All Hell Broke Loose While I Was Camping

July 16, 2022July 16, 2022Leave a comment

I have no idea where to even start with premiers. I’m buried in catching up with daylily photos. I’ll give it a shot. Thank heaven I post to Facebook every day. Sometimes I do miss things, though.

7.11: Lobo Lucy, Laughing Feather, Happy Hopi, Chokecherry Mountain, Apache Uprising, and Soco Gap

7.14: Ruby Stella, Hesperus, Orange Flurry, Purple Many Faces, Kachina Dancer, Kiva Dancer, Cherokee Star, Papa Long Legs, Western Sandstone, Classy Lady, One of my new OZ daylilies that need labels (I believe).

7.15: Glen Eyrie, Scorpio, Route 66, Fooled Me, Echo Canyon, Twirling Pinata, Medicine Feather, Star Over Milgro, Black Ice, Winds of Love, Nearly Wild, Rosie’s Red, Mildred Mitchell, Fairytale Pink, and Navajo Rodeo

And, whatever I missed. And, my one bud on Lacy Doily bloomed when I was gone. So, if lighting strikes but no one is in earshot, is there thunder? Yes. To the bees and butterflies.

I need a stiff drink before I finish. Lol. That’s 31 new faces since I posted on Sunday. Sometimes, I wish we could flatten the curve of peak a little. Gonna be crazy for a bit.

Happiness is Like a Butterfly

July 9, 2022July 9, 2022Leave a comment

The more you chase it, the more it eludes you. Sleep is similar. The header photo is All American Chief and friend 7.8.

Busy day today with 50 new blooms. Here we go:

“Fringe Benefit” mislabeled bonus NOID 7.8

Pink Enchilada 7.8 (Ned Roberts spider #18)

Wild Rose Fandango 7.8 (Ned Roberts spider #19)

I need to go chase butterflies 🦋. We will see what tomorrow hatches.

About Art (and Nature) from the Hartt

July 28, 2021Leave a comment

I don’t remember when I first fell in love with daylilies. I know I have purchased them throughout the years because I liked their colorful blooms. Then, several years ago, I picked them for a xeroscaping project. It seems like that was the tipping point to owning 180 varieties.

Daylilies in my Southwest daylily name garden

I got smarter about gardening. I think the daylily blooms were huge motivators. As I got better with daylilies, I got better with houseplants. I went through a orchid phase. Now, it is largely succulents, bromeliads and begonias.

Back to the daylilies. Fall always made me feel sad because the daylilies went away and it made winter seem more dismal than ever. One day, I decided to learn to paint daylilies so I would never have a day pass at my home without a daylily bloom.

I am a creative and so painting was very engaging for me. I made tiles to hang on my walls so that I see daylilies as soon as I open my eyes. I gave everyone daylily coasters for Christmas several years. I broadened to some more scenic paintings. I did a few oils of the Southwest that turned out well enough to hang or give away. I painted stepping stones for my garden. The list goes on. Painting kept me connected with nature during the winter months.

I am a nurse and nurse-midwife by background. My career has been meaningful – I have helped pioneer and/or transition many health-related programs and I still work part time as faculty and leadership at a small college. However, due to multiple unforeseen issues, I decided to semi-retire this summer.

This is me out by my potting shed, tending daylilies.

Am I ready to quit working full-time? Heck no. Am I ready to work for myself doing things that I love and find engaging? Absolutely!

I have had a Facebook page for almost 10 years called “Art from the Hartt” because I had a dream of selling my art. It never moved beyond the Facebook page because work took too much of my time. It is time to live the dream!

I have a background in human wellbeing and resilience. I want to focus my business on creating art (and selling plants) that create positive emotion. I have read that having a flower in the room you are in raises your happiness score! So, that is the vision of my business – making the world more resilient through art and nature.

