This year I have posted mostly about Sandy’s Corner, but there is an entirely separate garden I show blooms from, yet hardly ever post the full garden. I like that garden just as much, and it has a history just like Sandy’s Corner, but nowadays it is as much of a working garden as something with pretties in it. That garden has a lot our tried and true, purchased daylilies, a very nice sedum, a very nice hosta, some clematis, some asian lilies, some forget-me-nots, and a corner of daylilies I grew from harvested seed. There is a boatload of history in that garden, tons of fun and funny stories, and, when I look at in real life, I, as a gardener, zoom in on the individual beauty, plant by plant.
But in pictures … yah. Time for a little optimization.
That garden is exactly perfect for daylilies. It gets sun for a long portion of the day. But that area is also a bit … rough. I actually have thought about requesting to put mulch outside the border, between the pine and the pavers, because it has pine tree roots. But meh, I don’t want to replace that mulch each year.
Like Sandy’s Corner, that area has gone through multiple iterations. At one time it was half sedum. One of our previous dogs, a very precocious Irish Terrier mix, REALLY did not like bees, and would lunge at the sedum out front in the fall, breaking off pieces. Well, of course I rooted those pieces, and when they were ready to be planted, I went about it. In those days I was lining and swooping lots of multiples in the landscape, and that’s what I did with all those sedum rootings. They started out itty bitty, grew to just right, and then all of a sudden, they were huge. I kept one in place, donated a few, and relocated the rest into our other garden areas.
That area also had a trial period as a berry bush spot (failed), and for over a decade it had quite a number of tulips followed by hostas. That was in the Hostaville days. Those poor hostas. Way too much sun. And the tulips are just memories.
Eventually that garden rounded the corner to be primarily a daylily garden. As I got more and more into daylilies, and started ordering from the source I currently use, I plopped them in in the fall and waited to see what did well over successive years. I did take some care to place them for size (tall to the back) and bloom time (for appeal), and they were very definitely pretty. So pretty I ended up wanting to use some of those daylilies for crosses. Including some of the ones to the back haha! Playing hopscotch was kind of humorous in those days, but now that I know which ones I use, I want to make those more convenient.
So here we go. Seedling planting first.
The 2025 crosses that went to seed and then went to seedling this spring are doing way better than I remember in previous years, as far as growth, and they are starting to get ready to be planted. This has kind of caught me off guard, as I usually plant seedlings in the late summer/early fall when I do divisions, transplants, and additions. But I have space for seedlings in that garden, and I can start what I have been meaning to do – make “family” plantings. Planting seedlings close to their parents – or at least their pod parent.
The backdrop is already there
Unlike Sandy’s corner, I already have a long-time established backdrop to that garden. Way back when I first started the gardens I put in clematis on trellises. It was a bit of a learning curve there, too, as I put a huge trellis by the AC and learned what AC venting up high does to clematises. (It blows them apart 😥) I donated that huge trellis to a friend, along with blooming cactuses he also thought were cool (and I wanted out), and I went much smaller. Then came the day when we had two things happen at once – we replaced the AC and furnace, and we bought a very small house way up in a little mining town on the north shore (Lake Superior). We thought we would retire up there, and I was building out my gardens. Well, I dug out that beautiful deep pink clematis and pulled out those shorter trellises and brought them up to that little house and planted them there. (They took 😊) But I didn’t get it all, and a little bit remains and blooms each year, even despite a previous lawn maintenance service thinking it was a weed and yanking out what was above ground. Oh yah. The stories! Anyway – that remnant of a clematis comes back each year. Sometimes more than others. This year we only have one bloom on that clematis. It is pictured above. I am hoping that clematis remains, but we shall see.
The other clematises also have a story. When they bloom, I will share those.
And those pots on the path? They are planted daylily seeds harvested from the historic cemetery. The small pot has seedlings harvested from what I call a “plop”. As in donation including planting, with no further information. I don’t know what they are, but they are very pretty in bloom, and they had self-seed, so I harvested it. It worked, but now I have a dilemna – seedlings do very poorly in the historic cemetery gardens so … they are living here for now, until they get big enough to be obviously a daylily. The larger pot is full of Stella De Oro self-seed and … they are not going to seedling. The dirt will eventually be spread out under the pine tree.
Then in the front open space is the failed Schnickel Fritz daylily. Long live Schnickel Fritz. And the small grey planter is my seedling planter with some townhome cross seeds that aren’t germinating yet. Soon they will go up north to give those seeds one final chance to germinate in the wild. Probably not, but you never know.
