So strange. It’s July in a week and I’ve only had 3 cultivars bloom. Maybe the 35 degree low and hail this weekend helped. Lol. All I can say is that my 3 in bloom today all have me 4 blooms. I don’t see any others that ready to bloom . . . Within a week, but not tomorrow.
Saratoga Springtime 6/24
Stella 6/24
What can I say, Stella was my only Solstice bloom. In 2015, I had only a handful of daylilies and only 1 flowers. This is usually the start of peak. Now, today, we are camping and the wintry mix has rained down upon us.
Stella – my only solstice bloom.
I’m really not feeling the joy of daylily season, yet. The wet, cold spring has things running 2-4 weeks late. Next week and the following are usually peak weeks. I have lots of scapes, but nothing but Stella, Saratoga Springtime, and Dream Keeper are blooming. And, I’d guess next week at the earliest before that changes. Last year, I had a dozen or so in bloom by now. I thought it was my gardening skills. Maybe some, but mostly the yin and yang of exceptional drought to a cold, wet season.
Dream Keeper 6/20
Saratoga Springtime 6/20
This year, I’ll do Premier photos for new blooms and, like last year, Encore photos for last blooms of each cultivator. For now, though, we wait.
The contrast seems odd. Last year we had the exceptional drought. Blooms were early because of the warm, dry winter. I winter watered my daylilies once a month. Some buds dried up before they opened.
Stella de Oro, June 6, 2019
This year, winter was long, cold and wet. It warmed up in March, but got cold, again. I lost El Desperado – my big, thriving El Desperado. Nurse’s Stethoscope is struggling. I lost Ghost Ranch. Other daylilies have bigger that average foliage. It’s weird that I lost more with rain than without. We are 200% or something of the average snowpack.
Saratoga Springtime, June 9, 2019
So, blooms are late and scapes are slow to appear. I don’t feel as geared up for my daily daylily blog as usual. Maybe it’s because I have a new job that is a better match, but I’m leading a major transition. So, that and sick dogs, have been my focus.
Dream Keeper, June 11, 2019
But, nature doesn’t care. Summer temps are starting the last couple of weeks, and I’ve had 3 daylily blooms. Stella de Oro was the first. She started scapes at the usual time and then winter returned. She slowly but surely persisted. Other bloomers are Saratoga Springtime and Dream Keeper.
Oh, and my amaryllis finally bloomed after 5 years!
I have more scapes this week, but nothing else on the verge of blooming. So, my blog will have a slow start, just like the spring did.
What a strange week . . . 3 standard deviations from the mean. So, I apologize for no blog since Sunday. The reorganization has hit at work. I worked 12 hour days on Monday and Thursday. Tuesday, I had this skin cancer removed . . . long story short is that I hope like heck it stays healthy until the graft next Tuesday. Wednesday was my eye exam – and I worked until 10 PM. And, today – a steady 6 hours of work with everything in motion. I will get even more new students, I got a new boss (3rd boss in as many weeks), I haven’t even gotten all the new students from the last batch re-settled. And, then, I heard my calling. Doors may open. Let’s leave it at that for now.
My yard has fallen way down on my priority list. I have no idea if I can dig up any lilies this fall with all this noise in my life. Really, my energy has changed this year and the noise is deafening. Speaking of deaf . . . yea, that, too. That said, things are beginning to move in new directions. I let go and started living for a new vision. This created some feng shi space, I guess. Things are moving after a very long, stagnant period. How long do we fertilize something that never blooms?
So, enough of my excuses – here are my flowers for the week:
Finales:
Blue Beat 8.16
Pink and Cream 8.17
Other bloomers:
Purple Corn Dancer 8.13
Indian Sky 8.16
Heirloom Heaven 8.13
Ruby Stella 8.13
Dream Catcher 8.16
No August scapes – no returns, yet, from my “returns” daylilies. No rainy season. A quiet fall in the garden. Which is probably good given everything else in my life. It is a camping weekend and I am home. Too much going on today . . . and this week. I may try for a one-night wonder trip near home tomorrow if I feel up to it. I need to focus on healing my life.
The blooms thin out way too rapidly this time of the season. Every day brings another finale or three. I hung the black-out curtains on the poinsettia bloom closet so I can start forcing them in a couple of weeks. It’s 90 degrees outside so it doesn’t feel right. The amaryllis will come in soon, too. Speaking of amaryllis, Ambience bloomed this weekend. Well, more like she is blooming. Unlike daylilies, she takes her time. She blooms every summer at this time. I call her the ugly daylily. Unfortunately, the bugs love her thin blossoms. But, her color is stunning just the same. She looks like Christmas in August.
Amaryllis Ambience 8.11
Now, back to the real daylilies for the past two days. I took last night off of the blog . . . needed a break.
Finales:
Mini Pearl 8.11
Royal Palace Prince 8.11
Tiger Kitten 8.11
Navajo Curls 8.12
Other Saturday and Sunday blooms:
Pink and Cream 8.12
Blue Beat 8.11
Stella de Oro 8.11
Ruby Stella 8.12
Purple Corn Dancer 8.11
Dream Catcher 8.11
Indian Sky 8.11
That’s all folks. We are headed into the quiet of late August. No new scapes at this point. I think we needed monsoon rain for that to happen.
My dogs earned the reputation of being the Three Amigas last year at a dog Halloween party. They won a prize for the funniest dog costumes. It was a good time.
Kachina, Maizzy, and Sazi
So, today when I had only three blooms, I thought about my dogs. I think Blue Beat is my oldest dog, Maizzy. She is mellow (blue) and has a heart condition (Beat). So, it fits her. Indian Sky is my youngest dog, Kachina. Not only do the names work together, but Kachina is the red-orange sky color. Then comes little goofy Sazi, my newest addition (although she is middle-aged). Heirloom Heaven fits her because she is a small late bloomer. Who else has canine garden helpers?
