The Colorado Kid: Getting His Kicks on Route 66

July 6, 2026July 6, 2026Leave a comment

Hello Daylily Fans!

It’s hard to believe another week has passed in the daylily garden. Today, our blog mascot, The Colorado Kid, bloomed for the first time this year. And, another old favorite also came into bloom today: Route 66. I am living my road trip in the garden today.

However, today also brought another day of unhealthy smoke from the fire near Ouray, CO – the Gold Mountain Fire. The smoke makes the whole garden look like it’s in a haze in the morning. Normally, the smoke lifts as the heat comes in. Today, it didn’t lift much.

My garden in the smoke this morning. The camera doesn’t capture the haze that is up close, but it is everywhere.

What does wildfire smoke 24/7 due to daylily buds? To answer that, let’s back-up to the cause of the fires. Colorado is in a bad drought year after receiving minimal snowfall last winter and little rain during the spring or summer. Snowmelt is where Colorado gets the bulk of its water, so when there isn’t snow it creates a serious drought situation. Then, the fire season starts in the Western US because everything is too dry – and the hot, dry, windy weather arrives along with dry lightening. With the fires comes the dense blankets of smoke.

Beautiful but smoky sunset from our campground last week. This is near Blue Mesa, CO and is also smoke from the Gold Mountain Fire.

Montrose has had horrible air quality for several days since the Gold Mountain Fire started near Ouray, but there are other fires compounding the situation. (I heard today they don’t expect to get the Ouray fire entirely out until snow falls in October!) The particles in the air contain chemical vapers that can cause bud blast. They also dry out the air further. So, watching buds blast is the combined impact of the drought, the hot/dry weather, and the chemical vapers. The plant gives-up on blooming in order to save energy. It’s sad to watch the buds melt like butter.

Fortunately, many of my daylilies are blooming anyway. But, several only have 1-2 buds this year. My Southwestern Garden is the hardest hit. Because it is in the easement, it needs more fertilizer and moisture than the ones that get some help from my sprinkler system. My bloom rate out there will probably not hit 50% this year. I can’t fertilize until it cools down and we get some moisture. Sadly, that is where the bulk of my Ned Robert’s spiders are planted. Better luck next year!

Despite the barriers, the daylilies show there resilience by continuing to bloom daily. Here are my new bloomers this week:

That’s 26 new ones this week, folks! Last week I posted 34. The week before that, 18. And the first post was 9. That adds up to 87. I have about 189 total, so a 46% bloom rate. Could it be peak has come and gone already? I fear that may be true this year. When daylilies only have a few buds, the peak comes fast and dies fast. That’s a drought year pattern in the high desert.

Let’s see what the next week brings. But, even if the monsoons were to come, it is too late for the daylilies that have saved their energy to survive the drought to bloom this year.

Don’t let the smoke stop you from blooming this week,

Cathy Hartt

Please take a moment to visit my art business page, Art from the Hartt. and see what I am working on this summer. I have some great garden gnomes up for adoption!

Unique Yard Art and Memorials for Daylily Gardens

July 14, 20242 Comments

My Memorial/Family/Pet Gardens

How many of my readers have a memorial garden integrated into your yard? Daylilies are great for memorial gardens because the names often speak to us of a friend or loved one. In fact, I have a family name section of my daylily garden with Catherine Irene, Mini Pearl, Stephanie Returns, Isaac, Mayan Poppy and Oh Erica that are all names of family members, both alive and dead. It’s almost as good as having them come to visit.

I also have a pet memorial garden that is actually coneflower. I didn’t get coneflowers with pet names – they have Southwestern names like Moab Sunset, though. I have my handmade memorial pet leaf castings, each with a little of my pet’s own ashes in the hypertufa (cement + sphagnum moss + vermiculate) mix. I also added some of my cute handmade garden gnomes and I have a plague for the first dog I lost, Maizzy. In the lilac tree that towers above the garden I have a solar bird feeder collection.

Please share a story about and/or photo of your memorial gardens in the comments!

Bouquet of the Day

After no new blooms yesterday, I had 5 today. I am at about 35% bloom rate. Not great for mid-season but the plateau shaped peak in blooms continues. We will see where we are when the last daylily blooms.

I had some vivid colors and some pastels today. And, an older near blue, Mildred Mitchell. The vivid orange of Nearly Wild and the deep maroon of Open My Eyes add stunning color to the collection. My pink girls – Fairytale Pink and Classy Lady – added a nice contrast.

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Yard Art & Memorials Added: Until The Last Daylily Blooms Sale

This blog inspired me to add my handmade yard art to the Until the Last Daylily Blooms Sale at my Etsy shop – at least for July-August 19th. Specifically, I added hypertufa leaf casting ash memorials, cement dog plaque memorials, garden gnomes, and mushrooms. These are great companions for daylily gardens.

Hypertufa Leaf Casting Ash Pet Memorial

Pet memorial ash leaf castings – click here for listing.

Cement Pet Memorial Plaque: Acrylic Pour and Solid Colors

I am playing with painting my cement dog/cat plaque memorials with pour acrylics. This is one I made yesterday. The lettering will be painted in a lighter color to make it more readable and other highlights added. I will get this listed as soon as possible, in the mean time if you are interested, please email me. I also can do custom colors if you prefer.

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Process video of a pour acrylic pet memorial plaque.

