While in Minneapolis last Sunday, I made a side trip to the Minnesota Daylily Society sale at Bachman's Garden Center on Lyndale Avenue. Bachman's is an amazing gardening complex. Totally shopping cart-worthy. You can find gifts, furniture, whimsy, wind chimes, home décor, multiple greenhouses full of perennials and annuals. Hungry? They even have a café and bakery! If you are ever in the vicinity, it's definitely worth a visit.

The daylily sale was held in an inner conference room in the complex. Plants for sale were dug from the gardens of Gary and Rita Schaben. After my wave of perennial downsizing over the last month, I showed admirable restraint. I held myself in check and only bought *one* daylily (hybridized by Gary Schaben) - a memento, so to speak. Along with this plant, I will carry a happy memory of a great day!

Look closely at what I found while weeding last Sunday -- bunny babies in their nest, crammed into a hole under my balloon flowers. I try to avoid having bunny holes in my garden, but apparently I missed this one! I'll try to rehab my balloon flower after the babies move out. In reality, I'm just waiting until the bunnies are old enough to eat my plants, but awwww...they're so cute right now. Although they hardly move, their tiny noses wiggle non-stop.

Here's what I learned:  Eastern cottontails are preyed on by more species than almost any other animal. Their prolific fertility ensures their survival as a species. The mom digs a nest three or four inches deep and about eight inches across in the dirt. It is lined with mouthfuls of soft, dead grass mixed with hair from the mother's breast. A covering of grass and hair is used to hide the nest and keep the young warm and dry. Gestation is 28 to 30 days, with 4-6 young born per litter. Rabbits often have three litters per year.

The young are born blind and without fur, but within a week their eyes are open and by the second week their fur has grown in. If you find a rabbit nest do not disturb the young or the nest. The female only visits the nest early in the morning and then again in the evening, which gives the impression that the babies have been abandoned. Rabbit mothers nurse their babies for approximately 5 minutes a day. Young rabbits develop rapidly and leave the nest when they are about three weeks old.

To encourage rabbits to leave your yard you can use habitat modification - remove brush piles, weed patches, stone piles, and other debris and keep the grass cut short. (Note to self)

Eastern cottontail info is from the WI DNR website and the Illinois DNR website
Update: Sometime in the last few days the babies left their nest. I'll no doubt see them around.

Done! I cleared out a garden area that measured approximately 10 feet by 6 feet that will be turned back into grass. This particular area created a pass-through for mowing with our lawn tractor, so it needed to happen. And I was (reluctantly) in total agreement. My love-hate relationship with garden downsizing continues. Although it will be 60 square feet less weeding for me to do, it is also 60 square feet less daylilies to fawn over. But don't feel bad for me -- I have way more flowers than any normal person needs.

So, what to do with all those extra plants after downsizing? Over the weekend I had a very successful plant sale. The weather was Wisconsin-crazy: rain, sleet, and snow flurries! Who knew I'd need to wear a heavy-duty down jacket in mid-May? Despite the weather, I had lots of fun and hopefully got the word out that today's daylilies come in lots of other sizes and colors than 'roadside orange.'

This photo was taken in late June 2015; the early daylilies were just starting to bloom along with the Asiatics. The downsized area is way on the left-hand side of this garden.

Life is never boring with Ange. One day he came home with a cardboard box full of live baby chicks in his car trunk. (True story, and no, we didn't raise chickens.) Then there was the huge boat motor. (No, we didn't own a boat at the time.) Or the rusted-out green 1940-ish Ford that sat in our front yard for an entire summer giving our house that much-desired 'white trash' look. Or yesterday...the box full of vintage tin Mexican face masks. I can't imagine needing these any time soon. Too funny! The boys and I could go on-and-on about this topic.

Pictured is one of Ange's more recent innocuous finds - a fossilized tree fungus. At least that's our best guess at what we think this is. It measures about 12" wide. Ange's garden whimsy resides in a flower bed that is protected by the eave of the garage so it can live on at our house for many more years. It makes him happy, so I'm happy!