We had some beautiful weather in the beginning of the week. I even got over to look at the historic cemetery.
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To my detriment, I suspect lol. I started thinking about spring, and gardening, and all of my ideas for the upcoming daylily season ….
We are now headed back into sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures for a few days and cold through to the start of February. I am not deterred, however, from enjoying the days. Not my first time to this “inevitable”. I am invoking layers and layers of cozy. And focusing on wonderful. The white squirrel crossing our patio toward the door, and only moving away after our dog approached, the way the sun hits the old prism on the window ledge and makes sparkles. Blue hour (before sunrise and after sunset). And then the layering begins. A good cup of coffee while snuggled with our 15 1/5 year old dog who is (amazingly) still with us. The smell of brownies baking while snuggling our 15 1/5 year old dog and watching the prism sparkles slowly move. A delivery of 3 ring binders, plastic sleeves, photo splits, so I am ready to start the next phase of making our nostalgic greeting card binders – while the fireplace warms the room and the wind howls outside and the brownies bake and our dog snuggles closer and makes a little contented sound and I sip my tea and watch the sparkles fade in and out with clouds and sun. Layers and layers of Cozy. It is the only way to get through a Minnesota winter. Or the only way I get through a Minnesota winter 🥰
And don’t forget the June in January pics. These are from June 16, 2024.
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The potted plants are my beloved shamrocks. I overwinter them. Right now they are crazy good indoors, in my office/sunroom.
Today’s pics made me smile – this was an early version trail cam for us, and we didn’t have the date set correctly yet. It came up in today’s pics as January 14th. Clearly not January hahaha! We will say these are our “June in January” pics of the day 😊
For many years we have had white squirrels in our neighborhood. True albino. We even took pics in the beginning and sent them in to some sort of tracking site.
This pic dates back to Jan 9, 2019
And for our June in January pics today I have a few. The first is our dog mid-stride, front paw tucked, up north last June 9. WAY in the back is the outhouse. The lanterns mark the way at night 😉
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This next pic will not be a view we see again. It was the very full hosta garden under the linden on June 9, 2024. Mysteriously we lost 18 hostas between fall of 2024 and spring of 2025. We shall not focus on theories, but rather, enjoy the picture, and know that the empty spaces, where the hostas were, found new occupants in 2025.
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And this pic is quintessential early June (June 9, 2024) in our back townhome garden – the peach Asian lilies still in bud, a set of tulip leaves fading (one looks like it may have provided a bunny meal at one point – nothing left where the tulip bloom was), and I also remember that hosta, where a leaf looks a bit eaten, was actually from being stepped on and crushed. Stuff happens.
The first one is a teapot that my Mom gave my sister as a fun little treat. Not expensive. Mom said dollar store. My sister had it at her place for a while and then asked my Mom and I if either one of us wanted it next. I said yes. I have had it out every January to Easter, a promise of springtime to come. Bonus – I don’t have to pull any fading flowers or change any stale water 🙂 I have never used it for a teapot, I just enjoy the decoration. Why I took this pic back then, I’m not sure. Sometimes the prism I have on a window ledge (from an old wind spinner that came apart) will cast a cool rainbow of color. Maybe it just didn’t come through on the picture, but I saved it anyway? The binder in the background is our household management binder. I must have had it out that day (January 8, 2023), along with, it looks like, a photo frame. Might have been a busy day or so, and when I sat down to relax in my recliner, I thought it all looked cool together 😉 Anyway, it came up in my pics today, and I thought it would be fun to share 🙂
The second one is today’s “June in January” picture. It is one of my favorite hostas, and one that survived last year’s loss of so many hostas, thank goodness. It was just putting out blooms from a scape on June 8, 2023.
Hi All, and Happy 2026! I hope all is well! It has definitely been a bit since I posted, and I am looking forward to sharing again!
Let’s see – we left off at the gardens – townhome and historic cemetery – having wrapped up for 2025, and moving toward their winter sleep, as well as all the daylily seeds having been logged and stored until 2026 stratification. I was working on deciding if I was going to continue hybridizing daylilies in 2026, and in 2026 I was planning to head more towards daylilies that would have been around in early American gardens.
Throughout the rest of the fall, I enjoyed a very nice, long season with family and friends, old and new. Then, just about the time the snow started to fly, the holidays arrived. This holiday season I picked up an old hobby again and resolved a long-time research effort.
