English Emma Blooms

🌿 1. Timing

• In Indianapolis (Zone 6a/6b), you’ll likely dig the Cannas after the first frost, usually late October to early November.

• That’s still okay for planting lilies as long as the ground isn’t frozen.

• Lilies actually prefer to be planted in fall — it allows them to root lightly before winter.

✅ Ideal window: within a week or two after you dig up the Cannas, before consistent temps below 25°F.

🌱 2. Soil Prep

• After removing the Cannas, shake out old roots and loosen the soil about 8 inches deep.

• Mix in some compost or leaf mold to replenish nutrients (Cannas are heavy feeders).

• Make sure the soil drains well—lilies dislike soggy winter conditions.

🌸 3. Planting Depth & Spacing

• Plant lily bulbs about 6 inches deep (measure from the top of the bulb to soil surface).

• Space 8–12 inches apart.

• Pointy end up, roots down.

🍂 4. After Planting

• Water well once to settle the soil.

• Then cover the area with 2–3 inches of mulch or shredded leaves for winter insulation.

• Don’t worry if frost hits soon after—you’re just protecting the bulbs so they can rest quietly until spring.

☀️ 5. In Spring

• When the mulch thaws and the soil warms, remove the top layer so the shoots can emerge freely.

• You’ll see your lilies coming up right where the Cannas danced all summer—a graceful handoff between seasons.

🌷 Garden Reflection

This kind of succession planting creates a beautiful rhythm: bold tropicals giving way to elegant spring blooms. It’s also efficient—no empty beds, just transformation.

Affirmation:

My garden moves in a circle of giving—what I clear away makes room for new life.

❄️ Winter Garden Reflection Checklist – Indianapolis (Zone 6a/6b)

Theme: Rest, observe, and dream.

🌿 December – Deep Rest

Goal: Let the garden sleep while you nurture quiet inspiration.

• 🕯️ Step outside on mild days to simply look at the garden—notice how the shapes of bare branches and seed heads hold their own kind of beauty.

• ❄️ Brush snow gently off evergreens after heavy storms to prevent bending.

• 🪴 Check stored canna and gladiolus bulbs monthly—discard any that are soft or moldy.

• 💭 Write in your journal about what the garden taught you this year. Which plants thrived? Which surprised you? Which tested your patience?

• ☕ Make warm tea and sketch next year’s dreams—new beds, color palettes, or a reimagined sunny corner.

🌼 January – Stillness & Imagination

Goal: Dream and plan.

• 📖 Flip through garden journals, notes, and photos from the year.

• 🌷 Browse seed catalogs or online bulb collections (Dutch iris, daffodils, day lilies… your favorites). Circle ideas that excite you.

• ✍️ Write down 3–5 “hopes” for next season rather than goals—gentle intentions, not chores.

• 🕊️ Reflect on what you want your garden to feel like next year: wilder? calmer? brighter?

• 🪴 If you have indoor plants, give them attention—dust leaves, rotate them, talk to them.

🌞 February – Quiet Preparation

Goal: Begin to awaken, softly.

• 🌤️ On warm days, walk the garden paths. Feel the ground still cold but hinting at life.

• 🌱 Start early seeds indoors if you like—onions, snapdragons, or coleus.

• ✂️ Clean and sharpen pruners, organize pots, check tools.

• 🧺 Sort through stored bulbs again, ensuring they remain firm and dry.

• 🎨 Create something inspired by winter’s stillness—a painting, a poem, a card. Let the muted tones of the season guide you.

🪶

🌸 Affirmation for the Winter Gardener

Even in stillness, I am growing. The roots of next season’s beauty are forming quietly beneath the surface.

🌸 Early Fall (September – early October)

Goal: Tidy, plan, and enjoy the late blooms.

• ✅ Deadhead spent flowers (especially day lilies and irises) to tidy up beds.

• ✅ Divide and transplant perennials like day lilies, hostas, and irises while the soil is still warm.

• ✅ Check for areas that now get more sunlight after limb trimming—plan new plantings accordingly.

• ✅ Start planning bulb combinations for spring:

  • Daffodils, alliums, Dutch iris, gladiolus, day lilies, etc.

• ✅ Remove fading annuals and replace with cool-weather plants (mums, pansies, ornamental kale).

• ✅ Lightly trim back leggy growth but save heavy pruning for late fall or early spring.

🍂 Mid Fall (mid-October – early November)

Goal: Transition from growing to resting.

• ✅ Dig up tender bulbs and rhizomes after the first frost:

  • Canna lilies: Wait for frost to blacken leaves, then dig, dry, and store indoors.

  • Gladiolus: Dig when leaves yellow; cure in a warm, dry place for a week before storing.

• ✅ Plant spring bulbs like tulips, daffodils, and alliums (before ground freezes).

• ✅ Continue weeding—Creeping Charlie and other invaders are easier to spot now.

• ✅ Rake leaves and use them as mulch or compost—your beds will thank you in spring.

