Dividing the Lilies

Finally, a nice spring weekend! After snow on Easter Sunday, I was beginning to think that I would never get my hands into the soil. But this past weekend was gorgeous. I was even able to hang some sheets and towels out on the clothesline for the first time this year. On Saturday, I had the chance to split up some daylilies by our back porch. We have two nice, large plants that were just starting to send up shoots. I decided it would be nice to spread them out along the entire length of the porch.

Before – those bushes needed to go

I have never been much of a flower gardener but I do know that daylilies are almost indestructible. This made for a fairly quick and easy project. I did Google when and how to split up daylilies just to make sure I had the right idea of what I was doing. Here's how it went:

Daylilies ready to be divided

Step 1: Dig them up

I took a shovel and dug all the way around the plants until each came up as a single clump.

Step 2: Split them up

I then drove the shovel down through the plants and split them into several large chunks. (Instructions I read said to split them into 6-8” pieces. I just split them up however looked right.)

What a lovely chunk of plant!

Step 3: Dig more holes

I wanted to put in a full row of the lilies along my porch so I dug holes in a relatively straight line. (Keeping the plants about 12” apart was recommended. Again, I just did what looked right.)

Step 4: Put them in the holes

I put a chunk of lily (very technical, I know) into each hole root side down, obviously, and filled in around it with dirt. I packed the dirt down firmly by hand. Then I moved onto the next hole and did the same. I did not feel the need to water the transplants in as it had been raining just days before and the soil was still pretty moist.

After – the line of new transplants

Step 5: Stand back, admire your work and hope for the best

In about half an hour or so, the two daylily plants magically became twelve. I’m really looking forward to watching them grow.

Three days later and still looking good

Oh, and by the way, some of the mystery bulbs are indeed daffodils.

First blossom of the spring!

Spring is Here!

We’re just over a week into spring and I’m anxious to get working on the gardens. It snowed a couple of days ago and the ground is still pretty squishy so there’s not really much I can do outside yet. We did get a couple raised beds built today, though. Last fall we cut the recycled plywood from the demolished pool into 12-inch wide strips. We pieced them together to make two raised beds – one 4-feet wide by 11-feet long and another 2-feet wide by 11-feet long. We filled the 1-foot wide path between them with gravel salvaged from around the former pool. It’s really nice to see the beds in place. It gives me a better idea of what the garden will look like when it’s finished. I have no doubt that I’ll have plenty of space for everything I want to grow.

Two beds in place -- six more to go.

The warmer weather is starting to wake up plants around the yard. The mystery bulbs are coming up next to the house. When I weeded the overgrown patch next to the driveway in the fall, I found dozens and dozens of bulbs. I had no idea what they were so I buried them again and figured I would know in the spring. It looks like I’m going to get some daffodils, tulips, and a couple varieties of hyacinths. 

Mystery bulbs next to the house.

The day lilies off the back porch are starting to pop up too but everything else is still asleep. It’ll be interesting to see what is planted around the yard. I know there are hostas out front that the deer like to eat. We also have peonies by the garage but I have no idea what color they are. This first spring in the new house should be an adventure!

Planning and Plotting in the Digital Age

Winter has fully settled in with single digit temperatures and a respectable blanket of snow on the ground. The seed catalogs have started arriving in the mail and I’m spending my evenings flipping through their page and dreaming of spring.

I bet this cardinal is dreaming of spring too.

I think I’ve mentioned that I’m a planner. I love making lists and charts and diagrams. I kept all my notes from previous gardens in a small 3-ring binder. Now that we’ve got a house and don’t expect to move every couple of years, I decided to get a bound notebook for all my new gardening adventures. I also got a book with quad-sheet paper so I can graph out garden layouts.

Yay for new notebooks!

I’ve always done my planning just on paper but I recently thought to myself, this is the 21^st century. Maybe I should find a gardening app or two to help me. There are quite a few garden planning apps out there; both free and paid. I quickly ran into the problem that the 4G iPod that I’ve had for only about a year and a half is way too old to even download many of them. Of the ones that I was able to download, I only found one that I really like – the Garden Time Planner by Burpee. 

You can create different gardens and add vegetables, herbs, and flowers to them. There is information on each plant including basic planting and care instructions, a planting schedule, and, sometimes, how-to videos related to the particular plant. There is also a planner that automatically lists when seeds should be started and transplanted based on what you’ve added to your garden. It lists average frost dates for your area and links to Weather Underground for current conditions and forecasts.

Some screen shots.

All the information is very basic but I have plenty of reference material on my shelves and the internet at my fingertips if I want more details about different varieties of carrots, for example. There is also no way to create a garden layout with the app. Your gardens are simply lists of plants. I’m sure there are other apps out that that let you actually create garden layouts but either I could not download them or they were paid apps. For someone still mostly devoted to paper, I could not see paying for something electronic when I have a perfectly good quad notebook just waiting for my pencil. Overall, I think this baby-step into the modern world will serve me well as I plan for the spring.

Fashioning Cold Weather Fashion

It’s finally gotten cold enough out to break out my furs.  Fur is probably one of my biggest guilty pleasures.  I just love the look and feel of real fur.  Yes, I know that animals died to make the stoles and collars I adore so much.  That is why it is a guilty pleasure.  To help assuage my guilt, I only buy vintage fur.  My rationale is that by wearing something made from animals that were killed well over half a century ago, I am somehow bringing more meaning to their deaths. 

One of my vintage fur finds.

Several years ago I found this wonderful fur capelet at the Salvation Army.  It was in fairly good shape when I bought it but, after several wearings and once lending it to a less-then-gentle acquaintance, the shoulder began to tear apart.  I tried to mend it and thought of getting a big flower broach or something to cover up the spot but it had gotten to the point where I no longer wanted to wear it.  Maybe it was my upbringing, but I cannot stand to throw things away if they are still potentially useful.  Only the shoulder of the capelet was torn.  The rest of it was still in beautiful shape.  So, instead of trashing it, I recycled it into scarf.

Too much damage to cover up.

I carefully removed the satin lining and examined the fur.  A lot of the hide had dried out and was in worse shape than I anticipated but I still was able to salvage some nice strips.  I cut the lining to match then sewed everything back together again.  I made some bows with extra bits of lining to cover up some of the less-attractive seams.  I think it turned out well for my first time working with real fur.  It’s also wonderfully soft and cozy.  Perfect for these single-digit winter days!

From capelet to scarf.

Also while pulling out more winter accessories I discovered that I did not have a hat to go with my red coat.  I have a great burgundy wool cloche that I knit a few years ago that clashes horribly with the coat but I really like the look of it.  So, I decided to make another in black.  I couldn’t find the pattern I originally used but I had no trouble finding several new patterns on ravelry (I love ravelry.com!).  It took two evenings of knitting in front of the tv and two trips through the washing machine and then, voila, a black felted wool cloche hat!

Knitted cloche before felting.

 

Final felted cloche.