Happy Thanksgiving

 We woke up to an inch of snow and the sound of snowplows on the road.  I've placed a little red X on our location.  We are right on the line between 24-36" and 36-48".  It will depend on the wind direction.  It is not super cold this time so this shouldn't be a killing storm if people stay sensible. We've missed out completely on the last three major lake effect events that buried the Buffalo NY area under feet of snow.  It has been years since we had to shovel our roof.  Last winter we only plowed three times and each time it was melted the next day.  Looks like we might get in on the action this time.  My husband has said several times that he is sick of mowing the lawn and looking forward to a chance to plow some snow.  We may as well enjoy it while we are still youngish.

These are the expected totals between now and Monday.  We are going to a nearby restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner today (we both are ordering prime rib instead) and we don't have any place to be after that.  I made a pumpkin pie this morning and there is plenty of food in the house including turkey and stuffing leftovers in the freezer if we choose.  We will get the Christmas tree down from the attic and cozy up for the weekend.  I wouldn't mind spending some time in the snow with all the sounds muffled and everything still and lazy.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Correcting Landscape Mistakes

 Step #1 is admitting you have a problem:

You know how you spend a whole winter chewing on a gardening issue and not being able to do much about it?  I do way more mental gardening in the winter than I do in season.  Towards the end of this past summer I told my husband that I think I have created a problem for myself.  And the problem is that I set myself up to battle the deer all summer long.  And that takes so much joy out of flower gardening.

I love daylilies.  They are inexpensive and readily available.  You can easily divide them and spread them all over.   They come in many colors and even some variation on leaf texture.   If you plant them in a row, the deer will treat them as a flower bud buffet....

The worst problem is our front fence line.  Of course, this one was my husband's idea...  but I've duplicated it in at least two different planting areas.  We are planning to remove these "ditch lilies" in the spring and plant them back in the ditch where they came from.  It's going to be a big job, but it will save me so much gardening time between spraying them each night, to deadheading, to cutting them down in late summer.

When day lilies are well maintained and in full bloom, they are beautiful.  The problem is that I have months of work to enjoy three weeks of blooms.  And when they are done, they are best cut down completely and allowed to grow back, which leaves you with a big bare spot in the middle of summer.  I have illustrated the Daylily Paradigm below.

The pink triangle highlights the moment of peak blooming. 

That brief moment of peak blooming is glorious.  At least it can be if you start protecting your blooms as soon as they peek up over the foliage.  I even commemorated it in a post last year.

"Daylily Day" 2023

Below is a photo of what became my second biggest deer battle.  A row of lilies, nose height, along the driveway, where everyone, including the deer, walked daily.

It wasn't always like this.  It started out with just a few lilies.  And this fall, when I was doing garden maintenance, I pulled most of them out leaving only one plant on each end which has my favorite color bloom.  And I really like how it opened the bed back up so that it looked like you might even want to go in there and sit on the bench.  I was initially going to plant another row of something else.  But I think I've changed my mind.  I like the wide open space better than I liked the row of frustration.

Original plan

Another area that I am over and done with is the strip along the back lawn where the Linden trees are planted.   It has become quite shady and since I would love a shade garden, I started putting Hosta divisions in there.  Then I realized that I am not interested in walking out there to spray them.  And again, this is near a preexisting deer highway.

It wasn't always a shady spot.  It used to be more open an sunny and full of....

Day Lilies.

That Linden row is far enough away from our living space that I no longer feel like I need to decorate it.  Come spring I am removing what is left of both the Hosta and the remaining Daylilies.

I can't even see what is planted there from this vantage point.

Gardeners are always having to correct gardening mistakes.  Sometimes they are little ones like the right plant in the wrong growing space and you just need to swap things around.  But sometimes they are big ugly mistakes that require some serious reworking.  Our best example of that is the area shown below.  It was initially landscaped after the neighbors removed some large oak trees and put in city water.  It looked nice and neat, but the mulch was a nightmare.  

The mulch would be soaked with water and become ankle deep mud.  This rendered the French drain inoperable.   It had to be refreshed every few years which was a lot of hard work, not to mention expensive. So we completely reworked the area into a dry creek bed. 

How wet could it get?

Really wet.

