It's cold, rainy and dreary again today. Typical March weather in Michigan.

I've been thinking about how I am going to rearrange the long bed that I have in the backyard. For many years I had daylilies at one end and hostas at the other end with grasses in between. Of course, there were other plants scattered throughout this bed--coral bells, columbines, shasta daisies, cone flowers, mums, and annuals. Last year, I took out the hostas because they were getting too much sun. Ken built a brick bed under one of the maple trees and so I moved them there.

After I removed the hostas, Ken planted three shrubs (Gold Coast Improved Juniper) at that end of the border surrounding a double shephard's hook. I had wave petunias planted in pots and placed them in the hooks. That looked very nice. Then I planted a hodgepodge of plants including mums, daylilies, and annuals in the rest of the area. The annuals looked very nice as the summer progressed but I wasn't happy with the rest of the bed.



This year, I would like to take out some of the Stella d'Oro and Happy Returns daylilies. I have at least 30 of these plants in that area. In the early summer they bloom beautifully but I haven't had a great rebloom. I think it's because they need more sun as the summer progresses. I will remove about six to eight plants but I'm not sure what I will replace them with. I know that I want to add more annuals at that end of the bed.

Another problem that I have with these specific daylilies is that they are susceptible to disease. I find that I have to spend a lot of time pick off the dead leaves. Some gardeners like the leaf structures on these specimens but I think that they are unattractive when they are not in bloom especially in the middle of the summer.

The Livonia Garden Club is planning to have a plant exchange in May. I have never attended their plant exchange before but this year I think I will take the daylily plants and trade them for some other plants. Perhaps, coneflowers? (The gold finches love the coneflowers and will sit on the seed heads and pick out the seeds.) I have three coneflowers already but I think that they need to be dug up and moved to a sunnier part of the bed.