The first – picking up an old hobby again – was scrapbooking. Over the holidays I decided to start going through decades of holiday greeting cards I had saved. This was already a work-in-progress, but barely. I had previously sorted some cards by person/family into plastic sleeves in a large 3 ring binder. There was, however, also a box and a basket of cards that were part of my envisioned work. I got about sorting them, and from there, after a short detour where I considered and decided against configuring the binder by years, I settled on an approach. I realized I didn’t want an archive; I wanted the finished product to be more of a blessing. The project took on momentum. I needed it because, as you can probably imagine, yes, that approach involved purging some of the greetings. That is always a moment for pause. But from then on, the project itself became a blessing. I finished it between Christmas and New Years. And it has also already blessed others. Truly. Like my sweet husband asked me to bring it to our family Christmas celebration.
The second – resolving a long-time research effort – may be controversial. Here goes:
Every year as we approach the holidays I kind of cringe. Not only does the commercialism make me want to go on a no buy season, but I had also heard over 30 years ago, from my pastor, a Christian pastor, that Jesus was not born on December 24th, or 25th. My mind started. Why would we say He was? Give gifts that proport to represent that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”? Over the years I have done boatloads of research and gone through various iterations of properly celebrating Christmas. You know, twisting and turning with stuff like “If 3 presents were enough for Jesus, then 3 presents each are enough for us”. I have been mindful to keep things properly focused. I spend a lot of time in reflection and prayer and gratitude. I spend time in fellowship. And of course we have family time. But – I like truth, so I kept searching. Because JESUS WAS BORN, and I do want to celebrate that.
This year I came to a peaceful decision that celebrating Jesus’s birth on Dec 24th/25th, although most likely not historically accurate, was reasonable, as it is quite likely that is around the time He was conceived. Not born like we know born, but when He became human. And that is why He came. For us. Humans. The rest of the weight of that truth I cannot just impart. It is a matter between God and each person to accept, or not. And I am not writing a research paper, I am sharing an experience, so I will not site references. Just like consuming any information, the best approach is to search it out yourself. I can, however, share. I would recommend keyword searching the statements below.
Jesus was conceived. Jesus was born. Jesus lived. Jesus was crucified for us. Jesus paid the price for our sins, so we do not have eternal separation from God. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus ascended into heaven. Jesus waits for us to join Him at the appointed time.
So, after years of wrestling with the historical knowledge that Jesus most likely was not born on December 24th, this year I celebrated Jesus’s conception on Dec 24th/25th. And will in the future.
So those were two BIG highlights, for December.
On New Years Eve our family and friends prayed and prayed and prayed as a family member was given an incredibly precious gift from someone very far away. That gift is a crucial part of their ongoing physical healing journey, and we continue to pray and pray and pray. Prayers of thanks, and prayers for healing. God is good. God’s timing is perfect. God’s plan is not always our plan.
And now we are at January 7th. It is time to get back on the laptop and share some beauty.
The first pic is my finished, stuffed to the gills Christmas card binder. Next to a nostalgic magazine. The binder is FULL. Lots of love in there 🙂 And yes, I have some even older Christmas cards still in storage. The approach on those is TBD.
For 2026, besides trying to decide if I will continue to hybridize daylilies (or just see what the bees, and birds, and other insects and the wind accomplish), I have decided that if we as a culture can do “Christmas in July” (don’t get me started) I can do June in January. So, this is a pic from our slice of getaway in the land of coyotes and wolves and bears oh my 🙂 on June 7, 2025. Enjoy!
Every year I save a few daylilies and hostas from the main cutback. Not many any more because, like I mentioned in my last post, I don’t like cutback with frozen fingers. 🥶
This year. I chose the ones in the pic above.
Is this not a wonderful fall daylily depiction? Wrapping up with their last bit of color 😊They just get fall-er and fall-er.
Well … the gardens are done for the year. I knew it was coming. Our DIL had the end of their harvest up north, and I knew our second hard frost was coming here.
It did. Late last week we dipped to 28F.
The next morning, I saw the frost. I watched as the trees rained leaves. I enjoyed the beauty, the crisp air … and eventually I started at the cutback work. I have a 60 degree-ish high temperature threshold for the cutback timing. When I see the extended forecast high temperatures start to dip below that, it is time. A little can remain, things that aren’t quite ready, but it is not my favorite thing to cut the gardens back with freezing fingers. So with that, I hit it hard.
It’s a bummer that we are done for 2025.
At the same time, however, there is a “happy” bubbling up. My winter activities ideas list is full – enough that I have a comfort level I will have both fun and challenging things to keep me good. And I have started to bring out the hygge for the next six months. The (battery operated) window candles with timers are up, the few strong scented (windows open) candles are being replaced with my favorite white unscented candles, and we have already enjoyed the gentle scent of few rauchers (German incense “smokers”). Bratapfelduft (baked apple) is my personal favorite.