Today’s Blooms (no finales):
Blue Beat 8.10 – Maizzy’s bloom
Maizzy
Indian Sky 8.10 – Kachina’s bloom
Kachina
Heirloom Heaven 8.10 – Sazi’s bloom
Sazi
The season winds down, and I find myself hitting my snooze a couple extra times. The work of the daylilies has gotten to be a lot less intensive. It has positives and negatives. Here are today’s bloomers:
Finales:
Nearly Wild 8.9
Pizza Crust 8.9
The rest from 8.9:
Purple Corn Dancer
Pink and Cream
Dream Catcher 8.9
For fun, let’s look at the Walkway Garden cultivators that bloomed last year, but didn’t bloom this year. I wonder why? Drought? Adapting to pots? Neighboring plants got bigger and blocked sunlight?
Little Cadet 2017
Best Seller 2017
Chama Valley
Fine Time Lucille 8.9
Fol de Rol 2017
Pardon Me 2017
Western Sandstone 2017
Tis the season to check these pots and see if they need dividing. Then, there are the ones that have never bloomed in my yard – ever. I think 1 more year and some may get recycled. It seems only fair to give them another year in the pots to see. They are Happy Happy, Scorpio, Coberg Fright Wig, Navajo Blanket, Sanctuary in the Sky, Fringe Benefit, Carlotta, and Quilt Patch.
I wish I had the energy that I did last year because time is getting shorter. Sometimes I wish camping season and daylily season did not run concurrently. I read my blog from last year, and I was burying pots every spare second. Now, it feels like too much to add dirt to the bottoms of the pots that have settled. And, I do need to dig up a couple in the Southwest garden and put in pots. Dividing is easier in pots, though. I guess it is my year not to bloom. Droughts happen, and sometimes it isn’t about water.
Today, we got a late burst of activity in the daylily garden. A nice dozen showed up today. Given I only have 11 with buds left, I believe it is the last dozen. And, we had several finales. Now comes the time that I contemplate what to do with the ones that have never bloomed. Do I toss them and put divisions of some of my more reliable ones in their place? Or give them another year? Or a little of both?
Finales:
El Desperado 8.8 – blooming since 7.10
Cherokee Star 8.8 – blooming since 7.16
Orange Vols 8.8 – blooming since 7.23
Other bloomers today:
Pink and Cream 8.8
Mini Pearl 8.8
Indian Sky 8.8
Heirloom Heaven 8.8
Blue Beat 8.8
Dream Catcher 8.8
Navajo Curls 8.8
Purple Corn Dancer 8.8
Royal Palace Prince 8.8
The next dozen will be next June. I start to plan poinsettia and amaryllis forcing . . . oh, one of my amaryllises is putting up a scape right now. The ugly daylily.
The days grow August-quiet. It seems a dream that I had nearly 60 blooms per day just a month ago. So, today, we will do finales. And, then, a roll-call of my Ned Roberts spiders.
Finales:
Chorus Line 8.5
Rosie’s Red 8.6
So, maybe if I do the Ned Roberts spider roll-call it will entice one more into bloom this year. My Ghost Ranch is a fall bloom, but I am having a rough time getting her to thrive here. Maybe some fish fertilizer? Our temps are still above average with little rain.
Ned Roberts Spiders for 2018 Season:
Adios Albuquerque
Apache Bandana
Aztec Firebird
Black Arrowhead
Black Ice
Chaco Canyon
Cheyenne Eyes
Chokecherry Mountain
Comanche Princess
Desert Icicle
Dream Catcher
Dream Keeper
Fox Ears
Happy Hopi
Iktomi
Kachina Firecracker
Kokopelli
Laughing Feather
Mama Cuna
Moon Over Chimayo
Navajo Curls
Navajo Rodeo
Papa Longlegs
Pink Rain Dance
Pueblo Dancer is her label, but she doesn’t look like that one. So???
Purple Corn Dancer
Purple Grasshopper
Purple Many Faces
Purple Moonrise
Purple Thunderbird
Raspberry Propeller
Raven Woodsong
Rocky Mountain Pals
Santa Fe Christmas
Shape Shifter
Skinwalker
Taco Twister
Talon
Twirling Pinata
Wild Rose Fandango
Zuni Eye
Zuni Thunderbird
Out of interest, here are my Ned Roberts spiders that bloomed last year but did not bloom this year:
Coral Taco 2017
Glen Eyrie
Pink Enchilada 2017
And, we had a few in 2016 that have not bloomed again:
Chief Four Fingers 2016
Ghost Ranch
Winds of Love 2016
I have around 64 of Ned’s spiders in my garden. I had 42 bloom this year or about 65%. Last year, I had 13 (about 20%) bloom. Marked improvement. All total, to date, I have had 48 (or 75%) bloom. That is a long way from 100%. But, marked improvement. I think some of the ones that bloomed in 2016 were put in that year (still flourishing from the nursery), struggled last year in the clay soil, and are recovering (growing new roots) this year in their pots. I am sure that the drought had an impact, as well.
So, for fun, here are the ones I have that have never bloomed (photos from the web):
Apache Beacon
Coyote Laughs
Cricket Call
Cripple Creek
Dancing Maiden
Echo Canyon
Feather Woman
Golden Eclipse
Kachina Dancer
Kiva Dancer
Land of Enchantment
Maya Cha Cha
Medicine Feather
Mount Echo Sunrise
Navajo Grey Hills
Ojo de Dios
Orchid Moonrise
The Real Pueblo Dancer
Spirit of the Morning
Star over Milagro
Truchas Sunrise
Wildwood Flower
We made improvements, but we have aways to go. That’s life
Colorado Kid Daylilies 