• ✅ Cut back perennials as they die back naturally, leaving seed heads for birds if you like.

• ✅ Move any potted plants you want to overwinter indoors before temps drop below 40°F.

🌾 Late Fall (mid-November – early December)

Goal: Protect, store, and reflect.

• ✅ Cover garden beds with mulch or shredded leaves to insulate roots.

• ✅ Store canna and gladiolus bulbs in a cool, dark, dry spot (40–50°F).

• ✅ Clean and oil garden tools before storing.

• ✅ Make notes in your garden journal about what worked, what didn’t, and what to try next.

• ✅ Sketch or plan next year’s garden while sipping tea and letting your soil rest.

🌱 Creative Connection

💚 Keep observing the small changes—how the garden softens into rest, how the air smells different, how Peanut watches the leaves fall.
🎨 This is also a lovely time to paint your garden’s fading colors or make cards inspired by autumn textures.
✨ As you put the garden to bed, think of it as clearing space not just for spring growth—but for your own creative renewal too.

In Indianapolis (USDA Zone 6a/6b), you should dig up your canna lilies after the first light frost, but before a hard freeze. Here’s a simple timeline and guide for you:

🌿 When to Dig Up Cannas

• Typical timing: Late October to early November in Indianapolis.

• Wait until the first light frost has blackened the leaves—this signals the plant to go dormant.

• Don’t wait too long after that, or the rhizomes could be damaged by a hard freeze (temps below 25°F).

🧺 How to Dig and Store Them

1. Cut back the foliage to about 4–6 inches after frost.

2. Gently dig up the clumps of rhizomes with a garden fork, being careful not to cut into them.

3. Shake off the soil (don’t wash them) and let them air-dry in a warm, airy spot for 2–3 days.

4. Store in peat moss, sawdust, or newspaper inside a cardboard box or paper bag.

5. Keep them in a cool, dark, and dry place—around 40–50°F, like a basement or unheated closet.

🌸 Bonus Tip for Next Year

In spring, replant after danger of frost—usually mid- to late May in Indianapolis. You can even pot them up indoors in April if you want an early start.

My new bulbs arrived, and I’m so excited to plant them! I think I’ll wait until after October 4 to put them in the ground. For now, they’re tucked safely in a box in the refrigerator, just waiting for their time.

One evening this week, I also need to head over to Dr. Cho’s to trim the lilacs and do a bit more work in his garden. I’m leaning toward Friday night—there’s nothing else going on then. It will be nice to spend some quiet time outside, get the work done, then come home, take a long shower, and settle in with a good movie.

There’s something comforting about this rhythm—gardening, caring for plants, making plans, and then rewarding myself with rest. It feels like a reminder that balance is possible: a little work, a little care for others, and then time to recharge in my own cozy space.

 Oh—and I just ordered bulbs: gladiolas, allium drumsticks, and Dutch iris—100 of each! I’ll plant them in patches of 25. Dr. Cho will get four-fifths, and I’ll keep one-fifth. I’ll plant his where weeds tend to take over to help block that out. I still need to decide where mine will go, but I’ve got a month until they arrive.

I woke up with allergies in the night and again this morning. I should probably take a Benadryl, even though it makes me feel like a zombie—but I need my energy for the garden this weekend. The grass in the front and back yards is begging to be mowed, and there are plants that need attention. Maybe I’ll even find time to work on my paintings.

The squirrels are loud this morning, chattering and rustling through the trees. I hope they don’t leave a surprise on me again! The birds are noisy too, their songs mixing with the rustle of leaves and the soft hum of the wind. I love how slowing down makes me notice these details. I used to walk in Broad Ripple, moving quickly past everything, but for the last couple of years I’ve stayed in the park with Chewy. I see the trees’ bark textures, the way the light hits each branch, and even notice familiar faces. The park feels alive and intimate now, not just a path I pass through.

Gardening feels different this year, too. The recent limb trimming has opened the backyard, letting sunlight spill into areas that were once shaded. The patch by the gate now basks in morning sun, and I think I might finally grow something there. The creeping Charlie is still making its rounds, but I feel like I’m gaining the upper hand. I remember battling clover years ago—now it’s gone. Gardens come in waves; patience is key.

I picked up some baby onions at Walmart and plan to plant more whenever I move other plants around. I’m imagining a spring bulb bed: Dutch iris with deep violet petals, day lilies opening in soft gold, gladiolus in striking pinks and reds. Perhaps I’ll order some for myself and some for Dr. Cho. Later in the season, daffodils will trumpet cheerful yellow among the green, alliums will rise like little fireworks, and iris will add elegant purples and blues.

I can almost see the ultimate bulb garden: daffodils, alliums, Dutch iris, iris, gladiolus, and day lilies all blooming together in waves of color and texture. It’s ambitious, but I think I can make it happen. Gardening isn’t just work—it’s a way to watch life unfold slowly. Each sprout, bloom, and fallen leaf reminds me to notice, to nurture, and to find beauty in patience.

