Tag: Hostas

What’s blooming?

Back from some PTO from work, it it time to catch up.

First, very exciting, I have 11 intentional daylily crosses growing into plants. Crosses that made seed, stratified, sprouted, and are now looking like baby daylilies (because they are lol). Blooms are a few years out, but that is very exciting.

Up north, some grapevine hyacinth that were from a watch ‘em grow garden (forced) a few years ago are blooming away. Very encouraging that the deer are not eating them. I had hoped they would escape being munchies.

Yes, hidden in the woodland foliage, but that is fine for now. I am adding to that area. I just planted some forced daffodils, and they, too, should be deer resistant when they come up next and subsequent years.

At the townhouse, the bluebells clematis wrapped up a couple weeks ago.

They now have their puffs

The tulips, of course, are done blooming. We only had a few this year.

At the historic cemetery the daffodils did well year one.

And the transplanted irises did very well and are continuing to bloom.

Right now at the townhouse the wiegelia is in full bloom.

The first hosta scape is about to bloom.

And the forget-me-nots are starting to bloom.

Lastly, one of the ninebarks is also blooming.

At the historic cemetery, the transplanted daylily won the race to show the first scapes and buds.

More transplanting there to be done this year, for sure – daylilies and irises. The iris bed is coming along nicely. A lot more work to be done there, but little by little. Today it was a bit of border, to keep the mulch from washing out. One more box of 12 sections and that should do it. And then clean up what is on the sidewalk. But more on that later.

Finally did it!

Happy Spring, and Happy Gardening Season!

Things here have been going along at quite a clip! The gardens are back in full swing. Time to start the blog back up and share the garden activity again.
One of our first projects once we saw what had survived the winter was to do a bit of transplanting. The daylily seedling mini-bed that went from brainchild to reality to “oops that is kind of ugly and a bit shy on sun exposure” to “nah, nixing that idea” was pretty much decommissioned last year. It did, however, provide a home for some pollinator created seedlings to mature a a bit. This spring it was time to take a big, potentially risky transplant step, part of which I have been contemplating for years. The idea – swap locations for two beautiful mature Ivory Queen hostas and two daylily seedlings. The Ivory Queen hostas needed to be moved out of their sun overexposure location, and the daylily seedlings needed more sun. Further supporting the decision, one of the two hostas was fairy ringing. They had been in that location a while. It was definitely time for a swap. But would we like the look?

My husband was the digger, and I was the planter. Digging out the hostas was as tough as I thought, and nerve wracking. But the hostas as well as the 2-3 year old daylily seedlings all not only survived, they are thriving. The hostas now have more shade, and the daylilies now have the sun they need.

Good choice.

The old seedling bed, the last potted plant

The old seedling bed is no more.

I have tucked the last of those seedlings into a more sunny area

and made room for hostas to go into that more shady area.

The last hosta cutting (which was an accidental pulling) is also planted in another shaded area. (I have pulled out some non-productive clematis.)

Now any more transplanting I get done in the townhome gardens this fall is bonus.

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day! (In the US) The unofficial end of summer. Soon school buses will be picking kids up again, harvest activities will be planned, and gardens will pick up speed toward eventual winterizing.

But for today, we are enjoying some early morning time outside and I am increasingly enjoying the new daylily seedling bed. It is holding up well and encouraging me to get the hostas out of the other side with very similar exposure.

Last daylily of the season, new daylily bed, home found for two gigantic hostas

The last daylily of the season bloomed yesterday.

She is Tender Love, and has been added to my absolute favorites list. I would like a few more, but I am going to stay steadfast on my “no buy for the townhouse” decision. Things are far too unsettled. Maybe in the future.

Yesterday I also planted the new daylily seedlings bed. I have to tell you, it was a grunt it out experience and after it was done, I did not feel exhuberant. I felt a bit down. It was weird.

But this morning after it weathered a night (notice the hot pepper piece to deter diggers 😂) I am feeling much better about it. I planted the stunted coneflower in the middle to give it a year to grow. Then it can move, or not. (We have gotten a lot of donations for the historic cemetary fence garden. It is almost full.). But more on that in an upcoming post. Hint: I bought a bag of 50 daffodils to deter the moles.

I have one more potted transplant to get into the ground. It is a piece of one of the Elegans. I accidentally pulled it off when I was cleaning up a few weeks ago.

The two giant Elegans I was looking for a home for are eventually going to my Dad who is already making plans for them. Remember it is my Dad who got me into hostas? So I am feeling super good about them going to a loving home. He has space, and shade.

And I now have my plan to get more hostas more into the shade and more daylilies more into the sun. Next weekend. Because we are headed to 100°F this weekend. This girl has her water and watch hat on.

Self-care days

Work has been crazy busy, family stuff is busy, the up north cabin project is ongoing. Lots of stuff.

Thursday I was looking forward to some self-care days. It was such a treat to log off work Friday, shut ‘er down, and just breathe. No big weekend plans. A chill Friday night.

I was also really looking forward to gardening at the historic cemetery today. Thursday we found the remaining brown mulch we needed to finish the rock to mulch swap. It has been a challenge. A lot of the stores have sold out their open pallets and wrapped their unopened pallets to send back. My friend found some at, of all places, the nicer grocery store in town, and for an awesome price. Between my friend and her husband and my husband and I, we got all the remaining mulch we needed. This year. It looks awesome!!! It was not without a few challenges – like a downpour this morning, but we are there. When the iris transplants are done, I will take final pics and share.

When back at home mid morning today, I went about our gardens.

The raised, covered seedling planter – where I put pots with daylily seeds to grow unbothered by squirrels and bunnies – needed to go back into the garage until next spring, the forget-me-nots and clover needed paring down, the hosta scapes that wrapped up this week needed cutting back, the daylily scapes with no seed pods needed cutting back, and the shrubs desperately needed serious trimming. Back in shape now.

Today was the last bloom for one of the Just Plum Happy daylilies

I will need to get after cutting those scapes back.

But probably not tomorrow. Tomorrow is forecasted to be a rain day. All day.

Time for some non-gardening self care, decluttering, donation drop-off, putzing around the house, reading a book, doing laundry slow and relaxed. Just a non-gardening rainy chill day.

Hosta updates

Gardens are an experiment. Things are constantly changing, growing, crowding, needing thinning, transplanting … Sometimes it requires patience, and sometimes we get very quick answers. So it is with the proposed woodland hosta garden at the historic cemetary. The deer have spoken. They, or their buddies the turkeys love them! It was a fun trial, but no woodland hosta garden will be built at the historic cemetery. What survives in the full sun of the fence garden will be it for hostas there.

It is also bunny time at the townhouse gardens. Thinking the last blooms on this hosta will be her dinner in the next few nights.

We think it is a her, as she had a very persistent visitor a few weeks back – that we have not seen before.

Sadly, we are thinking this was also the work of the bunny. Compost time. The daylily seedlings in that pot are ready to be planted so those will be a project in the next few days, along with the other potted daylily seedlings.

And the hostas that are done blooming are all getting haircuts. I made the “no hosta seed saving” decision a while back. We do not need any more hostas 😂

Hostas!

Many years ago when I started the townhouse gardens I was also helping my Dad with his gardens. After one of those gardening days, I was sweeping up from some transplanting. A few baby hosta corms were in the sweepings, and instead of tossing them, I brought them home and stuck them in one of our garden areas. My husband said he doubted they would grow. Well, he underestimated those little corms. Grow they did, and multiplied and were divided … And I bought more hostas then, other specialty types of hostas, like blue hostas varieties, which I fell in love with, and which, to this day I still have, and have divided and gifted – like to the gardens I made at the little house up north.

Gifting hostas is a thing.

Since starting to swap out the old landscape rock for mulch at the historic cemetary, we have had the fortune of lots of gifting. Kind of like, “If you build it, they will come”. And come they did. When mulch went in, plants would appear. Not sure from whom – more of an anonymous donor thing. Most of the plants are sun loving … except … the hostas. Those poor hostas are burning, and making me sad, and so I decided to begin a plop swap. The donations are “plops” – they just appear, and they need a “swap” – to get them into the shade and get the sun loving plants that are in another shady garden into the sunny garden.

I started the plop swap last weekend. Four went into this sweet area with this hollowed out tree stump – so beautiful! I love woodland gardens and things like that tree stump.

That garden, like the fence garden, will be a putz project – very slow gradual progress. Hubs said Yes, All the boulders I want to gradually haul from the land up north can be put into that new hosta garden. I want them to contain mulch and clearly define that area as the hosta garden. But hubs has emphasis on “I want to haul”. This is not his first time to the rodeo. Last time he was hauling boulders in totes in the back of his truck! Yes, one tote cracked. But hey, the gardens looked AWESOME!

So we shall see. I need to see if the deer use the hostas for munchies. And how it evolves for space. The left side of the fence garden only has two hostas left to swap. But the right side – oof!!! Lots of generosity in the hosta plopping department there. That will take a little longer, and I need to see how much space the swap really will take up.

Right now we are headed into the 90 degrees and up part of the summer. Not hauling boulders in that for sure. But maybe in late Sept. For a good cause – the hosta plop swap. And any future hosta plopping rescue efforts 💕