I have a separate page/blog about my business at Art and Nature From the Hartt (click link). You can also find the business on Facebook (click link for page). I wanted to take a moment to talk about it here so people were aware that I do sell daylily paintings and other nature and Southwest related paintings. I also will be selling daylilies, so if you are ever interested in purchasing one of the daylilies you see on my blog, you can contact me at cathy.hartt55@gmail.com. I will know more about what daylilies are available soon. I also offer some types of begonia, bromeliad, and succulent. I will be launching an Etsy store as soon as I have a bit more inventory.

Before I go, I want to introduce you to my garden helpers. I have three rescue dogs, Kachina, Sazi and Moki. Soksabai, my cat, also follows me to the daylily garden every morning when I do my photos.

Please contact me at the email above if you have any questions. I can do many special or personalized requests. If you love daylilies/plants and/or the Southwest – you are in the right place. I am located in Montrose, CO.

What type of art or plant raises your sense of wellbeing???

Truchas, Chimayo, and Ghost Ranch

July 27, 20212 Comments

When describing daylilies, most people talk about bloom season, bloom size, scape height, smell, etc. For me, I see places from road trips. I chose many of my daylilies because of their Southwest names, because that is where I go for my road trips.

Last week, I took a road trip through southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. My favorite hybridizer, Ned Roberts, lived in New Mexico and many of his daylilies find their namesakes in that State. When I shop for daylilies, I often get out the Google maps to see what it is named after. And, on this road trip I wanted to go new places and see things that I had never seen before.

I literally drug out the recreation map and looked for interesting places in northern New Mexico – because despite living not too far away, I know little about it (other than the 4-corners area). Anyway, I found something called the Enchanted Circle that sounded interesting and included Taos. The road between Taos and the highway east . . . well, there were two routes. I picked the High Road to Taos because there are two namesake towns on that road: Truchas and Chimayo

The next day, we visited Ghost Ranch, another daylily namesake. I had stopped there about 7 years ago on a road trip because of the daylily. It is a Presbyterian resort that is open to the public for hiking and other activities. It looks like home with the red sandstone. I stop not because I think it is unfamiliar, but because it is a daylily namesake! And, if any of you remember the old movie City Slickers, that is where it was filmed. So, if you have a Ghost Ranch daylily you be like me and think about that movie and the trail boss, Curly.

I have a bunch of premiers since my last post but I am drowning in vacation photos and daylily photos . . . it is going to take a few days to get the blog caught up. So, for tonight, lets look at the name sakes.

Truchas, New Mexico – A small mountain town on the High Road to Taos. I didn’t see a Truchas sunrise, more like monsoon over Truchas.

Just a few miles down the road it Chimayo, famous for the Santuario de Chimayo. We didn’t see a moon over Chimayo, although I may look into camping here in the future. (the lead photo is also Chimayo)

This is Moon over Chimayo daylily from my yard last summer. She put out tons of new foliage this year, but no bloom. She looks a lot like Truchas Sunrise – probably why they are named for communities just a few miles apart. However, after the road trip, I think I won’t mix the two up any more.

Ghost Ranch is to the southwest of Truchas and Chimayo – an hour plus down the road and to the west. The land changes from Rocky Mountains to Colorado Plateau in those miles. So, the geography is distinctly different.

This is Ghost Ranch daylily from my yard this year. Distinctly different from Truchas and Chimayo namesake daylilies.

That is all for tonight folks. I am trying to stay adjusted to tent times and get to bed earlier at night. I will get caught up with the blog and the new blooms in the next few days. There are several – Skinwalker, Zuni Thunderbird, Desert Icicle, Purple Thunderbird, Cripple Creek, Glen Eyrie, Royal Palace Prince, Pizza Crust , , , I don’t even remember where I left off with the blog. I need to refresh my memory. Stay tuned!

Thanks for joining my journey!

High, Hot and a Hell of a Lot

July 9, 20213 Comments

High, hot and a hell of a lot is a type of enema that nurses use to give more frequently than we do today. I had to learn about them in school many years ago. Suffice it to say you put a lot of water (with soap) in an enema bucket and hang it high so gravity does its thing. Oh, and make that water hot just to give it an extra twist.

