Now that May has arrived, spring is finally back on track after the brutal April that we had. It was one for the record books in western Wisconsin. We had a total of 19" of snow, which was 17.3" more than normal! We also had a 69 degree temperature spread, winding up with an 84 degree day on April 30th. Go figure.

Quite a few of my daylilies did not fare well over the winter. Many of them died or had rotted crowns. I think much of the damage happened during the three-day rain/ice/snow storm we had in mid-April. The poor plants were covered with thick sheets of ice.

I get so disappointed when I have a huge, beautiful daylily clump that dies back to only one wimpy scape after a bad winter. Then I end up coddling the plant along for three more years, only to have it happen again. For the daylilies pictured, this wasn't the first time they had a near-death experience. So I made a difficult decision....as beautiful as these flowers are, it was time to say goodbye. These daylilies had never thrived like my other plants did. For this reason I discarded them in the field. Wisconsin was clearly not their happy place.

The good news? This ultimately makes my downsizing effort easier and I have space for a new daylily or two.

Pictured: Four of my recently discarded daylilies: 'Mountains Bow Down' (lavender-mauve), 'Fashion Police' (yellow with mahogany-red eye) and 'Off Beat' (cream with purple eye), and 'Before Night Falls' (Cream-lavender with a black-red eyezone)

Go ahead and laugh but notice, if you will, that there are no deer tracks in my precious flower bed. All my daylilies are protected not only by the snow cover, but by this crazy maze of wire. This seems to do the trick until spring when I can resume regularly spraying deer deterrent. Come spring, all the tomato cages will be collected and stored in the rafters of our garage. Aesthetically not so great, but check in with me next summer; beautiful is guaranteed!

 Aside from lots of frigid temperatures, icy roads and sometimes scary driving, winter can be a really good thing. Here's why:

• The winter gives me an opportunity to re-charge. There's no way I could sleep past 5:00 am in the summer!
• I'm not entirely sure that I would even like to garden year-round. Would I get sick of it?
• I can finally organize all those photos I took last summer on my laptop.
• There are no snakes, bugs, or insects, except for that stray box elder bug that somehow made its way into the kitchen.
• When it gets dark so early, I can enjoy TV without thinking I should be doing something else. Tangent...I recently watched a most bizarre documentary called 'Grizzly Man.' It was about this activist who lived alongside wild grizzly bears in Alaska for thirteen summers.
  
• Winter is a great catch-up time to complete all the to-do's I put on the back-burner during the nice weather.
• Finally - I have sustained anticipation for spring gardening in April.  And you'll have to admit that sometimes anticipation can be the best thing of all.

Western Wisconsin has been crazy cold this winter. As of February 4th, this winter was tied for the 14th coldest in La Crosse history with the most below zero days since the late 1970s. We've endured frequent snowfalls and week-after-week of below zero weather. Even my car battery hates this weather. It reminded me just how much on the -45 degree day in January that it didn't start my car.

How will my daylilies fare over the winter? I have some southern belles (like Sabine Baur) that have acclimated to our northern climate, but when it gets this cold I can't help but worry about them. Luckily there is a nice snow cover over all the plants. So I'll cross my fingers, hope for the best and continue dreaming about spring.