Earlier this year I put fluorescent pink tape on Joan Senior's name tag. In my yard pink tape means "I've had enough, you've worn out your welcome." In response, Joan defied me and put forth a stellar year, blooming from July 3 through August 19. I recently removed the pink tape and wondered "What was I was thinking?" This old-school evergreen daylily has been a bit temperamental for me. Over the years I've moved her to different spots around the garden trying to make her happy. On this, her fourth move, I think I have *finally* found her happy place!

Joan Senior arrived in my garden as a bonus plant from a daylily order many years ago. She is a multiple award winner and has been used extensively in hybridizing. She has a whopping 196 children on the books! These include some well-known daylilies that include 'Bee's Betty Sue,' 'Nanuq,' and 'Snowy Night.'

This understated beauty is perfect for the front-of-the-border, growing about 25" tall. The 6" near-white blooms always look crisp and clean and the dark green foliage contrasts nicely. Okay Joan Senior, you've made your point - you can stay.

'tis the season for planting, dividing and transplanting daylilies. I'm enthusiastically in the process of getting all of my new plants in the ground to give them time to acclimate before the first frost arrives. I'm also dividing some of my mature daylily clumps into more manageable ones. By dividing the plants into smaller clumps, the roots don't have to compete for water and nutrients which invigorates the amount of bloom for the future.

Some of my large plants divide quite easily and I simply have to pull them apart into neat little clumps, but others have roots that are so tangled and intertwined that it is like digging into solid rock. Add some crabgrass to the mix, and you have a marathon challenge sitting in front of you. I kind of -- make that REALLY -- wanted to just get out the saw and call it done, but thought better of it. The less root damage, the better. For the more difficult plants, I hosed the roots off, let them dry a bit so I could see what I was dealing with. Then I inserted two pitchforks into the center and and broke the large clump apart.

After the clumps were smaller, I sat with a long screwdriver, carefully digging to get all of the crabgrass out. While the screwdriver works great, Ange wasn't thrilled with me using his prized tools to dig in daylilies. He came up with a clever solution by re-purposing a T-Handle Allen Wrench into what I call my 'daylily digger-gadget.' It works like a charm! This digger-gadget helps to get the weeds out. Then I can easily muscle the tiny clumps apart. The daylily digger-gadget has been my constant companion over the past few weeks.

Also note the stainless steel sterno pan/warming tray that I use to hold plants, and do 'surgery.' When I'm working on more than one plant at a time, each plant sits in a separate tray so as not to get mixed up. (I always keep the name tag with each plant.) Ange found five of these sterno trays at a garage sale for a dollar. They are sturdy, easy to carry, and can be hosed off easily. Plus they don't take up much storage space over the winter. In fact, I use one of the trays in my garden utility cabinet to store hand tools. I bet the sterno tray manufacturer didn't have gardening in mind during research and development!

Just for fun I follow some other blogs, and some of them are on vastly different topics than flowers and gardening. One of the blog entries I read not too long ago was about how to organize a yacht party. While this was a very entertaining post to read - and I enjoyed it - this is a lifestyle so completely foreign to my own. But I can truly say that now I know the in's and out's of creating that perfect yacht party, and as I've learned in life, ya' just never know!

Recently I went to a get-together that is much more fitting to my lifestyle. So I thought I'd chronicle my first ever 'She Shed' party. If you don't already know, she sheds are the latest rage. They are totally trending (#shesheds). She sheds are the female equivalent of the 'man cave;' a getaway, far away from those dreary daily tasks like cleaning, dishes and laundry.

My friend Mar's DIY project started innocently enough with the need for simply replacing some missing drywall. We've all done those projects that have snowballed into bigger things, yes? In Mar's case, once the drywall was fixed, the battle cry emerged, "We can do better than this!" So with lots of sweat equity, many trips to the home improvement store, plus a handy next door neighbor, Mar's drywall project morphed into a cute little she shed. It is all prettied up with decorations, photos, and comfortable furniture. Watching the progress over time has been fun, but the best thing ever was relaxing with a cool beverage in the finished product. No dishes or laundry here...well done Mar! Outstanding!

I take countless photos of 'Bill Tonn,' but try as I might, my photos never capture the real-life beauty of this plant. Bill started blooming on July 6th and is still blooming, with about five blooms remaining. I must add that 2017 was far from our typical summer weather, with extreme temperature fluctuations from day-to-day. Consequently, bloom season didn't last as long as it usually does. Last year Bill Tonn bloomed longer -- from July 2 through September 24, at which time the deer ate the two remaining scapes.

Bill is a dormant tetraploid that grows about 30" tall in my yard. The large 7" blooms are very showy, in addition to being thick and waxy in texture. I love the delicate gold edging on the ruffled petals. It's a large, robust plant that was hybridized in Minnesota by Karol Emmerich and introduced in 2007. If you want a consistent, reliable, late-season performer in Wisconsin, Bill Tonn fills the bill!