The question drifts through my mind in the quiet of the backyard, somewhere between the chirp of a sparrow and the rustle of wind in the fir tree: Without my garden, would I be happy?

It feels almost dangerous to ask, because the garden has become so entwined with who I am. It is not simply a collection of flowers and rocks, not merely lilies and asters moved from front to back, or chameleon plants that creep and surprise me with their persistence. The garden is where I return to myself. It is my prayer, my meditation, my creative canvas, and my therapy all in one.

When I press my hands into the soil, I feel rooted too. Each plant I tuck into the earth is a reminder that growth is both delicate and stubborn. Some plants flourish no matter how I fuss with them, while others fade away despite my best attention. The balance between control and surrender is one I practice here, again and again.

But if it were taken away from me—if I had no plot of earth to tend, no beds to rearrange, no flowers to greet me in the morning—what then?

I suspect I would grieve. I would feel restless without the daily rhythm of checking what has bloomed, what has wilted, what has surprised me overnight. Yet I also know that the deeper truth of gardening is not confined to soil. The lessons of patience, hope, and resilience live inside me now. They shape the way I move through life, the way I approach work, friendship, and love.

Happiness, I realize, does not belong solely to my garden. The garden has taught me how to look for joy, how to tend to it gently, how to wait for it to return even after a hard winter. Without my garden, I would still carry those lessons. I would still seek beauty in ordinary places: in a rock tucked into my pocket, in a quiet dinner with a friend, in a book that holds me past bedtime.

The garden is one way happiness finds me. Without it, I would simply have to be more alert, more deliberate, in noticing where else happiness blooms. And maybe that is what the garden has been preparing me for all along.

 This morning, I am bundled up in my sweatshirt, fluffy pants, and socks, sitting outside with Peanut while the garden greets me. The air is cool, the kind of crispness that reminds me fall is beginning to whisper at the edges.

Yesterday, I worked long hours with the soil, carving out a little stream of daylilies that now runs like a green ribbon away from the house, tracing the line of the hose. I’m proud of it—it feels like I shaped something alive, a small river of beauty that leads the eye outward. With the trees trimmed back, new possibilities have opened: light touches spots that had been shaded for years. Even the bare stretch by the fence, where Chewy once sprinted to the top and trampled everything, now calls out for planting again. It feels like a second chance for that part of the yard, and for me, too.

Of course, the tree crew left their mess—broken bulbs, tire tracks, a forgotten sweatshirt—and even tent worms that slipped past their work. I noticed them while sitting with Toni, sharing spinach curry and stories of our children’s transitions. The worms will be dealt with, just like the rest. I texted the head guy and claimed my authority: I am a master gardener. This garden has taught me persistence, to trust what I see with my own eyes.

Money is tighter now, and I tell myself no bulbs this year. And yet, how could I resist? The cleared space begs to be filled. Each season I’ve planted here, something of my past has surfaced—the Lindt chocolates Dora once sent, the birthdays, the griefs, the comfort of continuity. Even now, flowers bloom where memories ache, and I feel my mother’s birthday close, as though the soil itself remembers with me.

The garden holds all of this: the chatter of friends, the marks of workers, the small losses, the openings for something new. Today, Catherine and I will walk among flowers at the IMA, but I already feel the deepest walk is here—right outside my back door.

Lots of mushrooms.  Eric said I should make a milkshake of them and pour them on my wood piles to break them down.  How do I make a mushroom milkshake?

Gardening has always been more than a hobby for me—it is a mirror for my inner life. Each branch I trim, each flower I tend, and every seed I plant reflects the care I am learning to give myself. In the garden, chaos can be transformed into order, neglect into growth, and even the damage from storms or missteps can become an opportunity for renewal.

Yesterday morning, a crew came to trim my trees, and with their saws and ladders and giant heavy tools, they changed the shape of my garden. The main task was to remove the tent worms, but while they were here, other branches came down too. The result is a space that feels brighter, more open, and somehow unfamiliar. It takes time to adjust to a garden after it has been altered—light falls differently, shadows shift, and the air seems to move more freely.

But change in the garden rarely comes without cost. The men left tire tracks carved into the lawn, smashed a few outdoor lights, and trampled across flowers that had been quietly thriving. What they opened up with their hands, they also damaged with their boots. This morning, I walk through the yard taking stock—bulbs shattered, blossoms bent, soil pressed hard where it should have been soft.

And yet, this is gardening. It is never only about planting; it is also about repair. A storm, a careless step, an eager crew—each leaves its mark. The gardener’s work is to meet that disruption with patience, to put things right again, to coax beauty back from the broken edges.

The trees are lighter now, and so is the sky above my garden. Today I begin the slower work: replanting, sweeping, mending. It reminds me that a garden is always both wound and healing, loss and renewal. What feels damaged now will, with time and tending, give rise to new growth.

Mushroom milkshake: