I had three charming premiers today, including one of my all-time favorite Ned Roberts spiders – Winds of Love. She always looks like she if floating on the breeze – probably influenced her name.

Kachina Firecracker also gave a first bloom of the year – She looks like Kachina Dancer to me. Cousins, no doubt

And, Nona’s Garnet Spider gave us a hello bloom today.

I did the counts of unbloomed with and without scapes. I believe we are at 117 cultivators that have bloomed now. I have a list of 16 more with unbloomed scapes – so that would come to a total of 133 or 78% bloom rate. That works for me – but it always bugs me why some don’t bloom (41 was my count). Navajo Rodeo, Cricket Call and Purple Grasshopper were big bloomers the last couple of years. Maybe I need to fertilize a bit more and refresh dirt if it has settled. The front garden had several that no-showed this year, but I just put the sprinkler in a few weeks ago, so maybe the drought was the issue. Maybe I will get some late scapes, too.

Last year this day I had 70+ in bloom. But, last spring was so cold that my earlier bloomers didn’t show until early to mid July – and the mid bloomers were going by then, too. 70+ is insane. I prefer the more gradual peak.