The daylilies are continuing to pop up, and the sedum are coming along.
We have snow coming tonight and tomorrow, but they, like the daylilies, are hardy and should be fine.
I don’t see any hostas up yet. That is because they are mostly in the shadier areas. It takes a while longer for those areas to warm up.
And I am still on seedling watch for the 84 seeds I planted in the mini-greenhouse trays and pots. I don’t use grow lights so the only sun they get is through the windows. In a few weeks they will go out into the seedling planters outside, and then they will get much more sun.
The spring kickoff checklist of maintenance items has also begun. This week it was:
Pick up linden sticks, leaving the smallest sticks in the rock for the birds to make their nests, and
Start putting coffee grounds around the daylilies, sedum, and hostas to give them a boost and repel slugs and four-legged buddies.
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.
We still have a few tulips in the back garden that come up each year. Those started to pop up a few days ago.
And then the first of the daylilies are up.
On ‘Autumn Red’, the various clumps out front are starting to show greens.
‘Autumn Red’ is our oldest (historic) daylily in the gardens. It had a bountiful harvest of seeds from 2025 crosses (84 of which are already planted in seedling trays). It also has 2025 seedlings from 2024 crosses I did.
I’m not surprised to see the “Autumn Red’ daylilies are already up this year. They are super hardy.
The daylily I am calling Equal Opportunity is also starting to come up.
Equal Opportunity is from my work with ‘South Seas’ self-seed, and it bloomed last year for the first time. Equal Opportunity did not accept a pod parent attempt last year. It is slated to be tried again this year, as both a pod and pollen parent.
And then, of course, ‘Pink Tirzah’ is up.
Now it will go fast with new greens popping up daily.
Well, I was going to plant just a few 6 cell seedling trays and put on the greenhouse covers but I got a tad ambitious today. 84 of the daylily seeds are now planted. Still a lot to go, but it’s a start.
Today’s planting work was exclusively with the Autumn Red crosses. And 3 Autumn Red self-seeds 😉 I will stop there until last frost has passed. The bulk of the daylily seeds always get planted then, and that is my favorite way to handle the seeds. Then they go directly into the seedling boxes outside and get way more sun 🙂
It definitely was a fun day. An accomplishment day. It was also a very confirming day. Every priority and decision I have been sharing regarding the daylilies was reinforced.
My best decision, hands down, was all the research and documentation work I tackled over the past year. It saved me from a lot of stress today. Throughout the day I found myself thinking that if I had not done all that work, I would have been sunk. It was just way too much to go on memory and pictures and a few journal notes like I used to. The practice of ongoing research and documentation will be a keeper, even though it is extra work. The payoff is huge.
Secondly, I absolutely confirmed today that both the scope and the volume of what I did for crosses last year was too far for my ongoing comfort level. A stretch year, ok. I was still toying at that point with a number of ideas I have now counted out. I am not going to start a daylily farm lol. I am not going to ship daylilies around. I am not going to grow volume and sell at farmers markets – egads! No! Just No! Not at all me. So today as I was planting dozens of seeds from the same daylily cross, those activities went even further to confirm my decisions are right-sized and me appropriate. I now have a pretty good idea of what I can do with crosses between what we have – what consistently makes seed, which daylilies play well together … Now I am looking to see what I can do with specific crosses at low volume and then working with the results of those crosses and also the self-seed. I like to putz, and putz I shall do going forward 😉
Third, after I researched more on historic daylilies, and the intersection of what I like for form and color, I am super comfortable with where I am with the historic idea at this point. If I can get some daylilies older than Hyperion, that would be great, but I’m still also good if I don’t.
So, indeed, putzing is a great word to describe what I envision going forward. That, and seeing if I can finally get a garden going up north. I think if anything will make it, the older daylilies should. The Autumn Red seeds are planted. If they come up, some will go up. Little by little.
I hope you have a great week. We have plans with one of the grands tomorrow, so no Tuesday post. My next post will probably be Friday 🙂
The temperatures are rising, the snow from the blizzard is melting big time, and soon, very soon, seeds will start to get planted. Sadly, I don’t think the old Malva Zebrina Hollyhock seeds are going to germinate, but that’s ok. I supected they were too old.
