I've learned that it's the small things that are important in life, as is living gratefully. Since the year is winding down, I took a look back and came up with ten moments of 2017 that made me feel grateful. Here they are:

1. Finding my favorite treat on the copy room table at the office. Work is always better with treats!
2. Receiving 'Daylily Dollars' to spend at the 2017 Daylily Society Sale. Daylily dollars look like Monopoly money, only with daylilies on it. Believe me, it's much more fun to buy daylilies than a plastic hotel for Park Avenue.
   
3. Putting my coat on and finding $5 in the pocket that I forgot all about.
4. Getting all psyched-up to get a cracked molar drilled for a crown and finding out, after the drilling started, that it was only a surface crack that  a 15-minute filling would remedy just fine. Can it get better than this?
5. Finding out that my 7-year-old granddaughter got caught by her Dad asking 'Alexa' for all the answers while doing Math homework. There's nothing wrong with her problem-solving skills! Where was Alexa when I had Math homework?
6. Hearing my 3-year-old grandson say "I help!" And smiling, knowing full-well what that really means...
7. Playing Rummy Royal with friends and laughing so hard that we cry -- the 'duh' moments seem to be increasing.
8. Being asked for the thousandth time if my dear friend Sandy and I are sisters. The best one happened a few weeks ago when Sandy and I were together with Susie, her actual sister. Susie was told  "No, you can't possibly be her sister -- she is!" (as the person pointed to me). This has occurred constantly over the years. May the years continue.
9. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, TACOS, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
10. And finally, Ange; he always keeps me smiling in a sometimes non-smiling world.
    
    

And how about your ten moments? What are you grateful for?

Pictured: My fashionista-granddaughter's feet/shoes. She can 'up-style' absolutely anything!

This gorgeous daylily is a source of frustration for me. 'Tom Leonard' is a dormant tetraploid so, by all rights, he *should* grow well in Wisconsin, but for some reason he has stalled. I have had him since 2013 and to date he has only increased from two to five fans. He looks very healthy and blooms every year, yet just doesn't thrive. Tom Leonard is on his third location change in my garden, and I'm at the crossroads of "I'll keep my fingers crossed," and "You are outta here!" I have given this plant way more leeway than usual because I love sculpted daylilies. The blooms are an impressive 7" in size, and the brilliant yellow/gold glows brightly in the garden. I also love the fringy look of the petals. Plus, Tom is a late-bloomer, and that is also desirable. So I do have many reasons to keep hoping he will come around! Tom Leonard was purchased from a reliable source so I know for sure he's a division, not a tissue-cultured plant.

Have you ever had a plant that just wouldn't perform? For the life of me, I can't figure out what more I can do to help him along. This is a problem I don't often have with daylilies. So I'm on the fence about this daylily...I will be patient and see what happens in 2018 but reluctantly, an adoption may be in this guy's future.

Today I'm sharing photos of my friend Donna's 'Friendship Garden.' What makes this garden extra special is that every plant has either been shared or gifted by a friend. And as you can see by the photos -- she has many friends!

Donna's garden has evolved and grown quite a bit since I have known her. After a busy day she enjoys relaxing on the deck and loves the tranquility that her garden provides. The flowers are a reminder that her friends are always with her.  Donna told me that her husband  appreciates the flower garden as well; not only is it pretty, but there's less grass for him to mow!

'Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder' was one of my favorites in 2017. This daylily exhibited different 'looks,' depending on the weather and temperature. In the morning it always bloomed near black in color, but as the day progressed the color mellowed. Some days it looked grey-tinged, while other days it appeared more purple and/or various shades of red/burgundy.

Hybridized by Gerda Brooker and introduced in 2009, Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder's blooms are 6" in size and thick in substance with a velvet-like appearance. For a dark-colored flower the blooms held up very well in full sun. It is a semi-evergreen tetraploid that grows approximately 32" tall. Victorian Garden Rolling Thunder bloomed from July 6 through August 17. I really enjoyed watching it from one day to the next, just to see what colors would emerge.