The wooden seedling box stays. Another story for another day, but the kids made it for me for a milestone birthday, and my husband lovingly made repairs to it this spring.
And that is the garden I hardly ever show as a full garden. Soon to be optimized and then be named. I’m mulling that over. I’m thinking something like Worker Bee – tongue in cheek to honor our Irish Terrier, who did not love bees, took many bites to the mouth to try and remove them, and who could not understand why I would entice more lol.
It is Memorial Day in the United States. It is a dedicated time to remember all the people who have made incredible sacrifices to form and establish and maintain this wonderful republic we call the United States of America. I am so very grateful.
This past week we remembered the anniversary of my Father-in-Law’s passing. A loving husband, father, family member, friend, community member, and World War II veteran. We are so thankful to have had him in our lives. We were truly blessed and our memories with him are a treasure.
Memorial Day weekend also kicks off the “unofficial start of summer”, and we take time to enjoy gatherings and relationships. We can accomplish all the things in the world, but there also needs to be rest and fellowship. Those times form sweet, sweet memories.
And, as it falls, a couple days ago it was also time to renew my blog domain for another year. I am officially in year 9 of this blog. But full transparency, I almost let the blog go. It isn’t that there is nothing to write about. The garden is absolutely beautiful. It is living its best life and doing a wonderful job of providing all sorts of beautiful moments and opportunities. And it is a place for many types of moments – moments to rest and moments to challenge myself and moments to contribute. It’s just that I have been in the rest and enjoyment moments so much that I haven’t gotten back into a good (contributing) pattern of posting again. I take the pics, I consider what would be fun to share, and then I relax and think “I’ll post tomorrow” 😉
For historical reflection, I am recognizing I truly am at what could be called “Someday When”. So much of where I wanted to go with the gardens is now here. I am enjoying it more and more and adjusting it less and less. And yet, there is always room for “one more” when circumstances provide. As some 20-year-old seeds recently taught me.
This winter I decided it was time to see if the 20+ year old Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seeds I had harvested from my gardens at our first house would grow. I planted those seeds indoors in a pot and watered them, and they did nothing. I thought I had my answer. But, as I often interject into posts that daylily propagation from seed is a long game, so appears to be the journey of at least a few of those Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seeds. It appears they were still viable. They were just needing more time to show up for the 2026 garden. But, thinking the seeds were not viable after all those years, when I began to plant my 2025 harvested daylily seeds, I took the dirt from the pot I planted the Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seeds in and used it in planting the daylily seeds. Fast forward two months, the daylily seeds are emerging, albeit slowly. And along with them, some “familiar looking” seedlings have also been showing up in those trays and pots. They are definitely not daylily seedlings, but since they were so familiar looking, I decided to leave them in place and see what happened. I may be mistaken, but I am thinking they are Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seedlings. Time will certainly tell, but I am thinking they are from that 20+-year-old seed!
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And I realize those seedlings are a garden bridge from the house where I started my own gardens, to today. If they survive, they will have a chance to grow at the back of Sandy’s corner, a backdrop to the 35+ year story of my gardening experience. All these years later, a story of different eras, still thriving. I hope the hollyhocks do well. That would be super fun!
And it brings back so many memories! A few days after we closed on our first house, my Mother-in-Law and Father-in-Law came with buckets of irises, dug from their garden. They knew how much I loved their gardens. They were sharing. We kneeled down in the dirt on the west side of the house and planted 40 irises together. Three years later when it was time to divide them there were hundreds! Those irises were gorgeous!
And I remember the first seed catalogues that arrived after we bought our first house. My husband teased me as I spouted off scientific names I was learning from poring over gardening catalogues so much. But it wasn’t just that. Those catalogues that came in the mail were so enticing. I imagined beautifully lush gardens coming out of tiny seed packets. It all looked so wonderful. And so, I bought seeds and started growing them. And I began to dig out grass and lay down mulch all around the periphery of our back yard, much to the chagrin of my husband who thought the sod we had laid was the final frontier. Oh, I sooo remember the aching muscles from laying that sod! And I sooo remember the aching muscles from tearing out that sod, too 😉 Anyway, I planted layers with shrubs at the back of the beautiful gardens I was imagining, and I planted tiers coming forward from that. Seeds, bulbs, tubers, wild roses. And some food. But mostly perennials. And every morning, sometimes at 5 am, I walked our black lab around the gardens, discovering what the new day had brought. Wonderful!
Then one year I stumbled on hostas. My love of hostas started very innocently, from bringing home (“saving”) a few discarded corms my Dad was sweeping up off the driveway after we did some dividing and transplanting. My husband doubted they would grow. They were teeny, tiny. But oh! did they ever take off! And thus started a long journey in “Hostaville”. Lots of years. Hosta of the year, buying backwards into that collection, in multiples of 3-6, yah. That was fabulous. Many of those hostas are still in my current gardens.
Then I got some daylilies. That, like seeds, was me succumbing to successful garden catalogue marketing. The same company that was successful at getting my seed business from catalogues also featured 1-year daylily seedlings. The pictures got me. I imagined a lush garden full of beautiful blooms. That came, eventually, but it took a while. Quite a while. Nevertheless, over the years, as the daylilies began to fill out, I fell in love with those ‘Purple D’Oro’ daylilies, and then ‘Marque Moon’. I also bought some more bare root varieties, sometimes in big box stores – ‘Autumn Red’ for instance. And I bought some stock from a couple large local garden centers. I was chugging along, adding and removing things as they worked or didn’t work in the gardens, and then it happened.
In retrospect, it was a wisp, a vaper. A wisp, a vapor that became another wonderful memory. Here’s what happened. Our son brought his new girlfriend over to meet us for the first time. Kindred garden spirits, it took us just a few minutes to start chatting everything gardens. I do remember the smiles on my husband and our son’s faces. Yah 😉 Some minutes in, I was saying I needed to deadhead the drying daylily pods. Our son’s girlfriend’s response was, “Don’t throw those seeds out. You know you can make new daylilies from those.” And those few words started the daylily propagation journey I am on today. That very year I harvested my first daylily self-seed and began to try to bring them to seedling. Direct sow led to harvesting and storing and stratifying and various iterations of crosses and planting to eventually get to seedlings and then, very eventually, daylilies. And yes, our son’s then girlfriend is now my daughter-in-law 🙂 We still chat gardens, all the time. Most recently as she realized one of our grandsons was pouring grass seed into the dirt for her flower planter lol. Oh yah 😉 It’s all good 🙂
And 9 years ago, in a bit of a “state”, I started this blog. Our younger son was hiking the entire Pacific Crest Trail (from Mexico to Canada) and blogging on that. I was a bit concerned about that adventure, and in an effort to focus my energy positively, I created my own blog, about gardening. And so this blog began, 9 years ago.
So, my craft room is the garden, my plant storage is in the ground or in little envelopes of seed, and my contributing springs from that. Last year I harvested hundreds of daylily seeds, and they are now planted in pots and in various stages of seedling and pending germination. What I hope will be daylily “Hannah Cowles’ needs to be planted soon. There is just one seedling from that cross. Among hundreds of seeds from that cross. VERY unusual for me. But fitting, as Hannah Cowles was the first woman American settler in our lineage, going all the way back to the 1600s. And potential daylily ‘Hannah Cowles’ will be planted right next to two large bunches of what I hope will be daylily ‘Molly Cowles’. Those seedling bunches were new seedlings last year. Molly Cowles was wife to Sgt Asa Cowles, a Patriot in the American Revolutionary War. Asa’s brother Jabez died in a British prison as a Prisoner of War.
And so, the history melds with memories with the gardens through the years now down to our grandchildren.
This year does, however, feel different. Last year was a pivotal year for me. I was setting some new groundwork, and as so often happens, the gardens were a big part of that. I was marching happily, even exuberantly down the daylily crosses path and feeling very creative. An analogy would be going to the crafts store and buying a bunch of very cute embroidery or knitting or crocheting or finger weaving or scrapbooking supplies. Soon it is time to properly store those supplies and organize them so they are ready for use and then it is time to actually get about using them. Actually work about getting the imagined thing to be real. Uh-huh. And that part, realizing I was definitely over my threshold, led to me saying I will only do four planned daylily crosses in 2026. It turned out that 19 varieties of crosses produced so many hundreds of seeds I was just counting the days until it was all done. And truly it is not done even now. I watch every day to see what new seedlings emerge, I document information on my voluminous excel spreadsheet, and soon I will start planting in the ground. But what I truly enjoy is exactly where the gardens are at right now. And though I know that learning and experimenting will always be there, I am enjoying having the “Someday When”. I like the slower pace, the early morning tour around the garden areas. I like relaxing on the patio, watching the veritable plethora of birds and bees and butterflies and dragonflies, and just enjoying the Now.