For now, we wait. But not much longer. And then we will be very busy indeed.
Let’s see … where did I leave off last week? I think it was with the discovery of the first daylily scapes of the season.
Last Friday I was weeding at the historic cemetery. I was down to the end where there are some mature Stella de Oros. Full disclosure, Stella de Oros are not daylilies I would buy. I do like the color. The size is not the issue. It is just that they are everywhere – in residential gardens, commercial landscaping, everywhere. But … they are daylilies, they are improving in health since the rock was switched out to mulch, and they were gifted to the historic cemetery garden before I started in earnest, so they stay. Stella de Oros also bloom fairly early, so they are a harbinger of the start of the daylily blooms on the way. So, last Friday, as I was wrapping up weeding, I looked over and there it was – a scape, on a Stella de Oro.
Which means the scapes will soon start showing up on other daylilies. And that is my start of the daylily season. Scapes hold buds that bloom and blooms can be not only enjoyed, but crossed, by birds, bees, butterflies … and humans. It’s almost here!!! Hurray!
While daylily gardeners everywhere await daylily season, irises are in full bloom. The iris bed I made two years ago at the historic cemetery is starting to really shine! Almost all the irises in the lower part of the bed came from a smaller overgrown old garden. They were not blooming there, so I took my chance on color. I lucked out. Last year all those that bloomed were yellow, and this year as the iris bed began to really shine, the color yellow was predominant, save for one purple iris in a line of five that I had added last year from the big old garden. That purple bud showed up late. We shall see what comes next year.
Now here is where I get to share the joys of a community, public garden. 99.5% of the experience is AWESOME. People are so kind and thankful, and it is so fun to meet them and see them over and over. But there are, shall we say, occasional shenanigans. And herein is this week’s shenanigans story. I shall say it did not make me smile and say “silly turkeys”. So here’s the story. I was all excited about the yellow irises because we have 14 veterans buried at the cemetery who came home safely from war. Think yellow ribbon for safe return. We also have a Civil War soldier, James Akers, buried at the cemetery, and he was killed at Gettysburg. I wanted at least one purple iris in remembrance of him, amidst the yellow irises. Think Purple Heart. And one came up! But it was not meant to bloom there. You see, within the past day and a half someone/something came by and snapped off a bunch of yellow irises and the one purple iris. The yellow ones – in various stages from bud to bloom – they threw around in the mulch and even on the ground,
but the purple one was totally missing. Now what possesses an action like that, I cannot imagine. Irises don’t even smell good, and animals usually leave them alone, so … my guess is shenanigans. Now, I have been putting the best construction on missing plant markers and missing plants, thinking maybe it was squirrels or turkeys, but now I am thinking along other lines. And what is my logic? The turkeys that live inside the fence have a big old garden of irises, even one that made it to bloom. And … they aren’t touching them. Soooo …. probably shenanigans. Decision? The Mahala daylily seedlings definitely aren’t going to the historic cemetery quite yet, and I will not be purchasing any additional plants for the historic cemetery. Just out of wisdom. We shall watch and assess. No big. Just prudence.
For now, we enjoy pics, and see the one purple bud in front.
In the townhome gardens the clematis out back are blooming beautifully,
following the Bluebells clematis out front that just wrapped up.
The Weigelia has also started blooming, and, soon, like the clematis, the hummingbirds will be found enjoying those blooms.
Do you remember the variegated sedum I pulled out and then saw it had a few tiny green buds? I potted it in an old terracotta pot, and it is growing new buds. Yeay! Sedums rock!
The Ninebarks are also doing wonderfully, and, along with the Weigelia, they remind me every year why bushes do have their place.
But, there is a shenanigans story in the townhome gardens too. I suspect they are of the bird variety. After over fifteen years of birds being helpers in cleaning up the shamrocks, we might have a crop of mess makers this year. They have decided to make quite the mess of all the purple shamrocks. No worries. There are so many shamrock rhizomes. I brought them in and will restart them in the house. Sorry birds. No more purple shamrocks fun for you this year.
And that was our week. I hope yours was fun! Catch you next week!
As I looked at my photos of previous years this morning, it became crystal clear – the townhome gardens are changing. A lot.
