July Daylily Roundup A-M

August 1, 2021August 1, 20212 Comments

The next two posts are a listing of the daylilies that have bloomed ANYTIME during July – even if they started in June. It is a large list but also a colorful one. I believe only 3 of my cultivators were totally done in June – Saratoga Springtime, Scorpio and yellow Stella de Oro.

If you like Ned Roberts cultivators, you have come to the right place because I have about 70 of them, and most (except Navajo Curls and Adios Albuquerque) that are going to bloom the year have bloomed sometime during July.

I went to the rodeo here last night, so I am all practiced-up and ready to go.

“Fringe Benefit” 6.27-7.12 (mislabeled bonus)

Glen Eyrie 7.25-7.30 (started while I was on vaca 7.19-24)

Golden Eclipse 7.16-present

Jungle Queen 7.1-7.19-24? Finished during vacation

Marque Moon 7.13-7.19 (ended 7.19-7.24 during vaca)

July Round-up N-Z – click here for more beautiful July blooms!

Please contact my business – Art and Nature from the Hartt for sales questions/availability.

Collections

July 6, 2021Leave a comment

I’ve been intrigued by the show Hoarders this year. IDK why, because I hate reality TV. Maybe it is because I have a 1st degree family member who struggles with this. Maybe because I needed to feel something with human emotions. Maybe my own home needed some cleaning and decluttering. Maybe just to kill time.

What is the difference between hoarding daylilies and collecting daylilies – that is my question. I guess that if your garden has labels, is watered and weeded, and you take photos everyday – that is probably a collection. Hoarding would probably be a back yard full of disorganized pots with some live and dead plants – and you can’t move anywhere because the pots are everywhere. Bugs . . . well, I have a few of those but my guess it isn’t like a hoard. Some of my daylilies are named after bugs, though. Is there such thing as a daylily hoard?

I have collections within my collection. My favorite collection is my Ned Roberts cultivators. I have ordered these from far and wide to form my collection. The other, overlapping, collection is my Southwest names collection. Some of these were bonuses sent with my Roberts collection because the names were Southwestern – so they go with my Ned Roberts collection. My original collection was those available at local nurseries. I have a collection with family names for my grandma, mom, dad, daughters and grandkids. The list goes on. If I kept adding, I think it could become a hoard. Daylilies are too much work to have too many!

I have had 94 bloom so far this year and 7 more premiers today. Here they are:

Baby Blue Eyes – 7.6- added to my near blues collection (yes, I have one of those, too) a couple years ago.

Black Arrowhead – 7.6 – A distinctive Ned Roberts Southwestern spider.

Blackthorne – 7.6 – This cultivator is from my original local nurseries collection and this is the first bloom in many years.

Cheyenne Eyes – 7.6 – A big, lanky Roberts spider.

Chorus Line – 7.6 – A pretty pastel from a local nursery.

Classy Lady – 7.6 – IDK, maybe she came from the auction?

Melon Balls – 7.6.1 – A sweet little bonus from my early collecting years.

Finales – Yesterday was the finale of Purple Moonrise.

I counted about 50 with scapes that haven’t bloomed. I think we will hit at least 80% this year. I need to move my daylily software over to my other computer to be sure, though.

Still Hot

August 7, 2020Leave a comment

The days are still hot and the monsoons didn’t last long . . . a couple of weeks, at best. I don’t have time to water except on weekends now. We could use the rain. I got a few shots before work today. I am exhausted . . . and it is only the second day of being back at work. My Purple Corn Dancer that is in the Southwest Garden has baby scapes . . . I will have flowers into September.

Grief and the Lessons of Corona

August 4, 2020Leave a comment

Maybe a daylily blog is a weird place to talk about grief . . . but the daylilies are part of it. Friday the 13th of March was the day my life shifted. We put a traditional onground program online over the weekend. I had two enthusiastic brand new, full-time instructors to help me and I was super glad for years of online teaching experience.

Chaco Canyon 8.3, 20 (blooming since 6.25.20)

It was weird at first . . . we thought it would end in two weeks 😉 The days were long – 15 hours. I was exhausted – But I made progress without the distractions of the office. The students got a little crazy and that was hard . . . but we got through and got the nursing students graduated in late May.

