base of the linden. She is so much bigger every year. I have toyed with moving to mulch in that area. Maybe next year. For a mulch garden spruce up at the historic cemetery is where I landed for my “all summer” project. But that will be a story for a different day.

Waves of forget-me-nots

Quite a few years back I planted forget-me-nots. We had lost my father-in-law and a beloved neighbor within weeks. It was a tough time. Gardening lends itself to seasons of expression.

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Every year the forget-me-nots have come back better and better.

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I have read, however, that they can be invasive. So although we let them mature and bloom, I am careful as to where I let them seed. I would not, for instance, plant them and leave them to naturalize up north, but here I can keep a close eye on them. I pluck them after bloom except farther back among the asian and day lilies, so they only seed in that area. They bloom first, but I love the lacy look that even the drying seeds form among the lilies.

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Forget-me-nots and new pine growth

Many years ago I planted forget-me-nots when my father-in-law passed away. Last year I stood in shock as I saw the lawn service for the association spray them and leave weeds alone. They moved so quickly I couldn’t get there fast enough. It was heartbreaking.

I understand I have to watch that they don’t get in the lawn, and I do. But they are an absolute delight in the rock.

Here’s a few that survived.

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It is also the season that the pines get their new growth. Such a wonderful sight!

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This year we think we have two nests in that particular pine. We’ve watched a robin and a couple house finches fly in with a beak full of nesting material. I leave small twigs and the shamrock die-back, and they take it like crazy. We have a bird bath too and they really enjoy that.

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Hopefully we will soon hear the familiar chirping choruses of a nestful of hungry baby birds welcoming their food. Such a wonderful time.

Forget-Me-Nots

Just like our ‘Patriot’ hostas, our ‘Forget-Me-Not’ plants are more than pretty. I planted them the year my husband’s father passed. We miss him. That year, not long afterward, we lost a dear neighbor as well.

Every year the forget-me-nots come back. They are a wonderful link back to our memories of my father-in-law and our neighbor.

Yesterday our dear Missy’s grandfather passed. Our thoughts and love and prayers are with her and her family.

Missy shares my love for gardening and beautiful lilies. We will offer a forget-me-not plant to add to her garden.

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