It is a bit of a shock this year with the loss of a number of hostas. OK, 11. A large number of large hostas. The full realization is here. The edges of the gardens probably are not the safest place anymore – fertilizer and herbicide overspray and drift. And the aging of the garden by the linden, with its roots, has arrived.
I should probably be more upset. The big beautiful hostas! Why am I not very upset? Did I not really care about the hostas?
And then it occurs to me that nature is giving me cues. It is time to pivot. A pivot I have been thinking of accomplishing in other ways. Nature just beat me to it.
Likewise, a big portion of my time allocation has also pivoted this year. Again, the change outcome is something I was already working toward. It is just different timing and a different path.
So, where am I with the gardens?
At the townhome gardens, I greatly miss the 11 hostas, but I will not replace them. Something benefitted from them and they returned to nature. Their time here is done.
I am firmly on the path with the daylily propagation. I don’t expect that to change before I hang up my gardening hat, whenever that may be. I have longed for a space to daylily “farm” for a while, and my mind is reminding me words have power, be careful what you put out there, what you share as your desire for next steps, what you wish for.
So the space is now there, admittedly needing a new configuration or format. More portable if I want. But the timing. Is the timing right? It feels like nature has run ahead of me this time. I need to make the next move but I am not quite ready. I am not “for sure” on what I want as the next step format. I am going slow, checking things out, how I want them longer term.
So let’s see – What is right in front of me? What do I already have in motion? Let’s start with the “Mahala” seedlings. What???, you say! Did some seeds go to seedling? Yes, but only two. Out of 25 seeds. Not my usual yield ratio, but ok. And maybe nature is saying that is enough. One for either side of the historic cemetery gate. But wait! Mahala was not about the historic cemetery. In fact, nothing I have read about her mentions her involvement in the acquisition or care of the historic cemetery. I wished. I was hoping it was part of her and William’s homestead, but I cannot find anything at all to support that. Everything I have found leads to an understanding that it was entirely someone else’s land before it became the historic cemetery. So then – the “Welcome” is like the welcome she extended to those who stayed at the Buckhorn. The Buckhorn was not on William and her land nor was it their building, but where they were based out of, where their presence was first established in this area. Perhaps my tiny part was to decide which harvested seed was to be dedicated and named for Mahala, and then nature decided, and will decide, how much “presence” those daylilies have. Perhaps a very simple “Welcome” duo of daylilies in Mahala Felton’s honor have been initially chosen by nature to move forward. I have done my part. Now we wait a few years and see how they develop.
And that may also be the townhome garden message overall for this time. I have done my part, I have things still to do with the daylily seeds harvested in 2024, and the seedlings from previous years. Now we see how things develop.
For sure the rest of the 2024 daylily cross seeds need to go in the seedling box by the beginning of June. That means the Mahala seeds need to get into the ground by the beginning of June, and for that I invested in cloches. I bought a set of 20 for long term planning, so I have plenty. A couple could even go to the historic cemetery. But watering there is manual, and markers for the daylilies I planted last year are also disappearing, so I may keep the seedlings here until fall. TBD.
One thing is for sure, I am done with the “one seed in a little pot” method. I have done it my last time. I should know better. There is a reason I stopped doing that. It is way too tedious and, for whatever reason, for me it yields way less results. It looks nice, little pots all lined up in a tray, with covers to start, but no. Done with that. All harvested daylily seeds, intentional crosses or volunteers, will go in a pot – one pot per type. Easy peasey lemon squeezey 😊
Happy (fill in) Friday. Here’s what’s going on in the garden this week.
The Bluebells clematis is strutting her stuff. Serious strutting. And her “kid” from last year is mini strutting lol. The birds are going bonkers around mama Bluebells. Absolute bonkers. It probably doesn’t hurt that they also have a mini birdbath nearby. Hubs reports that the birdbath seems to be more noticed this spring than in years past. Now we just need to keep it filled. And yes, that is one of our hummingbird feeders. It is just about hummingbird time. We are expecting to see them any day now.
