Not much new today. 65 or 70 daylilies with scapes. No new premiers today. Some days, this is my favorite part of the season because everything is still a mystery and my other flowers don’t get lost in the crowd.
The heat is hot (we will reach 00 this week and are in exceptional drought. I still have daylily water, but the insects are bad.
I think the “but it’s a dry heat” doesn’t apply to daylilies.
Too much going on in life to focus on anything too long. I get the watering done daily, though. Blogging comes second, but I made time today because . . . (drum roll) – I have my first Ned Roberts Spiders in bloom today. The yellow trumpets have company – true colors shining through! Dream Keeper is a reliable early bloomer. I am a little surprised that Purple Grasshopper is one of the first in the Southwest Garden. It didn’t bloom at all last summer but seems to have profited from being put in a put with new soil and no tree roots.
BTW – My plants are noticeably bigger this year after they were moved last year. I am hoping that results in more blooms this year. Here are the blooms of the day:
Premiers for Today
Former Premiers (this year):
The daylily blooms started last week on the 4th. IDK why I haven’t posted. Lots going on. Semi retiring, starting a plant and art business, still busy at my day job (now part time).
Saratoga Springtime started it all, as usual. She is pretty flashy for a yellow Trumpet. And, big.
Stella de Oro and Happy Returns also made appearances this week. They are look-alikes. Happy is a little more fragile.
My new business is Art and Nature from the Hartt. I’m planning to sell some daylily plants this fall. I’ll also have daylily art for sale. I’ll post a link to my site below. Please consider following us for updates.
My goodness, I can’t believe it’s been 5 days since I posted! Fortunately, I’ve had time to take photos. But, on top of school starting amidst a pandemic, I’m also having a Grave’s flair.
I have had nice bloomers, several with finale blooms this week. It hot, dry, and wildfires rage nearby. I don’t anticipate reblooms outside of maybe my yellow trumpets. I’ll start my improved buried pot project this weekend.
. . . For Last! Today came what I think is likely the last of the premiers of the season – Purple Corn Dancer. Honestly, one of my favorites! It is almost sad because Saratoga Springtime is cool enough, but not a favorite. Saratoga stars when my desire to see daylily blooms is the highest. Purple Corn Dancer is frequently the cultivator with the last blooms of the season. Funny, she showed up the same day Olathe Sweet Corn was shipped across the State!
All too often, I am sidetracked or just at a saturation with daylily photos. I guess it’s like how they say there are almost always more photos of the first born child.
I had 13 today and I am exhausted after my first day back to work in 5 months. I think I will just feature my Ned Roberts cultivators from today. Purple Thunderbird had a nice bloom, even at 6:45 AM.
It is interesting how daylilies look different throughout the day. Navajo Grey Hills looks like she is falling in space at 6:48 AM
Cripple Creek is an early riser and was bright-eyed for the AM photo shoot.
Desert Icicle actually looks really good first thing in the morning. She resembles Skinwalker first thing in the morning.
But, Shape Shifter is having a hard time opening her eye.
I had to wait to get Golden Eclipse until after work. Fortunately, it was a short work day (until 3:30) and some cloud cover, so she also looks decent.
Absolutely, some of my favorites still blooming. So much richer than the yellow trumpets of June. Now, to find time to savor them all.
One. That is the number of Premiers today. Just Bold Tiger – a fun, traditional bloom in the yard.
If feels good to slow down . . . only 16 or so premiers all season. I love the blooms. But it feels overwhelming on top of a busy job because I am a perfectionist with the photos and it takes hours at peak to water, take photos, blog.
I had an Encore today – the first of the season. Happy Returns returned . . . oh, those yellow trumpets!
I am not doing great keeping up with Finales but I did have final blooms on Passionate Returns and Cherokee Star today. So, today the finales outnumber the premiers for the first time this season, I believe.
Soon enough, the blog will be less often and I will pick up other pieces of my life, again. It will be cold and dark – my daylilies will live on my memory card until next spring.
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.
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.
Last year, I posted all my blooms each week on Sunday since it is too much to do daily. This year, I am going to try to do a recap at the end of the month. So, for June 2020, we had the following 50:
Today marks almost 3 weeks since the first bloom of 2020. I’ve had about 31 cultivators bloom so far. Not quite 20% of my daylilies.
Today brought several new faces to the group – so the daylily epidemic is upon us. Hopi Jewel is a fun cultivator with an interesting shape. She was a bonus daylily for one of my Southwestern daylily name orders.
I did well with Robert’s spider daylily premier blooms. Echo Canyon came to visit for the first time of 2020. Such a lanky spider.
Coral Taco also joined us today for the premier of 2020. She is another lanky Roberts cultivator.
Chaco Canyon, a little less lanky spider from the Roberts group also showed up. I love the place Chaco Canyon. I wonder if I would favor these daylilies less if they had names that didn’t bring to mind my roadtrips?
Mini Pearl from my family name section also gave us a premier today. She was purchased because my grandma was named Mini Pearl.
Now, for my finales (OMG – the summer always goes too fast):
I missed that Mildred Mitchell had a finale bloom yesterday. She was short lived this year – only one scape. I think my near blues need to be repotted in fresh soil, again. Bluegrass Music appears to be taking the year off.
Saratoga Springtime also had her finale bloom. Springtime is gone, afterall. She gets a lot of attention because she has the yard to herself for a couple weeks. Well, she and the plainer yellow trumpets and Dream Keeper.
Tomorrow, another day, another camping trip. When it is January, I think about summer and wonder how the he## I fit it all in. Mostly, no sleep . . . well, a little but not enough.
Ah, the talk of pandemics. Nothing like having a doctorate in nursing at a historic time like this. I almost wish I was back in biostats or epidemiology class right now.
People debate if this is a spike in the first wave or a second wave. Hmmm, well, it reminds me a little of the epidemic of daylily blooms in summer. There are days with 8+ premier blooms (new cases) and days with only 1 or 2. Are the busy days waves or spikes within a wave? IDK that there is a right and wrong answer – but I would say the second.
Like the epidemic, we will see a peak and a decline after that. Fortunately or unfortunately, daylilies are seasonal. There will be no second wave during flu season . . . or Christmas.
So, today was a good day if you are into low numbers. I only had 2 premiers. Both are old daylilies from my early days of collecting these plants. Lady Fingers is one I got for my landscaping circa 9 years ago. It is simple yellow – but a spider, not a trumpet. I like the green throat.
The other one from today is Inwood, who is having a better than average year. Her buds are healthy and she has more spikes than average. I was delighted to see such a pretty bloom. She reminds me a bit of Canyon Colors, who is having a bad year and I think it is because the grass is taking over her pot. As soon as her sad scape gets done blooming, I will dumb her our and dig the grass off of her roots.
Fall project – I think I will start working on putting my Southwest Garden daylilies in better pots, like my daylilies out front. I think they are more protective against tree roots AND after my sewer issue last winter, I am reminded that my garden is on the easement. That means if the water pipe gives, the City digs. If they are potted, it will be much easier to deal with. I have them in pots, just not better quality ones. I may do half this year and half next. It will be way easier than digging them up the first time!
Anyway – We will see if tomorrow brings a peak, but I think it is all one big summer wave. PS – I have 32 folders of cultivators on my computer now – out of 171 possible. That’s almost 20% bloom rate. Less than 3 weeks since the first bloom. Let’s see where we are in a week. I should do a graph like the epidemiologists. Really.