Well, the dry creek bed landscape solved the wetness problem beautifully.  And again, I felt compelled to plant it up.  With Daylilies.  It looks lovely for the few weeks they are in bloom, and when they are not blooming you get just an appropriate grassy texture.  But after eight seasons with these lilies, I have come to realize that this dry creek bed is not the optimum spot for a flower garden.  Its an out of the way place which is more trouble to maintain than the enjoyment I get from it. So I have been removing lilies as the spruce trees crowd them out.  I pulled three from the far end which had become completely engulfed by spruce branches and I'm not replacing them.  There are a few gorgeous deep red lilies that I would like to relocate somewhere that I could enjoy them more.  I will be replacing those with ornamental grasses which the deer don't bother at all.

I am looking forward to next season, but instead of plotting and planning how I am going to protect rows of daylilies, I am prioritizing which lilies I really enjoy and I am scattering them around the other flower beds where the deer will have to spend more effort looking for them.  There are areas that are less travelled, and maintaining a netting over a few lilies here and there will be much easier than netting entire flower beds. 

Carrots

 I pulled the last of the carrots yesterday.  These are Sugarsnax planted in potting mix amended with bone meal.  Because they were planted in an above ground container, they would not survive the whole winter but we have had enough cold nights to sweeten them very nicely.

Coleus Cuttings Update

 The cuttings that I took from the lightly frost burned Coleus four weeks ago are doing well.  I lost a half dozen of them but the ones that took root are starting to put on new growth.

I have them in the woodshop under a full spectrum LED and on a heat mat with the air temperature set at a minimum of 50F.  It's about time to get them potted up into some larger cells with potting mix, but for now they are doing well being left alone.  I don't want them to grow too fast although taking a second round of cuttings from the larger ones at a later date would round out my two dozen.

The Last One

Despite the many frosts I still have flowers blooming.  This is one of the Mellow Yellow Echinacea that I winter sowed this spring.  Overall, my winter sowing was not particularly successful this year, but I got a few seedings and potted them up into 4" pots in late May and kept them in the vegetable garden where I could water them daily.  In late summer I transplanted them out in the landscape in four or five clumps.  They took right off, but this is the only one that shows signs of blooming.

Southern Charm Verbascum is also a rebloomer.

And my hardy Primrose are showing a little color.

Leaf situation: still going.

Once they are all down we will clean out the dry creek beds.

Harvesting Leaves for Mulch

 Each year I try to save a good amount of shredded leaves to use as mulch in the raised beds and containers.  Anything left over get's mixed into the compost.  The Maple Tree at the fire pit is my favorite for leaf collecting. Tuesday afternoon I used the leaf chopper to suck up four bags of leaves.  The whole area was spic and span and leaf free.  Wednesday morning I went out to find this.  

Sucked up eight bags and blew the rest into the woods....

My leaf compost tube contains 18** shredder bags full of leaves.  I don't need any more, but still, it will be hard to pass them up when they are coming down this thickly.

**Footnote: after one more session I ended up with 21 shredder bags.  19 fit into the shorter tube if triple chopped.

Dividing Dahlias

 Dividing Dahlias is a process that I really enjoy.  I like the organization of storing them away.  I enjoy counting up my tubers so I have a good list to make plans from over the winter. Last year I did an in depth post on my process, so I won't belabor the point, but I did want to give a shout out to my new compost sifter and how it has improved my washing experience.  

I can now use the large wheelbarrow and the small screen is great for toting clumps around.  And speaking of toting clumps!  The Gitt's Crazy dahlia is a beast!  This clump was a single tuber this spring.  It seems like a waste, but there is no way I could make use of all of these tubers, even if I could divide them without damage.  And think of the storage space required!   For these common, easy to find varieties, that pump out massive tubers, I don't worry too much about preserving them.  I will plant one, maybe two plants of this variety next year.  Even when I only want one plant, I always cut one or two spares in case it doesn't store well.

Five tubers came off easily and the rest went to the compost pile.  If all of these survive storage, I will plant one for myself and pot up the rest in gallon pots for a backup and will be able to share whatever I don't use.  I do have a much sought after variety called Bloomquist Jean.  The variety does not produce a lot of tubers, but I got five tubers from my clump and if they store well, I may use them to trade for something else hard to find.