Now that the cold weather has arrived in Wisconsin, my ability to imagine is the only garden activity that is going on. And I can do 'imagine.' I'm well into my favorite activity of list-making to keep track of what needs to happen in my garden during 2018. After all, you've got to have a plan before you can make things happen. I'm sure many, if not all of you gardeners have a similar mindset.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. What plants do I want to cull? (None really, but if I want some new ones this must happen.)
2. What plants need to be moved to different locations?
3. What is working well in my garden and what is not?
4. Narrow down my daylily 'wish list' to an affordable amount
   
5. Replace any plant labels that are looking rough
6. Update my garden maps to reflect what changed during 2017
   
7. Organize the hundreds of garden photos I took over the summer
8. Get my annual seeds put away that are currently drying on cookie sheets
   
9. Take some time to visit some online daylily sites
   
10. And finally, imagine what's in store for next year's bloom season
    

Pictured: A close-up of the double daylily 'Buckeye Barnstormer'

I have never seen this many gulls all in one place before! Driving past the local landfill reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds.' Being underneath that cloud of birds would not be a good thing.

Landfills close to bodies of water tend to have more gull problems. This particular landfill is near the Mississippi, Black, and La Crosse Rivers, in addition to Lake Onalaska and Lake Neshonoc. Lack of natural food during the cold weather/winter months brings birds to the landfill. My curiosity was piqued after seeing this phenomena. I did some reading on gulls and landfills. A Duke University Study (by R. Scott Winton) finds that gulls' nutrient-rich droppings may cause major water-quality problems in nearby lakes and reservoirs. It's quite a dilemma that affects our environment. Who knew?

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-trash-picking-seagulls-poop-tons-nutrients.html#jCp

Over the years I've grown some of my own daylily seedlings. And to be honest, most of them were disappointingly pedestrian. One thing for sure, it gave me a glimpse of the scope involved in hybridizing an award-winning daylily -- all the hours of research, pollinating, seed collecting, planting, weeding and evaluating. What a methodical, detailed labor of love it is.

So I'm that person who does nothing more than grow, enjoy, and appreciate the daylilies. How wonderful for me, that I can simply pick out a daylily--any size, color, or shape--whatever my heart desires. I can simply purchase, plant, and behold the beauty. It can't get any easier than that. I'm glad there are so many hybridizers out there doing all of the really hard work; call me grateful!

Pictured: Daylily 'Raspberry Goosebumps'

October 27th was National Black Cat Day. What a perfect opportunity for me to reminisce about my first black cat, 'Uncanny / Canny' (I liked both words / Couldn't make up my mind). I got eight-week-old Canny when I was in college. We shared an upstairs apartment in an old house with roommates Sandy, Gail, and Gail's small dog (pictured). Ange was around in those days, too. We stayed in that apartment for a year or so, but did what most college students frequently do; we moved and (of course) did not get back our security deposit back. Gail's dog had chewed a good portion of the bedroom carpet and I melted a huge candle onto the orange shag carpet in the living room. Long story; not important. Sandy, you must have done *something* to that apartment -- it wasn't all Gail and me, right?

We loved our larger place, but apparently Canny didn't. We kept him inside so he would acclimate to the new surroundings, but he would sneak out if someone opened the door. He kept trekking back to the old apartment, which was about six blocks down and two blocks over. When I'd walk to school in the morning, there he'd be, sitting on the porch of the old house. He would never fail to come down and greet me. On my way home, if I'd see him, I'd pick him up and carry him back to the new place. Canny would stay for a day or three, but eventually disappear again. Over the course of many weeks, this happened numerous times. Canny's territory seemed to be more important to him than anything else. So I finally talked to the girls who had moved into our old apartment about the 'Canny situation.' They loved having Canny around. He was, after all, a most awesome cat! So I reluctantly passed the torch to them knowing that he would be well taken care of.

So there you have it, my very first black cat, Uncanny/Canny, left home and never said goodbye. Could this be Ange's fault for relentlessly teasing him with a water spray bottle? Probably.

There are mixed opinions as to the exact date of National Black Cat Day. I went with October 27; being close to Halloween just seemed right. #loveblackcats

Logically, I know plant performance boils down to what zone you live in, weather/temperature, soil quality, fertilizer, water, and exposure to sun. In addition there are differences between evergreen, semi-evergreen, and dormant daylilies. But honestly, there are days I could swear a few of my daylilies have attitudes. The adage "bloom where you are planted" holds true for the vast majority of my plants, but there are definitely some holdouts. I can transplant one daylily and it joyfully continues to bloom away, seemingly unaffected by the change. I can do the same with another, and it will be sensitive, pout for a year and maybe even forego blooming entirely,  just to let me know that it is not happy with the change.