I dunno what the hostas are doing. They are almost all super sluggish this year. Did they get a telegraph from the hostas at the historic cemetery and now have mulch envy? Seriously. The Elegans are totally MIA, and a bunch of others are very diminished compared to prior years. I’m not sure what to think.
The hostas that are doing super well are the Blue Mouse Ears divisions. Yeay Blue Mouse Ears!
Only two tulips bloomed, and they are done.
And this is what crowded daylilies do 😭. I need to get them moved this year.
For comparison, this is the same type, but divided last year.
Update on the daffodils? Still no blooms. Definitely no bags of 50 this fall. Final decision. Shifting to grape hyacinth 💕 Final decision.
And lastly … dadadadahhhh! The shamrocks are all now out. The last one went out yesterday. But very naughty squirrels are digging on the smaller pots.
My thoughts are repeatedly going to – Why do I feel like the townhome gardens are shifting? They feel so different this year. Are they turning into my daylily “farm”? Do I not need a bigger space to continue my projects? We shall see.
Two weeks ago it seemed like the gardens were on hold. This week things were full speed ahead. But today with a rain and cooler weather, I am once again spending my time indoors. No worries. It is a good time to finish this blog post. It is a longer one. I need to cut it off, wrap it up, insert the pics, add the tags and categories, and get it out there. Here goes.
Top of mind is still the prospective “Mahala” daylily seeds – With the seed planting underway, I am trying to figure out what I will do to protect the seedlings when they need to go into the ground. The seedling box is not a season-long option with the small seed starter cups I used for those seeds. I used special seedling cups for them, with little greenhouse style covers. I am hoping that will be very successful for germination, but if so, they will need to get into the ground within a month. The little cups will be too restrictive for their roots.
If they are successful and germinate and go to seedling, where I think I am heading is something called a “cloche”. It is a wire mesh cage topper that is placed over the seedlings to protect them. In our case that protection time would be the 2025 gardening season. The cloche solution would allow any seedlings a full season to grow and mature in the ground. Then in the fall the cloche would be removed and in year 2 forward the “Mahala” seedlings would be just like any other daylily in the gardens.
I like the cloche idea as a next step. It keeps with “simple”, and it looks nice. It is also a sustainable one-time purchase if I want to continue the early seedling process in future years, for future dedicated seeds. And it doesn’t add another seedling box to be stored over the winter, a definite bonus.
For right now I am still watching to see if we get seedlings. If we don’t get seedlings, we don’t need cloches. But, fingers crossed, we will need them.
In the meantime, the established gardens are popping, so there has been plenty to do.
In the townhome gardens, everything except two late daylilies, a few missing hostas, and two sedum, have popped, including the bushes. One day the ninebark bushes didn’t even look like they had buds. Two days later they were leafing out. And yesterday I noticed the weigelia bush is taking off too.
For daylilies, all the longtime daylilies, including those I divided and transplanted, are back. There are two daylilies from last fall’s order that I am still watching for. In a funny twist, they are supposed to be part of my “control” daylilies to compare against what works at the historic cemetery, and also, an easier way to do and monitor crosses. It is much easier to step out the door at the townhouse and do a cross than get in the car and drive to the historic cemetery. Not that I don’t intend to do crosses there. I do. But it will just be a little more time consuming. Full transparency, though? The historic cemetery garden is easily two weeks ahead of the townhouse gardens. It is an all-day sun, retaining wall, mulched garden. The two control daylilies that are missing from the townhome gardens are already up at the historic cemetery garden. I am kind of bumming, kind of thinking, “can you say extended crossing season?” We shall see what actually blooms. Hopefully both of the missing control daylilies will still show at the townhome gardens as well. One is a tetraploid, and one is a diploid. The tetraploid is one of my faves. It is one of the “parents” that are waning in the townhome gardens and also one of the “parents” of a cross I am watching to bloom this year. I was hoping to use the newly planted one this year, but eras change, and the torch may be passing to a new “rock steady”. Long story short, it will be a bit before I can fully say what we have to work with at each location for 2025.
