With the light of day, two jewels glimmered in my garden.  One is my old favorite, Ruby Spider.  Ruby is one of the oldest of my daylily collection.  I have had her close to a decade. She was added to fill a planter box that hides my drip system controls.  I used ornamental grass the first couple years, but it always died over the winter.  So, why not daylilies?  This one is still in the same planter (although divisions are now in the main garden) with Return a Smile and Just Plum Happy.  Ruby’s bloom is so big and bright that it almost looks fake to me.  I know daylily season has started when this one opens its first bloom.

Ruby Spider – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

The other jewel in bloom today is a new daylily called Hopi Jewel.  My thanks to Blue Ridge Daylilies for picking up my Southwest name theme and sending this as a gift plant.  It’s in with my new Ned Roberts garden, as are a select few other aptly named non-Neds.

Hopi Jewel – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

I must be taken with Hopi Jewel, because I took a lot of photos of her.  It is a nice shape and color combination.  And, maybe it is just fun to see another new face in my new garden.  It took me days to clear the rocks, dig out some of the hard clay desert soil (we call it adobe soil), and fill it in with topsoil and compost. And, now it is home to over 50 new daylilies, mostly my Southwest named Neds.  It is nice, though, to have a few with rounder shapes.

Hopi Jewel – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

I keep wondering if the daylilies will spread to take over or if they will stay in their current space.  The desert has the sun these guys love, but the soil is hard clay and the rain virtually non-existent.  It’s not Asia.  It’s not even Georgia, where many of these plants came from.  According to climatemps.com, Georgia gets about 5 times as much precipitation.  That’s about 25 more gallons per square foot.  One good thing about my Neds is that they were hybridized in New Mexico and Colorado.  Still, they do so much better in bagged soil and added water crystals.

I am at a clinical conference out-of-town during the day tomorrow.  I am unsure if anything else is on the verge of a bloom, but I am going to do my best to go out and check before I leave . . . sometime between 5 and 6 AM.  Unlike my lilies, I do not bloom that early!