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.