Regarding daylily seedlings, awesome news … at all of the gardens the seedlings are back. I am especially excited to see one particular set of 2024 seedlings (an intentional cross), and am hoping it blooms this year. As I had also hoped, all of the 2023 seedlings are quite a bit larger. Hello Yello is three times larger! She will be a focus again this year. I think she is a tetraploid, as a tetraploid cross went to pod last year whereas a diploid cross didn’t. But that tetraploid cross pod started to fail, and then Bunimous Rex (our beloved neighborhood resident very large bunny) or a naughty squirrel got it. I know for sure it was not one of the white squirrels. Na-ah. They are very well behaved. Maybe this year some of the shorter crosses also need cloches lol. We shall see.
On the hosta scene, Blue Mouse Ears continue to amaze me. Last year’s divisions are popping up.
I think if I could only have one type of hosta, it would be Blue Mouse Ears. Yes, Rainforest Sunrise and Guacamole and Elegans and Praying Hands and Touch of Class. But goodness! Blue Mouse Ears year after year after year checks all the boxes – sun tolerant, disease free, drought hardy, and they reproduce very well. So well that they got divided and placed all over last fall. They are now coming up where we transplanted divisions – both here at the townhome, and at the historic cemetery.
The Asian lilies are also coming back.
Not terribly strong. They are quite old. But they are returning. And … the clematis the lawn maintenance guy tried to pull last year? Back! Hahaha! I thought it was a goner, but nope. It’s back.
The daffodils I planted last fall are largely a no show. There are a few coming up at the historic cemetery, but most of the daffodils coming up there are the ones I planted in fall of 2023. And yes, I planted them correctly lol. It seems they did deter moles, as was my primary reason for planting them. They just didn’t bloom well. And that’s OK. The bags of 50 are coming to the end of an era. This fall I want to change things up a little and force grape hyacinth this coming winter. They also deter moles. And I can do smaller pots for forcing. If I want to.
And then there are the tulips. Of all the multiple (lots of) tulip bulbs in the townhome gardens that produce greens, only two have buds.
Yesterday after the greens of a few got stepped on while we cleaned the windows, I tested digging one out. I had kept my hand shovel out after digging and transplanting Blue Bells clematis volunteers.
I thought I might be able to dig the non-blooming tulips and consolidate them to one area (or bring them up north to naturalize or be deer food). Well, I probably should have gotten out the full-sized shovel. Instead of the bulb coming up, the stems broke off first. At which point I thought, “Why are you doing this? Pull the other stems and be done with it for another year.” I would like to say I did that immediately. I did for one more bulb. And then I remembered the next one I went to pull actually bloomed last year. They can fade back. Maybe next year I will feel differently.
To wrap up the afternoon yesterday, while I was in a cleanup mood, I tested to see if the variegated sedum (that it looked like we lost) was really a goner. It pulled out super easy, but wouldn’t you know it, there were little green sprouts. Dang! So, I searched around for a place where I could put it to give it one last chance. Aha! A swaparoo! A two-for. I moved the small Pink Tirza I want to use for crosses again this year to a more accessible spot,
and the variegated sedum went to a more secluded spot to R&R and hopefully come back stronger next year.
With that done, I called it quits. I was kind of still working off a crummy mood from something else. (What is it that makes normally sane drivers turn road risky on rummage sale days? Yikes!) I got myself a sweet tea and sat and looked at how nice the newly relocated Pink Tirza fit into its new home. That was a very good choice 🙂
And then, this morning on my walkabout I noticed … we did not lose the Guacamole hosta, as I feared. It is slowly coming up. The two Elegans, not looking good. Oh well. The circle of life.
Have a great weekend. I may take some time off early next week to put the finishing touches on something I will be kicking off next weekend – the Mahala Felton historical blog series. One post per week will be devoted to getting all the Mahala Felton research I have done out into the public domain. It has been a worthy endeavor, and I really want to share. The tie in is to the historic cemetery. More to come on that.
The long wait is now over. Things are popping all over the gardens, and I am starting to see what made it, what didn’t, and what work there is to do.