For some reason the words came to mind when thinking about my garden today. Not enemas – but altitude, temperature and the number of cultivators I had today. Almost 60, again. So, the peak this year is more like the Grand Mesa . . . you get to the top but it plateaus for a while before it starts going down.

As far as new blooms today – I had two birds. Maybe I should have titled this “Giving you the birds” or something. These are both Roberts spiders.

7/8 Aztec Firebird – one of my original 3 Southwestern daylilies in my garden pilot. I had it, Kokopelli and Dream Catcher only the first year. Big lesson when I enlarged it is that where you water large surface areas, you attract lots of tree roots. I love the bright colors of the Aztec bird – she is a little late this year. The daylilies that thrived the most in-ground are pretty slow to bloom this year, whereas those that were being strangled in roots before bloomed early and lots.

Raven Woodsong – I love the color of this one.

And – while not a premier, Chief Four Fingers finally had a picture perfect bloom. The bugs got the early buds but it got better when I improved the water flow so the plant got stronger.

Chief Four Fingers perfect bloom (or close)

I painted another painting last night – Canyon Colors. I have put a lot of energy into my art business the last couple of days so I can get some inventory built up. I plan more than daylily paintings, but I am starting there because I have done more of them than anything else and it is a good way to get my skills back. Yesterday, I worked on lighting for the Art Cove. Today, I got tiles, oil paints, and canvas. Please follow my business page (link at bottom) for more info.

As far as finales – I may go to once a week because it is too confusing when I have 60 in bloom. Easier to do when I cut spent scapes once a week.

Changing leaves . . . of Begonias

September 27, 2020September 27, 20201 Comment

My fascination with begonias grows as the days grow shorter. I feel almost rushed to get a few more for my collection before freeze sets in. All of this while I move daylilies from the Southwest garden into pots. 72 done, 3 to go. Then, I need to refresh soil in my other buried pots. So, why not blog while it warms up a bit more?

I found out about a new plant shop in the neighboring city of Grand Junction and inquired about rex begonias. She had 2. While I was there, I spotted a 3rd with unusual leaves. In fact, each leaf on the plant looks different. Check this out. Someone online said it’s likely an immature Harmony’s Firewoman.

I got a couple others yesterday at the plant store. The one w the colored leaf may be another version of Harmony’s Firewoman?

My other acquisitions have been an adventure in learning about mail order begonias. Here are my new additions since the last post. Yes, there goes my COVID bonus, but I’m planning to propagate and sell these when they get bigger.

Speckled grey rex begonia- sold as Hideous Grey Begonia. Lol.

Rex Begonia Jurassic Pink Splash (I mislabeled Jurassic Pink Shades as Splash in my last post.)

Begonia NOID with green young leaves and darker mottled mature leaves.

This is Pink Shades – mislabeled as Pink Splash last post. She has grown a lot!

My biggest challenge so far is Ideal Silver Blue. She was one of the more costly of my choices. I got her from a lady named Dotty on Etsy. She is nice enough but selling plants is not her main business. The pot was peat and not taped inside the box for security. The mouth of the pot didn’t have anything to keep the dirt from spilling out. This plant has beautiful silver leaves which faded in front of me despite her terrarium type of environment. The seller said she might sell me a new one if this one didn’t pull through but she didn’t have any yet. Good lesson for me if I ever sell in Etsy. Anyway, the one little leaf that popped up while I was away camping last week has probably doubled in size since this photo. There is hope but I also learned what to avoid when I sell these plants.

Ideal Silver Blue with one leaf after bad damage during shipping.

I guess I need to get back to the daylily pots. I have a few more begonias coming before freeze. It’s going to be my winter adventure to grow these colorful plants.