Just as attitude is important in the workplace, it is in my garden is as well. I like to keep my daylily family well-adjusted, happy, and all working toward the same mission -- unbridled bloom!

Pictured is 'Betty Woods,' a dormant, diploid double. She is most certainly beautiful, but despite her multiple awards Betty was a poster child for an indifferent attitude in my garden. After years of temperamental behavior she was adopted by my friend Becky. I am happy to report that she appears to be much happier in Becky's garden. Oddly enough, sometimes that's all it takes.

This photo represents one summer's worth of gardening measured in terms of garden gloves. Leftover, left-hand, left-useless gloves for right-hand-me. Wouldn't it be great if garden glove manufacturers would sell six-packs of left-hand gloves and six-packs of right-hand gloves? I would totally be buying that extra pack of right-hand ones.  Or maybe one pair of garden gloves should come with an extra right-hand one or left-hand one, depending on your handedness. I would even welcome the upcharge for the additional glove. But I suspect (like a whole lot of other things) I will just have to deal with this and carry on. After all, manufacturers must manufacture and consumers must consume.

My three burgundy  ornamental fountain grasses have grown to almost 5 feet tall in front of our sun room. For fall landscape plants, they really makes a bold statement. When I planted them in spring, they were so tiny it seemed like they would never fill up the large space they were in. As you can see, they not only filled up the space -- they almost ran out of space!

Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum' (commonly known as Red or Purple Fountain Grass) is native to Africa, southeast Asia and the Middle East. In the U.S. it is hardy in Zones 9-11. In all other zones it is considered an annual. The genus name comes from the Latin penna meaning feather and seta meaning bristle referring to the flowers looking like feathery bristles, and rubrum means red.

I have done next to nothing as far as taking care of this grass. I just made sure it was watered well until it was established. Other than that, I pretty much just admire it. At only $4.99 per plant, it was totally worth it. I don't buy too many annuals, but this burgundy fountain grass is always a must-have.

It's always a great day for me when I can complete a task faster and easier. This fall I had about 20 new daylilies to plant in my garden. Being picky-me, I carried a tape measure around the garden to measure exactly the amount of space that went between each plant. As I was working, the tape measure was getting all grimy and dirt was getting inside of it after being in the wheelbarrow and continually falling in the dirt. (Oops!)

Ange came up with an idea that was so simple, yet so perfect! He took my favorite shovel and put measurements on it with a permanent magic marker. This made my job SO much easier. No need to carry a tape measure around anymore -- and Ange got his tape measure back!

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!

Is this the best idea ever? My friend, Donna, repurposed a non-working grill as her planting station. In addition to being a great decorating accessory, it's also handy for storage. She keeps it on her deck for convenience. When Donna finishes potting up her plants she just closes up the grill top, sweeps the dirt off the deck into her flower garden, and voila, all looks neat and tidy. I thought this was so clever that I just had to share Donna's photos with you.

As much as gardening makes me happy, there are a few things I find somewhat annoying.
Here's my top ten:

1. Checking the weather to make sure rain is NOT in the forecast. Spending half-an-hour spraying deer deterrent on all my flowers while it's sunny. Hearing thunder in the distance not two hours later, followed by a rainstorm that lasts only long enough to wash off all the deer deterrent.
2. Planting a new perennial and finding it the next day all chewed up and lying on top of the soil about a foot away from where it was planted.
3. Constantly digging walnut trees out of my flower garden. I do not love walnut trees; thank you very much squirrels.
4. Moles burrowing underneath my new daylily babies and heaving them out of the ground.
5. Finding a dead, rotting whatever in my flower garden.
6. Watching a bunny eating a daylily scape that I can't get to quick enough.
7. Same as #6, but replace the word 'bunny' with 'deer.'
8. Japanese beetles 'doing the nasty' on my daylilies. Really?
9. May gardening in my winter coat. I love Wisconsin.
10. W.E.E.D.S.

Pictured: Daylily 'Green Mystique' inundated with Japanese beetles