So right now:
The Weigelia is starting to bloom. That Weigelia looked pretty bad a few years ago. I have been working with it and this year it is looking great.
The pines are budding out.
The Ninebarks are going through their beautiful color morph sequence.
The stonecrop out front looks awesome right now but will soon “donut”. I am sure I will talk myself out of pulling them out again this year lol.
The Elegans hosta that was a tiny rooting from before we lost the 18 hostas last Spring is doing very well.
The Blue Mouse Ears are loving their new locations.
And the Pink Asian lilies are making an unexpected comeback. (Still forming bloom buds. More to come.)
And not just the townhome gardens are doing well.
At the historic cemetery the irises are mid-bloom. The yellow blooms first and then the purple starts. In 2023 they were in an old garden inside the fence and were just begging for a fresh start. I dug some, divided them, and planted them in an area that was grass but had “iris bed” written all over it. They are so fun now! Yes, we definitely did not add any mulch to that section this year. It is plenty full 🙂
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Not everything is roses, though.
In the townhome gardens:
The 7-year-old South Seas self-seed daylily that only bloomed one year (last year) does not seem to want to come up this year. And I had 3 of the total 4 daylily crosses planned with it. Ouch. Only one cross this year? Really? We shall see about that.
The original South Seas daylily clump will need dividing and transplanting this year. It is starting to fail.
The Carpenter’s Choice daylily doesn’t look good to me, and although I had hoped to get self-seed and experiment with ploidy (a parent is a diploid), it may move out. If I am going to work with it, I don’t want fussy.
And, sadly, the stonecrop under the Linden by the pavers have gone the way of the disappearing hostas. They will not be replaced.
And working at the historic cemetery gardens is no different:
Daylily seedlings don’t do well there, and that was a loss of quite a few good seedlings.
Additionally, fall is not a great time to plant bare root purchased daylilies there. Most of them disappeared and it looks like they are not coming back – probably moles.
Today I will go over to the historic cemetery and see if the purple irises are starting to bloom en masse like the yellow irises have been over the past couple weeks. I’ll share next week.
For now, I’ll wrap up.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and if you are in the United States of America, I hope you have time to observe Memorial Day.
I am trying to decide if these are Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seedlings.
That would be an absolute hoot. They would be 20-year-old seeds I had tried to start this winter. Thinking it didn’t work, I reused the soil for starting daylily seeds. The daylilies are starting to very slowly pop up, and along with them, these seedlings.
These trays were planted indoors on March 23rd and went outdoors on April 12th. On April 24 I saw the one seedling (in the shadow of the cross bar) and since then nothing else has come up.
Here’s reasons I can think of for the failure:
The seeds need more time out in warmer weather. (Maybe. I will give them a couple more weeks.)
The trays are horrible (I’m going with this one. These trays are not staying. Way too putzy for me, and so far, the results stink.)
The one seed that did germinate was the only viable seed. (They all looked good when I planted them.)
Here’s some positives:
Even though these may be a 98% bust, there is one seedling, so far. It only takes one.
This batch was a test of a reverse cross of a wildly successful cross from last year. The pod parent is one of my favorite daylilies, Pink Tirzah, but the data available is a bit scant. Most of what I know about Pink Tirzah is what I have proven out myself, including even ploidy. Now I am working on fertility. The pollen from Pink Tirzah has been awesome, but as a pod parent, not so much. I have only had one other cross that went to seedling with Pink Tirzah as the pod parent. I am hoping for bloom on that one this year. I do love Pink Tirzah, so the work continues. This year, besides seeing how this cross goes, I am hoping to get Pink Tirzah self-seed, as I will not be doing intentional crosses with Pink Tirzah this year.
And there is still hope. I have a medium pot of seeds of this same (reverse) cross I planted and put out a few days ago, using my usual very successful, albeit quite lazy, method 😉
We are at the end of April now, and what a difference the last week has made!
Sandy’s Corner is really filling out.
The daylilies look great.
Last year’s seedlings are much farther along than in previous years when I was still working at finding out what they liked best.
The hostas are even looking much fuller this year.
And our volunteer shrub does indeed look like a currant. It can stay, at least for now. The birds will probably love it.
On the flip side, I could kick myself for buying those tiny little 6 cell seed planting setups. They definitely fit perfectly into the grey seedling boxes, but the seeds are not germinating like they do when I plant medium pots of up to 20 “same” seeds together. I think I know someone who might appreciate them for starting veggie seeds next year 😉
Overall, I am finding that I really like what I have going on in the townhome gardens this year. It has been fun to see the new look and focus come up, and I am more convinced than ever that scaling way back on the crosses this year is the right plan. I can always scope up if I want to, but I am definitely not enjoying that I have so much work yet to go on getting last year’s seeds going. A lighter scope next year continues to sound fabulous.
The historic cemetery gardens are really filling out as well.
This past weekend my husband and I went over and did some spring cleanup at the historic cemetery gardens. They are really looking good! I do suspect our phantom weeders have been helping as well, because I kind of remember it being a little messier a week or so ago. So, thanks to them!
There is one sad thing. Over the past couple years, I have added purchased bare root daylilies to the historic cemetery gardens, as well as added seedlings from crosses I did at the townhome gardens. When I walked though a week or so ago, it looked like they were not there. This past weekend that was confirmed. There are moles or gophers over there, but the markers are almost all missing too, so that is odd. At any rate, I do have the seeds I harvested from there last fall, and I will direct sow those to do one final try with seeds and seedlings, but I think I have my answer. Bare root planting is a no go there. And probably seed and seedling planting as well.
On the upside, the daylily from South Seas self-seed that I planted at the historic cemetery last fall is thriving, so additions like that may be an option, go forward.
This morning as I was reviewing my pictures from years past, I realized it was a milestone day. That milestone day eventually prompted me to start this blog. And, I realized, I am starting my 9th year of blogging. That is crazy pants.
Some days I think I should call it quits on the blogging. Goodness gracious, I have shared and shared and shared. Down to tiny garden details. I’m not sure there is a lot more to share. But the daylilies …
I wrote a detailed blog today – and deleted it. Much more fun to share that Sandy’s Corner is continuing to be a very enjoyable place to look out over that portion of the daylilies and daylily seedlings as the continue on their Spring growth. That I am hoping for more first-time blooms from seedlings again this year. That I am looking forward to more blooms from our prior years’ seedlings turned daylilies. And that the robins were very trusting this morning.
This morning the forecast said rain. I was sincerely hoping it would hold, as the first wave of seeds are now going outside and some natural watering is always a bonus.
I was not disappointed.
The seedling boxes
Starting seeds indoors this year reminded me of why I don’t do that. It was sooo time for them to go outside.
Sandy’s Corner
Sandy’s corner
The gardens are missing one little chihuahua terrier this spring and that is definitely sad for us. It is a little extra poignant because Sandy was our last dog. We have decided after 30 years of being rescue dog owners that it is time for that chapter to end. A new chapter is upon us, but our memories of Sandy’s long life with us remain.
We have such wonderful memories of Sandy in the gardens. Specifically, “Sandy’s Corner” is where he liked to sunbathe – on the path, on the grass right outside the garden, or, in his later years, in a dog bed outside the garden on the patio.
That garden area has also changed a lot over the years with the Linden growing and casting different shade patterns. And it is where our successive Traeger shadow has grown.
The area closest to the house gets the least amount of morning sun, and I used to, many years ago, have big hostas back there. Gradually over the years I moved those big hostas out and did more with tulips. But tulips around here only bloom a few years, and then they just come up as greens each year. Nowadays the tulip greens are primarily early season bunny food.
When I want to reclaim a space with tulip greens, I simply dig them out. Such will be the case with the tulip greens in Sandy’s Corner this year. I know the hostas work in that area, and I have a large hosta I need to move. It will be a nice backdrop to the daylily seedlings that do exceptionally well with the longer sun exposure farther out.
And the little garden accents, as whimsical as they are, will also move out soon. Their short-term job is to remind me not to put anything there. That is the corridor to the hummingbird feeder, and, for that reason, last fall I removed some daylily seedlings from that area. My husband maintains the hummingbird feeders – that we both love to watch, and which should not cause “fear of stepping on daylily seedlings” stress 😉 And no worries, the seedlings I moved are doing very well in their new location.
This sweet tulip is in another area, and it will stay. Hopefully the bunnies leave it alone 🙂
One of two tulip buds this Spring
One spot that will not change is this corner. This is the corner in which Sandy most often sat on the path. There used to be hostas there, but when they began to fail, we moved them, and I reclaimed the space for daylily seedlings. Those daylily seedlings bloomed last year and are back stronger than ever this year (way more fans). They are in the right exposure.
There are also forget-me-nots in that area. I like a smattering of those, but not a mat. Last year I began selectively weeding those out after they bloomed (not letting them go to seed). A little seed is the perfect amount.
I will never tire of this. Daylilies coming up in SpringA close up
And with that, it is Friday, and I am ready to relax. My husband tells me he is going to make his signature smoked nachos on the grill. My stomach is already growling 🙂
After months of watching and waiting, we are finally into outdoor gardening season 🙂
Top of mind this week in our gardens:
The Hyperion daylilies arrived and have been added to the garden
The Hyperion daylily shipment arrived, and they are now planted in one of our garden areas. I am hoping they do well in their new home here, and live good long lives as our most historic daylilies.
Hyperions are one of two diploid forms I am looking to work with. In addition, their cheery yellow color will definitely be welcome, and their hardiness and deer resistance is something I plan to test up north. That they are fragrant is also a bonus.
In researching how Hyperion daylilies do best, and look best, I found that waves, or groupings, were the recommendation. I did consider alternating them with the Autumn Red daylilies but ultimately decided against that idea in favor of a solid Hyperion wave.
The daylily seedlings in the townhome gardens are all up
This week brought excellent news on the daylily and daylily seedling front. We did not lose any of our daylily seedling varieties. Every variety that I planted in 2025 from our 2024 harvested seed is now up in the 2026 gardens. Additionally, all of the previous years’ seedlings (that have not yet bloomed) and the daylilies from seed (that have bloomed) are also all up.
The realization that the propagation work I started in 2017 is now an annual rolling new creation was … beyond a minor moment. I am very excited to be at this point. Besides personally enjoying the daylily creations, I am looking forward to sharing the resulting blooms in a variety of ways – blogging, caring for them in our gardens, and starting the daylily work up north.
The scope of this year’s daylily crosses in the townhome gardens
With all of the South Seas self-seed daylilies back up, and with Hello Yellow back up, my propagation plan for 2026 is waiting on one thing – 2026 blooms. That will be a few months out.
I would like to say this year will be the first year my propagation work will be exclusively with daylilies created from seed harvested in our townhome gardens, but alas, I will still be using one purchased daylily for this year’s crosses.
I will use one AHS registered daylily for crosses this year, and that will be Marque Moon. Marque Moon has been in our gardens for almost 20 years. It has successfully crossed with our South Seas daylily and now I want to see what it can do with the South Seas self-seed daylilies.
The daylily seedlings at the historic cemetery
While the established daylilies at the historic cemetery overwintered very well, the seedlings, sadly, did not. That, coupled with what happened with the purchased daylilies I planted in 2024 (very few came up in 2025), tells me the historic cemetery garden needs a more restrictive palate with primarily divisions from things that already do well there. It will take longer to fill the empty spaces with that approach, but that’s ok. Community gardens are a unique challenge, and different sites need different things. Go with the flow.
And with that, it’s a wrap for this week.
Here’s a few more early greens pics around the townhome gardens.
South Seas self-seed daylily back upOne of the StonecropThe Bluebells clematis is greening upIn with the daylilies is a clematis volunteer
And last of all, our mystery volunteer bush is probably a currant of some type. I will keep watching to see what it does.
The snow is finally all gone here. Even the snow from the “blizzard” last week, although crummy at the time, is gone. We are firmly in April, with some enduring March winds.
More daylilies are coming up each day, and all of the sedum are now up. It is better than waiting for Spring, but I am still having such a hard time waiting to get the seeds outside in the seedling planters. For now:
Annual Spring Cleanup continues.
The daylilies and sedum are getting their annual sprinkling of used coffee grounds. It gives them a little boost and seems to repel critters and slugs. Eventually the hostas will get the same treatment when they start popping up.
The sticks that fell from the Linden over the winter are pretty much all picked up and the birds are starting to sort through what we saved for them to make nests.
We are continuing to move back any landscape rock that migrated over the winter.
Hints of what may change this year are emerging.
Something that is surprising me a bit this year is that the 3 Autumn Red daylilies closest to the Linden still haven’t shown up. They should be up. The other Autumn Reds are up. The tulip greens around the Autumn Reds in that area are well up. I know the sun exposure very well in that area, it is perfect for daylilies, and they have done well there in the past. Last year their flowering, compared to the other Autumn Reds, was a bit lighter, so it may be time for a move, but not because of roots or sunlight because the Marque Moons are even more challenged with roots and sun exposure and they are up. Something is going on. I’m just not sure what it is. For now, it is watch and wait. We can move them if need be.
