Collecting hosta and daylily seeds

It's a little early to think about collecting hosta and daylily seeds, or so I thought.  One of my hostas already has seedpods that are starting to burst, so I thought I would post on how to collect hosta and daylily seeds.  Neither hostas nor daylily come true from seed, which means that they will not look like the parent plant.  It all depends on how the flowers were pollinated.  In hostas a majority of the seeds will produce a plain green plant, but you never know when you might grow a desirable plant.  I collect seeds and put them in labeled paper envelopes with the name of the plant I collected them from.  Both hosta and daylily seeds need a time of cool dormancy.  So I usually store the seeds in my unheated garaged until January (or later) when I am ready to plant them.

These are seeds pods on a hosta that are not ready for collection yet.  They are still green.

Notice these seed pods are brown and starting to crack open, these seed pods are ready for seed collection.

Close-up of a seed pod that's ready for collection.

These are the hosta seeds inside of the seedpods.

This is a seedpod on a daylily, it is not ripe enough for seed collecting.

This is a ripe seed pod, you can easily shake the seeds out.

Close-up of daylily seed (black one).

These are the bulbils on a tiger lily. 

Not the greatest picture, but I was trying to show the bulbils are ready to pick when you start to notice roots coming off the bulbils.  The small white line coming off the bulbils is a root.

What lives in this tree?

Earlier this week I blogged about my hosta Guacamole and how wonderful it smelled.  As a true hosta geek I have been hanging around, smelling it for weeks.  Everyday I have had to wipe dirt off of the leaves of this hosta.  Where was this dirt coming from?  I wasn't digging in that area!  I hope my hosta stalker wasn't trying to dig out my hostas in the middle of the night.  This hosta is right next to one of the huge sugar maples in my backyard, and I noticed that something was digging a hole in one of the many knots in this tree.

I know that deer mice, field mice, squirrels, chipmunks, voles (though I haven't seen them in a while), bats, and the occasional flying squirrels all live in my yard.  Of all of those things I couldn't really think of which one of these would dig a hole in a tree, since most either live underground or in nests.  Then the other night I was out in the yard at night with one of my friends.  We saw something small, mouse shaped climb a different tree.  Made me wonder if a mouse would make a nest in a tree? What do you think is living in my tree?

Close-up of hole, looks like maybe it could use some toilet paper or something.

I tried to shine a spotlight in the hole to see if I could see any inhabitants. 

Wordless Wednesday - Bloom Day

The often overlooked hosta flower

Hostas are not known for their flowers.  In fact there are a high percentage of people who will cut the scapes off hostas before they even bloom.  As a hosta fanatic, I will be the first to admit that most hosta flowers are not very interesting.  Hostas are bought mainly for their foliage not their flower, but there are a few hostas that are bought for their flowers.  The hosta 'Guacamole' is often purchased for it's highly scented flower.  If you walk in my garden around twilight the entire yard is enveloped with it's sweet scent, which is kinda a mixture of lilac and lily of the valley.  Hostas with scented flowers bloom later in the season.  Here is a list of hosta with fragrant flowers.  Every once and while I will be walking through the garden and I will happen to notice just how beautiful some of the hosta flowers can be.  I think if the flowers were at eye level they would be appreciated more, but since you usually have to kneel down to admire them most people never really notice them.  I was also just reminded by a Twitter friend that the hosta flower attracts hummingbirds, bees, and at my house the hummingbird moth, who always shows up when I do not have a camera anywhere near.

h. 'Guacamole'

The giant, sweet smelling flowers of h. 'Guacamole'

The highly purply blue flowers of h. 'Indy Parade Lap'

Beautiful striped flowers on h. 'Gosan Gold Mist'

Closer look of stripes on hosta flower.

Large flower getting ready to bloom on h. 'plantaginea' which is also large flowered and fragrant.

Fragrant and pretty, the flower of h. 'Nightlife'

Red stem and purple flowers of h. 'Fire Island'

Another striped flower on one of my hosta sports.

The purply buds on h. 'Sea Octopus' 

Succulent Picture Frames

This weekend I decided to try making a succulent picture frame.  I have seen them in greenhouses I have visited, and always thought it was something I would like to try.  I found a frame on clearance (under $4- score!).  Then I purchased some 1"x2" lumber, a sheet of plywood, and hardware cloth.  My husband used a mitre saw to cut the 1"x2" lumber and formed a smaller frame that would fit on the back of the frame to hold soil.  Then I cut plywood and nailed it to the back of the 1"x2" frame.  Next I cut hardware cloth to fit on the back of the frame and used a staple gun to attach it.  Last step before filling it with succulents was attaching the 1"x2" frame onto the frame I purchased.  Here were the results:

Next add soil to the frame, shaking it to make sure it's filled evenly throughout.

Gather your succulents for cuttings.

Take succulent cuttings and dip them in rooting hormone.

Place them inside the frame.

Filling the frame with different sizes, colors, and textures.

Here is the finished project.  It now must sit for about 2-3 weeks in a dark area with no water to allow for the succulents to root.

Wordless Wednesday - two new miniature gardens today