At the townhome gardens, sadly, it looks like we lost two sedum. How that happened for one of them is a mystery to me. That one was our only variegated sedum, and I will miss it. It had been there for a long time, maybe over 10 years, so I am a bit surprised. I won’t replace it with another sedum, but I may put a daylily there this fall. Potentially a seedling. But first I want to refresh my memory on how strongly the sprinklers hit that area. I don’t think the variegated sedum died from sprinkler damage, but I want to make sure it is a safe place. The other sedum that didn’t come back was under the linden. That one never did well. It just never took off. I won’t put anything in that spot to replace it because the daylilies are also starting to underperform there. There are a lot of linden roots. It is a spot I will leave as “rock only” as things fail.
On the flip side, we have a bumper crop of Bluebells clematis volunteers, and those are in the “work” category. I need to transplant them to another area. This area is not optimal 😂
The volunteers are from our large Bluebells clematis that always performs very well, and I suspect I will continue to have volunteers over the years now that it is well established. Last year I allowed one to grow around the red daylilies, and this past weekend I dug that out and transplanted it into the spot where another clematis volunteer (different type) was way underperforming. Hopefully this volunteer does well. So far so good.
And then there are the missing hostas. There are three in particular that have no sign of anything, and that is a bit concerning. Two I was going to give to my Dad, but the third was one of my long-time faves, and if it doesn’t come back, I will miss it. BUT I have made a decision. If it doesn’t come back, I will convert that real estate to daylily space. That hosta really always amazed me because it should never have done so well there for so many years. That spot really is more of a … daylily sunny spot. But I put it there in my early years of creating our gardens, and it went to town for well over a decade. Probably 15 years. So if that hosta is gone, I will greatly miss it, but it will be replaced by a purchased daylily this fall. (Yes, I have my sites on a few candidates.) Then that entire area will be daylilies, with a few remaining Asian lilies, a few remaining tulips, and a legacy Autumn Joy Sedum. For the other two “missing” hostas, if they do not come back, I will not replace them. The area where they were was getting way overcrowded, hence why they were going to find a new home with my Dad. And, my Dad just had a bunch of trees removed so they may have not done well there anyway.
Which leads me to story time. When I started our gardens at the townhouse many many years ago, I was head over heels in love with hostas. I planted boatloads of different hostas. I visited hosta gardens. I bought “hosta of the year” varieties I liked. I was gifted hostas. My Dad even bought me hostas from a neighborhood gardener he called the “hosta masta” (master, that is 😊). I have grown and divided all kinds of hostas for over two decades. I even tried my hand at harvesting hosta seeds and seeing if I could grow hostas from seed. (Not for me.) I love hostas. And I will keep the hostas I have that are still doing well. But that era was that era, and the garden “container” is the garden “container” (not getting any larger), and I am not getting any younger. So … in a finite space garden … hosta attrition makes way for daylilies, if the space is sunny. (Amazingly, I did have some huge hostas that did very well in relatively sunny spots. Go figure). In this new era, I have my daylily seedling beds, and they are doing well. Those were solidified as the plan last fall. I also have one 6th year non-blooming daylily seedling in a different area, and I just can’t seem to move that one out, but we shan’t dwell on that. I figure at some point when the garden “container” is full, I will know it is time to stop doing daylily crosses, and then I will sit in my patio rocker, with a beverage of choice, and just enjoy. Haha, I can hear family and friends alike laughing uproariously. But that will be a few years yet. Hopefully quite a few. Because goodness! I have 60 “same cross”seeds I still need to get into pots in the seedling planter, and if even half of those go to seedling, oof! Realistically, experience tells me “probably not” and I will most likely end up with optimistically, 10 seedlings from that 60, to be planted in the 2025 seedling bed this fall, and watched for bloom starting next year.
At the historic cemetery, I am gonzo in love with what I see so far – legacy plants are doing so much better in year 3 of the mulch bed. The iris bed is in year 3 now, year 2 for watch to bloom, and I already see multiplication. Daylily seedlings I planted last year from here look great. Daylily purchases I planted last fall are coming up. Even the Blue Mouse Ears hostas made it.
Overall, so far, so very good.
Weeding time at the historic cemetery is down to an hour per week – amazing what the mulch bed tamps down. The only thing I want to work on is the aging creeping thyme. It needs some cleanup, and I may grab some irises from the old garden bed and do some fill in there. Otherwise, one hour per week weeding, watch for the garden to do its thing, and maybe, optimistically, try a few crosses.
Susan's Daily Garden 