Once the warm weather came, I could eat lunch on my porch and enjoy my yard and daylilies. My pups got to be outside all day instead of cooped up in the house waiting for me to get home at 7 PM. We took evening walks and howled on the porch at 8 PM. I taught my disabled dog to use wheels and got my senior dog through two more treatments to finally clear her of infection. I got projects done around home – like painting murals and installing drip systems. Without the artificial need for an 8-6 with commute, my creativity came back. My energy got better.

Oh, there were the MA students who were in limbo with no clinical rotations who I had until the second week of July. But, I was surrounded by the other elements of my life throughout the journey. I guess I didn’t realize how much I missed them – how they fed my energy. Saturdays are not enough!

My camping trip came and went with only a few crisis – like one of my two full-time people resigning. Once I got home 3 weeks ago, I started feeling the grief. The daylilies would dwindle . . . and once school started, I would have no time for them. More than that, my life would dwindle back to a rut that is created by monotonous work in a small office with no windows and countless unforeseen issues to deal with, mostly alone. I am the only faculty with a doctorate in my institution – and 20 years teaching, 35 as a nurse – it is isolating to be so experientially separated from others. (The new college director is the second person with a doctorate.)

Tomorrow is my last day at home until mid October. Until the leaves turn my pups will be in crates by day. My daylilies will wonder where the camera went. I will become enmeshed in the endless tasks of the day and be too tired to want to walk into the house of hungry dogs at 7 PM. My dogs will become a chore in an all too busy day, again.

What is wrong with me, I think to myself? I really wanted to get away from a stay at home job because of the isolation. And, there are good things about this job. But, I am more engaged with my pups than my career at the moment. It has been a time of a lot of change for my program the past two years . . . a lot of change. And, I am responsible for way more than I want to be at this point in my life.

An online job beckons, again – and/or retirement. Maybe at the end of this school year. I am writing this blog to remind myself of this moment . . . of all the horrible and tragic things Corona Virus has brought to the world, it has brought me insight into my grief. I could step out of my rut and now I am having a hard time finding a purpose in returning.

I hope I have a new direction or at least attitude by the times the greens of the next crop of daylilies is born through the earth. Please enjoy my bloomers on my next to last day of freedom.

I will not forget the lessons of Corona. Perhaps the strangest part of all is that no one seems to see the struggle inside of me . . . . that makes the isolation 10 X worse. Thanks for letting me share with you.

July’s Colorful Parade

July 31, 20203 Comments

Are you ready for a beautiful July parade? Here goes – a listing of all of my daylilies that had first blooms in July. I count 81. Enjoy!

Dog Day Afternoon

July 28, 2020July 28, 2020Leave a comment

Warm afternoons working from home. I use portable AC, so it gets warm enough to make me sleepy. It was hard to focus on the last of the training I was doing because I wanted to doze. A dog day afternoon. More on that in a minute.

I had two premiers today. The first one I will talk about is Golden Eclipse, a Ned Roberts cultivator. When I ordered her, the seller (Doris) told me I might not like the color – it was a muddy brown. Heck, you know me, I like the name, I buy the daylily. And, actually, I think she is a pretty rusty-red color with the gold outline. Maybe our soil or conditions bring out a better color in my yard.

The second premier is an older daylily – Chorus Line. She has been here several years and is a dependable bloomer. One of my favorite pale pastels.

OK, back to dogs. I am working long hours, again. Still from home for another week, I had enough of my computer about 3:30 and went out to sit on the patio with my dogs for a break. My little dog, Sazi, was sitting with both hind legs stuck flexed up towards her body. She was barking and distressed, but not crying in pain. She would scoot on her butt to move anywhere. So, sit. on the floor and raise your legs as high as you can off the ground toward your face. Scoot around or whatever – but hold that for an hour.

Pup, Sazi, after a trip to the urgent care vet.

My pup has inter-vertebral disc disease and has had episodes for about 2.5 years. I rescued her to hike with my other dog because my senior was getting old. Then, her little body started to have problems. She is partially paralyzed but dogs can still walk with no feeling in their legs. Now, it is another 8 weeks of meds and absolute crate rest. And, school starting next week. Ugh, some dog day afternoon. I hope I have time to stay engaged with the daylilies until the end. So often, there are too many distractions.

