Tag: Summer garden in Minnesota

I wait all year for this day

I wait all year for this day – the day the first daylily blooms. Yesterday the buds looked like this:

Today:

Early this morning I also watched as a robin chased a squirrel. I think the days of that squirrel causing mischief are numbered – hahaha! There is a new sheriff in town and I suspect there are some baby robins involved.

Tonight we barely made it home from our walk, and the skies just opened up. In full disclosure – we saw it coming and we knew it was close. Afterward though – a rainbow.

And I got a trip in to the co-op to get fresh veggies and a few treats with a friend.

A good day.

Now if I could just figure out what broke off an entire daylily scape on one of my new(er) – 2nd summer – daylilies. A trailcam sort of camera may need to be trained on that area. So curious. Seems too tall for a bunny and we have never had deer at the townhouse. But maybe …

Are those scapes?

It took forever this year to get the first scapes on the daylilies! That matched perfectly with so many other things I have needed to be patient on recently. It seems to be a theme …

Anyway, the first daylily scapes are here!!!

Fittingly, the first ones (I saw at least) are on the South Seas daylily – yes, my favorite.

Another very close favorite is the Purple D’Oro, and that has a few new scapes too.

The most surprising of all is the peach daylily that had the smooshing and breakage from the roof project now has a scape! Hurray!!!

We interrupt mid-July …

We interrupt mid-July pictures for a few “today” pictures.

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If you look closely, in the last picture you can see that the Purple D’Oro daylilies are starting to form seed pods.  The Purple D’Oros will live on in the existing plants, the pictures, and, hopefully, in seedlings next year.  We’ll see 3-4 years from now what we got with a little help from our friends the butterflies, the bees, and maybe the hummingbirds.

And now back to mid-July

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Full of color

The gardens have been absolutely full of color for the past few weeks.  Almost everything was blooming at once – all the daylilies except the Marque Moon –  and all the early blooming hostas, plus some late clematis and the hibiscus.  I spent all the free time I could spare just enjoying it.  Words don’t fully describe the beauty so here’s a few pictures.  More to come over the next few days.

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Cascades of shamrocks

We have two large pots of shamrocks I have over-wintered for years.  I bought them as tiny potted plants at St. Patrick’s Day.  They grew, and grew, and grew.  I divided them and gave some away.  Finally I decided the pots were the perfect size, and that’s what we have had for years.

The purple shamrocks are especially pretty in the garden.  The leaves and flowers get so full they cascade over the side of the pot.  It is quite a treat.

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The green shamrock can be seen next to the magenta asian lilies.

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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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