Seasons change...garden still blooming!

Its late summer, not officially fall yet, but things are definitely changing here at this old Shore Side Farm House. Many of the plants I propagated and divided have filled in very well and should make less prep for me next year. I filled the beds along this walk with spring bulbs for the birth of the new year, to be followed by hundreds of Stella D'Oro lilies that were a gift from a good friend. Now I need to get my hands on some Chrysanthemums and I will be in good shape for less planting next year. That is my goal, perennials...long blooming ones...to provide me with steady color. I think my next garden goal will be a garden strictly for cutting flowers. That would be the attainment of a life long dream. It is something to look forward to.

The gift of the Stella D'Oro day lilies was a generous and productive one from my good friend Laura. These two pots had been sentinels at the base of a porch staircase, and she was ready for some new color. I was gifted two large pots of pot bound Stella D'Oros that had to be divided. They had been in the pots for several years and were so crowded that I could not get a trowel or knife into the pot to divide them. I eventually came up with the plan to get the mass of plants out of the pots, in whatever way possible, and then cut them with the knife. I worked the pots off of the "concreted" soil and plants, then I cut a vee into the mass of roots and tubers. I broke off the vee, which had at least a 50 or 60 tubers in it, and then returned the remaining root mass to the pot.  That is why I didn't want to break the pot. I knew this was going to be a tedious and delicate job that was going to be very time consuming, so I had to plan an "out". The out was to do it in chunks. I would cut out a chunk of it, then divide up the tubers in the chunk, return the root mass to the pot and then repeat the process progressively over a period of time. There was a pleasant surprise involved after I started this process. When I removed the first chunk, it made room in the pot for the other pot bound tubers to release their grip on each other, and they became much easier to separate. It made the job soooo much easier. The result being hundred and hundreds of plants coming out of these two gifted pots. Now what was I going to do with all of these lilies?

Because of that bounty of plants, I have put these lilies in many locals, and regifted them to some family members. They have bountifully filled in the bed on one side of the walkway shown above, because that side had a properly working soaker hose this summer. On the other side of the walkway the hose did not work properly and the plants did not fill in as well. Lesson learned! I am not too worried about it though. A single tuber grew into a full plant, with eight to ten blade leaves, very quickly. I never expected them to fill out as well as they did. Most are now full bushy individual plants that will continue to fill out and create a border hedge of Stella D'Oro lilies along the walk. They bloom for a long period of time and they have great color, can't ask for more than that! The one in the photo below is one of the plants that has grown from a single tuber. Pretty impressive for just a couple of months growth. I have high hopes for a full crop of the on either side of the walkway.

These should provide lots of color from late spring through the middle of August. I think the heat and dryness of late summer stopped their growth because now that the night are cooler some of them have started blooming again. They are very welcome! I haven't planted the mums I wanted for fall color, so these are taking up the slack. If only I could get all of them to bloom again. I am giving some thought to fertilizer for flowering plants. We shoul not have a frost here until after Thanksgiving so I think it is safe to do that.....but I still have to get onto that mum assignment I have ignored!

If you look at the photo at the top of the blog entry you will see some giant red salvia annuals. It is not a plant I have used before, but they sure did provide some great color and hardiness this summer. Best of all the hummingbirds seem to love them. That is why I planted them and it worked. I still have a few hummers left...unfortunately they will leave in another week or two...but the red salvia was a great choice for next to the Stella D'Oros. A real primary color pump up in the garden. You can also see in the photos that I hedged my bet on them and planted some seed dahlias for reliable color too. It all filled in beautifully and they are all still blooming. I will use that as my excuse for not having mums in yet! Well that's it for today. Ciao!