I have also made a pivotal daylily scope decision. I reached out to a provider of the 1762 daylily I want, and they ship in late April/May. I am adding that daylily in 2026 and starting to pivot toward the intersection of historical with my daylilies. This will be a significant change in my daylily work. I think it will be a fun challenge.
To be fully transparent, this decision all started this year with falling in love with a number of daylilies I grew from self-seed to flowering. I loved their form and simplicity. I seriously started to wonder what might happen if I ditched all the busy-ness of hybrid crossing and noting and tracking and giving up early fall freedom due to late harvesting. What would happen if I went back to just letting the pollinators and the wind and the daylilies anatomical tendencies create seeds? I analyzed my spreadsheet for exactly what space my 2025 hybridized seedlings will need in 2026 and what the 2025 seeds would need as 2026 seedlings. A LOT! I listened while my family started to call the cabin up north the hunting shack. (By now I was grumpy.) My idea of a daylily “farm” up north was fading. And I saw the tide turn. What exactly was I doing expanding my daylily work so exponentially? I was already pretty sure I didn’t want to do farmer’s markets to sell my excess plants. I knew for sure I didn’t want to ship stuff around. And the fam was increasingly sending “not really that interested in the daylily farm idea, but hey, if you want to do it, good luck” vibes. 😉 Love them! My conclusion – my life could be so much simpler!
I slowly, and yes sadly, and sometimes crankily (is that a word?), but rationally assessed the scope of daylily hobby work I LIKE to do, year-round, and I decided – “2026 goes to a historic daylily focus” – researching, gardening, and planning included.
Now, I am not trashing the work I have already started. I think that will be fun to see unfold. These things take years. The 2025 seeds, if they germinate, if they go to full seedling, if they survive the first winter, will, at earliest, here in Minnesota USA, bloom for the first time in 2027, probably longer. But I am shaping, refining, what I already have as I weave things together between the seasons and our reality. I am part of a family. And in a marriage. And hobby daylilies were starting to suck planned time and create problems. Not cool. No desire to repeat.
So that’s it. That’s why I’ve been quiet. I was enjoying early fall after the extended seed harvest debacle pushed our fall plans way too close to our family’s hunting season. I was delaying the garden cutback. And I was ultimately deciding how to move forward with the daylilies.
Here’s some fun cloud pictures to words. I was figuring out how to work with the volcano, ‘er fountain 😉
Last year I had a bit of an issue with daylily scapes being pulled down and eaten by something. Probably something with four paws, but you never know, right? I used quite a few deterrents, all safe, and it was minimally effective. Minimally.
When I put all my 2024 notes and daylily crosses info onto my 2025 daylily tracking spreadsheet, I was reminded again about how much of an issue it was in 2024 – and how much it wasn’t in 2025. At least at the townhome. The historic cemetery, well, I have shared what happened with the Mahala Felton daylily seedlings that I planted by the gate. But that is a bit different, I think. And for this post we are focusing on daylily scapes.
As the 2025 daylily season was starting to produce spent scapes, I began to have the urge to tidy up. I did not, however, do that. This year it occurred to me to me that perhaps my habit of trimming spent scapes was actually attracting playful snackers. Against my preference to clean as the garden matures, I left all scapes on all daylilies until the pod harvest season was complete for that full area.
I also introduced another deterrent this year, and that is lemongrass essential oil (diluted and sprayed on the pavers). And, of course, there are the forget-me-nots, which are also a deterrent.
We are to the end of the daylily seed harvesting season, and I can report – no daylily scapes were pulled down and eaten by critters this year, even the shorter daylilies. All pods made it maturity and were harvested by … me 🙂
I also discovered something new. Spent daylily scapes, when completely dried in place, are very easy to pull. I have a few things in the garden that share that feature, and it is very welcome. Not all of the scapes had dried when the pod harvest wrapped up, so some were cut back when I started the daylily cutback out front, but in the true garden, out back, almost all the scapes were able to just be pulled. There remains just a few from the very last pod harvests.
And with that, the greens are getting another week or so of photosynthesis before I come through and cut everything back. And trim the shrubs. And say sweet dreams. And call it a wrap.
For now, cheers to not trimming spent daylily scapes, to lemongrass essential oil, and to forget-me-nots. I am thankful for no critter interference in the seed maturing process this year.
Susan's Daily Garden 