My routine in the daylily/iris/everything-else garden (I post much of this in the iris forum on their long-standing "What Did You Do... " thread) is of a grind these days (similar to, but not exactly like, Larry's). Take seedling pictures. Collect pollen (store if necessary). Pollinate. Mark crosses. Make notes. Water lots of pots. Deadhead. Prune. Fertilize as necessary. Weed. (At night, upload and Photoshop/crop/etc all of the seedling photos and label them. Try to find time to look at crosses as a whole, to see who the good parents are, and maybe which seedlings to cross, to what.)

There are some random potted perennials which I need to find places for, and plant them out. (In two cases, I need to dig and move other plants, first. That's not happening until I get the rest of my kitchen garden planted (very late, I might add).)

I also, STILL have several bareroot daylilies in tubs which need to be potted up (I just received another one in the mail ), and rusty daylilies to toss. (I keep a few rust buckets to test any promising seedlings with, but for the most part, if a daylily rusts, out it goes.)

We think we finally, mostly, nailed down the irrigation problems in one seedling bed. Half of that bed is dry as a bone, and I lost some number of seedlings there. (I figure the survivors must be really tough.) I'm going to do a few more days of lugging water to it (large watering can) just to get the soil moisture up; hopefully the drip will be adequate after that. (The other 2 and 1/2 beds are also on drip and all of those seedlings are fine.)

Thanks for the well wishes gang! It means a great deal!

Ginny, anything counts, of course! Even just contemplating in the garden, or just doing yoga! That's enjoying your garden! Why not, right? Even what one might consider mundane, others could learn from!

Some have new or unfinished projects, like me, or things to repair, like me! This will be a sweaty Summer for me, bc all those things are hardscape projects!


So yesterday, I got not one thing done! The sinuses were staging a coup!!

Doing much better today, so I'll be out there dodging raindrops, although our chances of rain today are less than yesterday! We got 3/4 inch of rain yesterday, during relatively short storms, although it was the most we've had in a single day for quite some time! Once we're back to sun, I'm anticipating a flush of blooms!

Took a picture last night of anticipation - lots of scapes on Always Afternoon

I would like to do some more weeding today but it looks like it may rain.

@Legalily,
How on earth do you garden with all those rocks? I hate the sound of a shovel hitting a rock, rocks and digging just do not seem to go together.
But obviously the plant did not seem to mind, that is a lot of scapes!

When we moved here there was river rock around two sides of the driveway with a couple daylilies in them. It was easier to add more plants than to move the rocks! Anything new has mulch in the front entry they had river rock so I raked it back, put in a curved border, and put mulch in front. Looks kinda cool but I'm not adding anymore plants in the rocks! In back of this picture is rock and in front is mulch

That is a beautiful bed, obviously plants love rocks in the garden much more than I do! Those hostas look terrific.

Thanks Larry. At least until the heat gets them anyway. These are in the same bed

We have pea gravel paths and a lot of my plants would rather grow in the gravel then in the beds. Don't they know I worked like heck to give them nice soil?

Your bed is beautiful, Ginny. I love the arrangement of colours with the light hostas and dark heucheras.

Got a tiller this noon. The Mantis isn't good for breaking new sod and it beats me to death and I'm always wishing I had a bigger one. DH sells Husqvarna so I went over this noon - told him what I want (they just got this one in), and he'll bring it home tonight And the new area is all marked out for him to till This is for my new "Showcase Garden" that will house my new favorite daylilies, etc.

It has been quite overcast and rainy here in CT so not much getting done.

I did walk my beds today and took not of who has gotten scapes. Pulled a few strands of grass.

Off to update my plant database.

It is pouring rain here today, so I took stock of my daylily seedlings and made a list of the crosses, and the number of each seedling per cross. I started making tags, but ran out partway through. I have 147 seedlings to plant out over the next few weeks. I have a few more in the basement, so I could get to over 150 seedlings.

It never ended up raining today so I did more weeding. My back can only tolerate about an hour to an hour and a half at a time so I do a little bit every day.

Gorgeous beds, Ginny. I wish my few hosta looked as good!

Errands today, so just the basic hybridizing chores got done.

DH started tilling the new area. I took out rocks and old fabric. Working more tomorrow on taking out old stuff etc

In my "Mom's" daylily garden today I squeezed in bell peppers, lol. Many of the dl's will be moving to my house soon. With no Winter and early scapes I should be able to visit Gossard's Heavenly Gardens and fill the voids and my double fan of Megatron has thrown a meaty scape so new for me this year. Focus was red last year (and almost always) going to look for tall yellows? Yep!

This year I am being disciplined cleaning up the daylily clumps by spraying early for aphids and their carers, a species of native ant. I have already weeded, composted and mulched all the clumps. Hopefully I will impact the aphids significantly this year. The ants, however, are too formidable - they have many enterprises throughout my garden and house and are not just reliant on their herbivore herds.

Today, as well as spraying, I continued removing rusted leaves and other damaged ones. Winter started here on the first day of June. And, because several of my daylily cultivars have died back somewhat, I can get between the leaves by pulling them back by hand and spraying in between. The spray is combined with a systemic fungicide. I have in the garden some 200 cultivars with about 250 clumps. This is a lot of work. I have yet to tally up the pots.

I plan to spray and remove deaded leaves again in late August, just before spring, but only on clumps with no scapes. I daydream too much and do not have the delicate attention needed not to damage them.

I have also been planting out new seedlings and potting some others. Potting is new to me and I have to learn new techniques of care. I feel a bit vulnerable trying potting but I only have a yard of 900 square metres and, unfortunately, some of this had to be used for the house and garage.

Surprisingly, I have found many seedlings of lantana around the clumps throughout the garden. Usually these are spread by birds' bottoms and I only find them about the bird baths and feeders. It had me puzzled but I think lantana berries were in the mulch. It is hard to complain, however, because I got the mulch free.

I have 32 clumps to go. An end is in sight. The new seedlings to plant, however, are legion. But I just keep my eye on the heavens because the sun will start to return in two weeks.

Wes said:In my "Mom's" daylily garden today I squeezed in bell peppers, lol. Many of the dl's will be moving to my house soon. With no Winter and early scapes I should be able to visit Gossard's Heavenly Gardens and fill the voids and my double fan of Megatron has thrown a meaty scape so new for me this year. Focus was red last year (and almost always) going to look for tall yellows? Yep!

If I visited Gossards I'd go broke Love their intros

Legalily said:

If I visited Gossards I'd go broke Love their intros

I hear ya! He's got some older killers that won't break the bank. Interesting, entertaining individual. He was crossing and tagging plants during my entire visit last year. Reminds me of me but he's far more talented, lol. Educational experience!