Mystery Solved

July 2, 20202 Comments

When I put in my Southwest daylily garden, I filled it with a lot of Ned Roberts spiders and other names that sounded like the Southwest in some way. I put most of the garden in about 4 years ago. I ordered from several different daylily hybridizers/gardens across the country. I planted them and labelled them.

Since then, I have dug most of them back up and put them in buried pots. I got new labels a couple of times – now they are metal. I made a map about 3 years ago – and it is pretty reliable except there are doubles of a couple and that doesn’t make sense because of how I organized them when I planted them.

That brings me to today’s premier blooms. The mystery daylily that is a double of Kachina Dancer (bloomed yesterday) but in a different row and is clearly a different bloom – but same name on the label. So, what is it? Well, I also ordered Kiva Dancer about that time and looking at pictures from the web, I think that I just mislabeled the daylily. Kachina instead of Kiva. Anyway – she bloomed last year and I had the wrong name because Kachina Dancer had never bloomed before yesterday. That’s a long story, but Kiva Dancer (I think) had her first 2020 bloom this year.

We started with yellow trumpets and today brought some showier yellow daylilies. Holy Sombrero is a very showy, big, ruffly bloom.

And, one of my older daylilies that is loving the place in the garden that I moved it a couple summers ago premiered today – Cheddar Cheese. I have a picture I painted of her in my room – one of my first paintings.

Last, but never least, was a premier on Heron’s Cove. It was cold last night, so many of my blooms didn’t open right today. Hers is a little frumpy.

Here is a picture of Oh Erica from the American Daylily Society page

I have a request of my readers. I am looking for a daylily named Erica for my family section of the garden. I have both grandkids, my oldest daughter, my mom, my grandma . . . but I need to find one named Erica, like my youngest daughter. I like one called Oh, Erica by a hybridizer in Indiana named Bart Beck – but I can’t find contact. I also like “Erica’s Awake”. Anyway – if my readers know of any Erica named daylilies or how to contact Bart Beck – please leave a comment.

It’s tomorrow. I am going to bed.

Crowning

June 11, 2020Leave a comment

Crowning is a nurse-midwifery term for when a baby’s head begins to come into the world. For many years, it was my job to deliver babies. We knew it wouldn’t be long once the head was crowning.

I start my day by touring my daylilies to see how many cultivators have scapes. I love the anticipation enough that I peak down between the leaves to see is a scape is forming that hasn’t emerged yet. I feel like a midwife checking under the sheets to see if the baby’s head is crowning.

So, today I had the same four bloomers as I had the last few days. Nothing else looks super ready to open, but I have 70 that are crowning 😉 I guess I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

PS since it was so cold last night and yesterday, my blooms lasted into a second day only slightly frazzled.

Pueblo Dancer

May 18, 2020May 24, 2020Leave a comment

“My mom just painted a mural on the neighbor’s garage,” my daughter told the friend she was chatting with on the phone. The year was 1998 and I had just purchased my home, which came with murals on the garage. I live on a split lot, so the side of my neighbor’s garage is also my back fence. It never occurred to me that was wrong to paint it. In fact, I am likely helping preserve the old wood building by keeping it painted.

The murals in 2016 (and a few daylilies)

I knew I wanted a Southwest feel, so I took a Native American pot off my fireplace (BTW, five moves and 22 years later it is back on the mantel) and painted the Monument Valley design that was on the pot across the top of the mural.

Mural 2018 – still looks pretty good. The year I added the orchids.

I moved away in 1998, but came back in 2006. The mural was still there, although weathered – so I revitalized it then.

The mural in 2020 after stripping loose paint off.

It wasn’t until 2011 that I revitalized it, again. This time, I added a Native American Pueblo off some artwork on my wall. Now, anyone who knows the Southwest knows I am mixing my metaphors on that mural. Monument Valley does not have Native America pueblos. But, oh well, the original mural on the garage is the Senora desert. It is like a collage of my spring road trip right in my own back yard.

