Working Out Landscape "Problems" for Next Year

 Now that I am through with another season of discouraging deer from eating my Daylily buds, I am starting to make plans for changes that will improve my life next year.  I have ten Daylilies that are still difficult to protect.  Three of them I don't feel the need to save or even replace, and six of them I do want to replace with something more suitable.   Last year I dug out quite a few and replaced them with other plants.  Between the lily dig outs and the winter failures, I had to replace twelve plants.  Now that is complete and I am making plans for next year's round of replacements.

These Daylilies are going to have to go.  The yellow Happy Returns that flank the entrance to the walkway are now done blooming and will have to be cut back anyway, and the tall white lily is just beginning to bloom this week at the point that I am sick and tired of spraying repellent every day.

These yellow lilies may as well be replaced with annuals.  In years previous I have planted annuals along the right side and I am going back to that.  A row of "white" Marigolds or Geraniums would look nice, but will still have to be sprayed.  So far, the deer have never eaten Petunias.  I think I may try those next year.  That plant on the left of the walkway is the original Happy Returns plant and I have divided it many times so that I, and our neighbor, have it in a dozen other locations.  The neighbor wants more, so these will not go to waste.

This photo is from ten years (or more) ago.

I felt like I would like a medium sized perennial or shrub in the place of the white lily.  Not far away in the same bed I have this Little Lime Punch panicle hydrangea.  The deer will trim it a little in the spring when the tips are growing, but it is not a priority to them so it is easier to protect than lily buds and they do not totally ruin it.  Once it blooms it is safe and will look nice for months compared to a lily which only blooms for a week or two and must be protected to the very end.

The Hydrangea is budding right now and it will be covered in large blooms until winter.  While the white Daylily (below) is at it's prime and doesn't really look all that hot.  I have decided that Daylilies are not front door plants.  They just look too plain or too scraggly most of the summer.  I mean if this is the best it can do.... there are a lot of easier plants that look nicer for longer.

My intention was to mail order a Little Lime Punch or a Little Quick Fire which are both panicle Hydrangea that bloom on new wood.  But, the local fancy nursery that I knew had a good inventory of Hydrangea just put their stock on 25% off so I went and got a beautiful two gallon plant for the same price as a one gallon plant usually costs.  After the extended rain the other day, I took my transplant shovel around and started cutting loose Daylilies while the soil was soft.  I put my spade in next to that white Daylily and the whole clump came up.  No cutting needed!

I was thinking that I may put a medium sized decorative grass to its right. but I already have some good vertical elements with the Echinacea.  I think a lighter colored Heuchera may be more appropriate on the corner replacing the yellow Daylily.  I guess I could always divide a shorter grass I already have because the deer are not interested in any of my many decorative grasses.  

Which brings us to the dry creek bed.  I had six Daylilies left in that area.  Four of those are on the replacement list.  The reason I hadn't already removed those is that I really liked a couple of them and they are a bugger to get out of that rocky planting situation.  This large pink one is gorgeous, but sort of stuck out amid the more subtle wildflower look of the other flowers in the creek bed area.  I have a couple of ideas for a more appropriate, more deer resistant plant to replace it like maybe Ironweed.  Because the pink Daylily is so pretty, the next door neighbor took it and tucked it in a corner where it will hopefully fare better than on the edge of my open lawn.

Nearby it was two toned lily.  The deer love this one.  Not only was it on the edge and easily accessible, it seems to taste better than some of the others.  Truthfully, the deer seem to prefer the lighter colored blooms, and while they will eat dark red ones, those are easier to protect.  The deer are not as determined to eat every. last. bud.  It was always the first Daylily to sustain deer damage every year.  I am just going to replace this with a Foxtrot grass division I already have potted up.  I think it is a Sweet Sugar Candy variety and I have more of those in a safer place.

And lastly, this little lily.  I had planned to remove it last year, but I had run out of ideas for replacement plants so I just left it.  It managed to produce one bloom this year, and the deer reached under the net and ate the rest.  I have more of this color in a protectable spot at the end of the vegetable garden so it was dug up and will be replaced, probably with Yarrow.

I am in the process of digging out half a dozen more Daylilies in less conspicuous spots.  Most of them are not even being replaced.  If the space ends up looking too empty, I can always plant something new in the future.  Sometimes the peace that empty space affords is more valuable than the satisfaction of a nice looking plant that you have fought for.  Gardening should bring joy, not frustration.  There is no reason to keep a plant that is bogging you down.

Wild Areas

Our manicured landscape area is surrounded on three sides by wild areas.  This strip of weeds between the Viburnum Thicket and the west driveway is a good example.  It used to be the very edge of the mowed lawn.  After the driveway was put in we used to still take a pass down it a few times a year with the lawnmower.  

Once we actually tried landscaping it.  We planted some daylilies and iris and mulched it heavily.  For a few years I kept the blackberries, wild strawberries, ferns, goldenrod and aster beat back a good three feet.  Then I gave up.  I still whack it down in the fall, otherwise the goldenrod leans over into the driveway.  But areas like this are impossible to landscape.  Its a losing battle.  All woody thicket area need to be bordered by lawn or gravel.  And the gravel may still be a battle.  All natural vegetative species believe in Expansionism and Manifest Destiny.

Before I gave up on it completely I buried some Milkweed roots in there.  I had allowed a volunteer Common Milkweed to grow in the landscape bed along the house.  That's something you don't want to do either.  Common Milkweed spreads by roots and it is difficult impossible to get rid of.  Especially when it finds itself in loose, rich, fertile soil like a garden.  I dug roots for three years before I got it out of there.  But I always buried the roots in an area where I would actually like Milkweed to grow.

The first year three stalks came up and this year I have 20.  

There is a lot of insect activity in there in the morning.  And fresh, young Milkweed is actually pretty attractive.  Later on it will get ugly and I will harvest the pods, throw those somewhere I wouldn't mind Milkweed to grow and whack it down.

There were a lot of tiny snails this morning, and several lady beetles.  I have seen a Monarch Butterfly visit this thicket several times this year already.  Monarchs are very spare with their eggs.  They know that if one hatches, the caterpillar will need plenty of room to munch.  They can't be crowded by many competitive siblings.  There is a little egg there by the lady beetle.  None have hatched yet.  

On my morning walk I thought of a "faith in planting" example to show you.  Three weeks ago when my last perennial plant order arrived, the two Amsonia plants had absolutely fried in shipping.  They were about 8 inches tall and every leaf was brown and crispy.  But the stems were still green so I potted them up and stuck them in the cold frame.  After about a week they began to show growth at the base so I snipped them down and planted them out.   They are doing just fine.

Next year they will look like the one pictured below.  Amsonia is one of the first perennials in my garden to bloom in May.  The flowers are subtle and short lived but afterwards you get a nice shrubby looking plant that is very tough and will add nice texture to any garden.  I started with one plant and now I have six of three different varieties.

Another example of a quick growing, mail order perennial is this Cimicifuga (Bugbane).  This has been in the ground 10 days and look at how quickly it is putting on growth.  I killed my last Cimicifuga because I planted it in an area where it did not get enough sun.

I am looking forward to seeing how this one does.

Perennial Optimism

 Every year I lose a few perennials, and last year I did away with a whole bunch of Day Lilies and a few Hosta because I was tired of fighting the deer for them.  Most of this happens in our big Dry Creek Bed.  This area is pretty challenging to plant because it is both a hot, dry area and a wet area, depending on the season.   Below is an example of one of the planting spots vacated last year by a Day Lily.  The Day Lilies and grasses push a pretty sizeable root ball up from grade which seems to help them deal with the soggy season.

Because when it rains, some of these holes can really fill up with water!

When I first planted this area, I started with dependable plants like Decorative Grasses, Day Lilies and Hosta. Over the years I have also tried and failed to add some color with Blanket Flowers, Salvia, several varieties of Echinacea and newer Rudbeckias.  I tried some things that don't do well for me anywhere in my garden:  Candy Tuft, Sedums, Plumbago, Coreopsis and Caryopteris. I've planted four or five different varieties of Butterfly Bush.  Only one variety of these does well, but I am tired of replacing them every two or three years with volunteers I have collected up and groomed as under studies.  I tried some things that the deer absolutely obliterated like Irises, Asters and Marshmallows.  I still haven't gotten around to some of the brighter things like Phlox.  Some of the planting spots I have replanted three or four times and failed with every new idea.

Instead of going for colorful flowers I have switched to texture and colored foliage which brought me to shrubs.  Some of these have done well and some haven't.  I've discovered a few new to me plants like Amsonia and Penstemon which, so far, seem unstoppable in difficult locations.  When online perennials get discounted towards the end of each spring, I buy the smaller pots at half price, pot them up in larger pots, and grow them up to a retail size before planting them out.  This year, to fill the holes left by the murdered Daylilies, drowned Butterfly Bushes and finicky Echinaceas, I needed a dozen new Perennials and Shrubs.  I chose all new varieties concentrating on plants that look like they belong along a natural creek bed.  When searching through possibilities, I filtered for Deer Resistant and Wet Site Tolerant.

Physostegia Summer Snow (Obedient Plant)

Lobelia Starship Scarlet (Cardinal Flower)

Cimicifuga Black Negligee (Bugbane)

Aronia Berry Scape (Choke Berry)

Clethra Sugartina Crystalina (Summersweet)

I also got a few more Amsonia, Brunnera, Carex grass and Niagara Falls grass because I know those will work here and what I have is still too small to divide at this point.  I topped off the empty holes with fresh soil and got rid of all of the opportunistic weeds that had tried to take over.  Some of these new perennials were already getting root bound in the pots I put them in last month.  I hope this means they will root in fast and take off.

I love having a fresh new perennial in a tidy planting space.  So much promise.

Unless you were to walk through the creek bed, you really wouldn't have noticed those dozen empty holes.  What survives from year to year looks beautiful in June.  Here are a few shots from the last week.

Early Morning Sunshine

The Layered Look

Hosta corner in the dry shade of the Black Maple

Penstemon Onyx And Pearls (Beardtongue)

So now the vegetable garden is in, all of my annuals have been planted, and now all of the new perennials have been placed out in the dry creek bed.  I think I am, at last, done planting for the year.

Stop and Smell the Roses

 This time of year, in my bustle to get annuals and vegetables in the ground, it would be easy to overlook some of the more subtle spring perennials that I have spent just as much effort on in years past. So here are a few bright spots I have captured while running around the past few days.

my "Spring Garden" with Columbine (Clementine Red)  and Wood Hyacinths

Heuchera or "Coral Bells"

Brunnera Queen of Hearts

Geum Pretticoats Peach

Viburnum shrub in front of the Porch

Storm Cloud Amsonia

Busy Day

 It amazes me that I can walk out the door with no "To Do List" and still get many things accomplished.  All I have to do is sit down in a chair overlooking the garden and things that need to be done present themselves.  The first row of peas are up.  I planted the third row yesterday morning.

I peered under the shade cloth cover at the cole crops and they could not be happier.

The Pear tree blossoms are opening up.

I got the soil level of the containers by the firepit raised back up.  They have Hosta planted in them,

Rather than "waste" potting mix, I removed the Hosta from the pot and dug out about 8" of potting mix from the top, replacing it with screened top soil that we have left over from last year's septic rework.

Then I put the potting mix back on top and replanted the Hosta clump with starter fertilizer.

I have been very relaxed about getting things planted outside.  After last year's bad turn in May I have not been anxious to start putting things out at all.  Part of that is due to enjoying gardening indoors with my grow lights.  Last year I felt rushed thinking "I have to get these poor plants out of here" and this year everything is growing so well I am satisfied leaving them under the grow lights.  I bumped my Dahlias from seed up from 6 pack cells to 3.5" pots. (Top tray)

Sweet Potato Slips, Zinnias and Volunteer Petunias below

I have a few new Dahilas, one of which is the Gallery Art Deco which I have wanted for awhile.  I have it started in a large pot and today it is showing some sprouts.

I have a few new Pink and Purple Dahlias that arrived and are already sprouting.  I put them in a tray of moist soil to continue waking up.  I checked my stored Dahlia tuberss today and they are still sleeping quietly.

The rest of my baby vegetables are looking good.

The Indeterminate Tomato Plants transplanted on the 11th are off and running.

Later on I checked on the fruit trees again.  The Pear is opening up and the sky is about to...

We certainly have been getting out share of April Showers.

A Sinking Feeling

 Back in May we cleaned out two old Whiskey Barrel planters and replaced them with poly resin containers that look like terracotta.  I promise they look more like real terracotta from the side.  They look pretty cheesy and orange on the inside.  Anyway... look how much the soil has sunk.  I need to add at least four inches of soil, maybe six inches.  But I am waiting for spring.  The Hostas are rooted in and growing well.  I don't want to disturb them going into winter.  I will cut them back and add a layer of shredded leaves on top to insulate them.  This Hosta variety is supposedly hardy to temperatures down to -30F.  When planting perennials in containers you should choose varieties hardy two zones lower than your own and we are currently a zone 6b.

We had volunteer Petunias in them all summer.  Next year I will plant colorful annuals in them and use the Hosta for centerpiece plant.