I don’t see any sign of surviving clematis seedling transplants. It was a fun, multi-year experiment, but it is time to move on. Surprisingly, for that area my mind is wandering back to a time when, many years ago, I grew huge (5 foot plus) Aureomarginata hostas there. I think, for that mostly shaded area it is time to go back to that type of easy solution. Something substantial like a large anchoring hosta will be a nice backdrop to the daylilies further out in Sandy’s (sunny) Corner. I think I have the perfect hosta, already in our garden, that needs to be divided and moved this fall.
I am also a bit surprised at how few Asian lilies are showing up out back. Sometimes they are late, so we shall see. Unfortunately, the area they are in is not sunny enough for daylilies, but I already planned to move more of the Blue Mouse Ears into that more shaded area this fall. They would be perfect next to the hosta transplant mentioned above. It would be great if the Asian lillies came up. They have been in the garden for around 20 years. But if not, that area will still look nice with the Blue Mouse Ears.
A final surprise is that the volunteer seedling berry bush from last year is back, and much stronger. I think it was a bird “donation” so I am not sure exactly what it is. I will let it stay for now and see how it fits in.
Speaking of birds – the mornings are so wonderful again with their full surround sound chorus, and over the winter we even added an owl to the mix. It is truly delightful!
And finally – the daylily seeds update. The longer I go, the more I realize – I am not set up to grow daylily seeds indoors. We have a moderate townhome, and I am not willing to store a lot of supplies. Definitely not grow lights and shelving for the seedlings. So … the daylily seeds I planted indoors are still not coming up. There is simply not enough sun and heat. I cannot wait to get back to the medium pots in the seedling planters – outdoors. Unfortunately, the forecast is still a bit sketchy yet to start those. We’re probably looking at another week, at least.
Other than that, we did a quick pass by the historic cemetery, and the garden there is starting to pop up. Soon it will be time to add the annual mulch topper. This year it will be a “daylily seedling additions only” year at the historic cemetery while I see how the daylilies shape up from the past two years’ plantings. Quite a few of the purchased daylilies I planted in fall of 2024 never showed up in 2025. I am, probably a bit optimistically, hoping they will make an appearance in 2026. We shall see. Either way, any daylily seedlings that I add to that garden this year will be self-seed I harvested from that garden last year, so that will be a fun “first”. I am looking forward to that!
I have been thinking about how many daylily seedlings from the 2025 harvest I can realistically fit in the various gardens. High level, I am looking for space for whatever low volume seedlings I get from the seeds from last year’s harvest. Practically, I am looking for a way to enjoy groupings of the different daylily lines I have going.
Perhaps a 30,000 foot description on how I designed the gardens at the townhome would be a good idea to begin with.
In front, it is very much “landscape garden” style. Neat rows, lots of repetition. Not very creative, but it looks nice and uniform. And I don’t allow forget-me-nots out front. I keep it more formal. Increasingly I have also considered curtailing the number of crosses I do out front. It gets warm out front in the afternoons, and I much prefer to be out back at that time of day. I also have those same daylilies out back now, so in reality I don’t need to be out front doing any crosses.
Out back is where I have my actual “garden” areas. It is where I relax, where I have my coffee in the morning sun and where we sit out and chat as the shade begins to cover part of the patio. It is way more creative, and daydreamy. It is often where neighbors stop by to chat. And it is also where our dog Sandy used to sit with us, basking in warmth until the shade arrived. He so loved that. We will definitely miss having him with us there.
I have been considering naming the part of the gardens where Sandy most often sat, “Sandy’s Corner”. I am thinking “Sandy’s Corner” will be where the South Seas and Coral Majority self-seed and crosses will be planted go forward. Coral Majority is outrageously fun, and South Seas is very relaxing to look at. I like the idea of that combo.
I have a sneaking suspicion “Sandy’s Corner” will be my favorite look, and I will allow that to be the predominant results that remain in the townhome gardens, but we shall see.
As for the historic work, I am hoping to have those results primarily up north. Maybe some at the historic cemetery. Time will tell.
And the rest of the crosses, I think they can go by their parents. The forget-me-nots will be greatly reduced, but that is ok.