Dusky Daylilies: (when your plane lands at 7:50 PM)

July 21, 2019Leave a comment

What a long day. I started at 6:30 AM ET and it’s now tomorrow ET. But, I’m back on MT. And, I’ve been home since 8 PM MT. It’s the time of year where there is still a little light. So, of course, I raced to take daylily photos. Not the best photography AND the poor flowers have had a long day, too. I had 72 cultivators today – it’s another record breaker.

I’m just do Premiers because I’m fading, too.

Ruby Stella 7/20

Wild Horses 7/20

Mayan Poppy 7/20

Chorus Line 7/20

Nosferatu 7/20

Red Bird Mary

Star over Milgro 7/20

Skinwalker 7/20

Lobo Lucy 7/20

Santa Fe Christmas 7/20

Dream Catcher 7/20

Spirit of the Morning 7/20

Shape Shifter 7/20

Desert Icicle 7/20

A Celebration of Spiders! (Ned Roberts)

August 7, 2018Leave a comment

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

The First Sunday of August

August 6, 2018Leave a comment

It was camping weekend, which is good because I need the stress relief. Work is too busy and I am too exhausted. So, I returned to an encore – Stella de Oro has been out of bloom for 3 weeks and she is back. I will just leave her in the roll call. Our last roll call of 2018. We had 37 in bloom this week. We had 56 last week and I predicted half as many this week. Actually – more like 2/3rds. When you look at all the finales this week (see photos below), I will make the same prediction for next week. That’s about 18 for the week. We don’t have many scapes yet, and the ones mostly only have a bloom or two left. Heirloom Heaven, Indian Sky, Pink and Cream, Dream Catcher, and Purple Corn Dancer have some life left in them. I am hoping Passionate Returns, Stephanie Returns, Ruby Stella and Red Hot Returns all return.

Here Goes Roll Call 7/31-8/5:

Anasazi 7.30 – has had finale bloom

Apache Uprising 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Baja 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Blue Beat 8.2

Cherokee Star 8.2

Chorus Line 8.5

Classy Lady 7.31 – Has had finale bloom

Comanche Princess 8.2

Dream Catcher 7.30

El Desperado 8.5

Fox Ears 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Heirloom Heaven 8.2

Heron’s Cove 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Hesperus 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Indian Love Call 8.2 – Has had finale bloom

Indian Sky 8.5

Lady Fingers 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Marque Moon 8.1 – Has had finale bloom

Mini Pearl 8.3

Moon Over Chimayo 8.1 – Has had finale bloom

Navajo Curls 8.1

Nearly Wild 7.31

Orange Vols 8.3

Passionate Returns 7.31 – Has had finale bloom

Pink and Cream 8.1

Pizza Crust 7.30

Prairie Blue Eyes 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Purple Corn Dancer 8.5

Purple Thunderbird 8.1 – Has had finale bloom

Rosie’s Red 8.3

Royal Palace Prince 7.30

Ruby Stella 8.3

South Seas 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Stella 8.5 – Encore bloom today

Tiger Kitten 8.3

Twirling Pinata 7.30 – Has had finale bloom

Yellow Punch 7.31 – Has had finale bloom

Last Sunday in July

July 30, 2018Leave a comment

Wow – It will be August next weekend. The daylily peak has come and gone. The cultivators were in the teens today . . . a massive drop off from 2-3 weeks ago. It is funny how the first 3 weeks of June are slow progress, then it explodes, then it goes to just a few here and there for months.

Today, we had one new cultivator. Heirloom Heaven bloomed for the first time in 2018. She is an adorable late-blooming mini. She is my last unbloomed scape on a cultivator that hasn’t bloomed yet. This could be it. It seems like I usually get some August scapes . . . not many, but a handful. I don’t know with this drought, though.

Heirloom Heaven 7.29

And, I had a rude awakening last night – because Mount Echo Sunrise doesn’t look anything like Mount Echo Sunrise. I looked at her tag, and she has two. The other one says Moon over Chimayo . . . and she looks like that one. So, I assume . . .