The mural site with primer – 2020 (yesterday)

The paint was curling bad this spring. It looked as bad as I have seen it. Maybe it’s cause I have my orchids under the shade sail against part of the wall, so it stays more humid.

Mural looks as good as new today!

Another section of the mural now has my dogs added.

Anyway, I stripped it down to wood where the paint was peeling and used primer to help hold the paint down better. It was a project that took all weekend. Well, I added my dogs, and that took time. And, I am working on a new Native American powwow dancer for the other wall.

Next week, I will finish the dancer and add some hoodoos from Goblin Valley to the area that has the dogs. Hopefully, it won’t take all weekend.

New painting will be a likeness of this young dancer

Pueblo Dancer is the name of a daylily in my Southwest garden. I have had her several years, she came with a bunch of Ned Roberts daylilies. The only thing is, I think she is mislabeled because she was suppose to be a tall daylily, and she is not.

“Pueblo Dancer” in my yard – 2018

She doesn’t look like that much the pictures of the cultivator, Pueblo Dancer. I would love anyone’s input on who she really is – or is she herself? Maybe she just isn’t happy in my yard? At any rate, next weekend, I will be adding this Native American dancer to the mural near the pueblo. A new pueblo dancer to replace the peeled one.

Picture of Pueblo Dancer from Shady Rest Gardens

I have to thank the stay-at home (and COVID-19) for helping me to find my creative side. I do better with a schedule I can flex. It is just how creatives are.

Daylily of the Green Table

May 17, 2020May 17, 20201 Comment

Mesa Verde – Green table is Spanish. And, it looks like that from a distance during certain seasons. Mesa Verde is a climb – and if you have ever tent camped there, the temp drops accordingly. I have great memories of camping there with my daughters when they were growing up. And, in my adult life.

Yucca House National Monument – Mesa Verde National Park in the distance – 2019

Dogs have slowed down my camping there because National Parks are not dog friendly – although they would be fine in the campground – it is a drive to get in and out to dog friendly places.

The road up Mesa Verde – 2017

However, in 2017, Kachina, Maizzy and I headed up during our annual labor day trip. It was hot – too hot to hike. So, I thought the elevation would be to our advantage.

Smiling doggies – Kachina and Maizzy at Mesa Verde 2017

That was the weekend I also decided to foster my little disabled dog, Sazi, then Dotsy. Her name, Sazi Ana, is inspired by our drive through Mesa Verde that day.

Mesa Verde 2017

The ruins of Mesa Verde are unique cliff dwellings. It has probably been close to 15 years since I went by myself on spring break and climbed one of the ladders. Folks, I have a huge fear of heights and that was nothing I would ever repeat. But it does give some idea what the Ancient Pueblo Indians must have lived like. I always wonder how they ever kept toddlers off of the ladders without baby gates.

Mesa Verde – 2017

Mesa Verde – 2017

Mesa Verde is also a gorgeous daylily with outrageous ruffles. She was another of my early Southwest named daylilies.

Mesa Verde daylily – 2019

I was naive before thinking that there might be a few dozen kinds of daylily. Somehow, I figured out about ordering bare-root on-line. The first year, I just picked fun colors. After that, I picked Southwest names.

Mesa Verde Daylily – 2018

Mesa Verde is decidedly pink until the sun hits – then she resembles the orange cliffs of her name sake.

Mesa Verde daylily – 2018

Her pot is over growing in grass. I was going to fix that in March, until COVID-19 hit and I didn’t want to go buy soil until it was too late. Perhaps this fall.

Mesa Verde daylily – 2018

This weekend, I am repainting my Monument Valley mural. I think living vicariously during the safer-at-home phase of corona virus has inspired the creative in me. My creativity has been totally shut down for the last year or two. Feels good to be covered in mural paint.

Mesa Verde tile painting – 2019

A couple of Christmases ago, I did try my hand at painting Mesa Verde. The flower, that is.

Colorado Kid Daylilies

A Blog About My Western Colorado Daylily Adventure

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