Garden and Holiday Gnomes: Pour Acrylic or Solid Colors

These garden gnomes are my “seconds” so I decided to try pour painting on them. I have 6 gnome styles (see slides below and click here for Etsy listing) and I am adding a couple new styles very soon. I normally paint them solid, traditional colors, but I will be adding some pour paint styles soon. Again, I can do custom colors – contact me via email or my Etsy shop.

Time For Nature

I’m headed off on a camping adventure tomorrow. It will be next weekend before I post, again, unless I do a post on wildflowers. You can follow our adventure at my travel blog – click here to visit and subscribe.

A Mountain Peak in Kansas

July 19, 2023July 19, 2023Leave a comment

Peak this year is going to be more of a Kansas Peak than a Colorado Peak. So many plants either succumbed to the prolonged freeze-thaw or they just didn’t put out scapes. Many early bloomers seem to be missing, but my garden is trying.

I came home from camping to 15 new cultivators in bloom for the first time in 2023. Here is my Instagram reel from today.

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Names in order: The Colorado Kid, Burgundy Crab, Papa Longlegs, Kachina Dancer, Apache Beacon, Black Ice, Cheyenne Eyes, Indian Giver, Soco Gap, Melon Balls, Mini Pearl, Classy Lady, Orange Flurry, Cherokee Star, Platinum Pink Pallette Whispers.

Here is my Instagram from Sunday. I don’t think I posted it since we went camping.

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Tomorrow’s another daylily.

Please visit my website Www.artfromthehartt.com

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.

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.

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!

A fairy tale, a classy lady and a skinwalker walk into a bar . . .

July 22, 2020Leave a comment

OK, maybe it is a bad time for a joke about bars. Or, not. I am, of course, really talking about my three premier blooms today.

Fairy Tale Pink was one I picked up at a local nursery several years ago because I was bored with my existing blooms. The drip system has helped her – she got so dry in past years that her buds often dried up. She is in my sprinkler blind spot.

Classy Lady . . . I think I got her on the Lily Auction with some other daylilies that I liked and wanted to get the most for my postage.

And, oh Skinwalker! This Ned Roberts spider is the biggest, lankiest spider in the garden (well, the Southwest garden, anyway). I love the colors – and the tall scapes. It reminds me of a scarecrow.

That makes 122 cultivators so far (counting the 2 I missed on vaca). That’s 71%. And, we have a few more premiers in the future. Come on, 75%!

Finales are Cheddar Cheese, Red Hot Returns, Prairie Blue Eyes and Route 66. See you all next year . . . at the bar.

It is time to start ordering the new pots for the Southwest buried garden soon. I will start by repotting the ones already in pots this fall. It is awful to dig into the clay soil and tree roots. I do not look forward to that part at all. But, it is the easement and I don’t want to risk loosing them to a busted water pipe.

Lovely Ladies

August 7, 2019August 7, 2019Leave a comment

As I download, upload, and edit photos every night, I try to think of some meaningful focus for this blog. Tonight, I am tired and what strikes me are the lovely lady names of some of today’s bloomers. They all look like they are dancing to me, too.

Classy Lady caught my eye first thing!

Classy Lady 8/6

Dancing Maiden is getting some great, flowing blooms now.

Dancing Maiden 8/6

Rosie’s Red always adds such color to the front garden.

Rosie’s Red 8/6

Nona’s Garnet Spider is doing morning yoga.

Nona’s Garnet Spider 8/6

Maya Cha Cha is always an eye-catching gal ready to meet the day with a smile.

Maya Cha Cha 8/6

Lobo Lucy is a fine redhead.

Lobo Lucy 8/6

Black-eyed Susan shines on.

Black-Eyed Susan 8/6

And, Ruby Stella is a non-stop bloomer this summer!

Ruby Stella 8/6

The top photo is Spirit of the Morning, who woke up dancing a beautiful ballet.

And, amidst my flourishing daylilies who have not been bug sprayed or fertilized all summer due to my busy schedule are my Christmas plants. My baby amaryllis bulbs of 3 years ago are sending up spikes now! But, my poinsettias still look like they are frozen in early June. New leaves, but small. I started fertilizing . . . but I usually bring these in late August to start the bloom cycle and these guys are nowhere close to ready. Well, one is big and full. Two are small size but not pigmy. Three are pigmy. What to do with them if they don’t correct in the next few weeks??? Was it the cold spring??? And, oh, the fall daylily chores start to cross my mind – maybe move a couple that haven’t bloomed or add a front garden drip system. A gardener’s mind is always dancing.

Five Months Until Christmas!!!

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019Leave a comment

The rain is pouring outside as the thunder crashes. It was hot today and I had over 70 blooms, again. For some reason, the 7/25 hit me as 5 months until Christmas. The daylilies will lie still under the ground and snow; under layers of leaf mulch. I will be inside bored and playing with orchids and poinsettias as the daylilies rest before the next season. I thought I would share my two Christmas named daylilies from today as a reminder that the seasons change so quickly.

Santa Fe Christmas 7/25

Santa’s Pants 7/25

I got called in early to work, so my daylily photos had to wait until after work – late afternoon. Some were a little weathered, but all were fully open (which is a challenge before work). I had 3 new kids today – and I forgot to take a photo of Navajo Grey Hills. I saw it but got distracted by all the others so had to blow up a photo of it in the background (see top photo). Tired and out of sync.

Navajo Grey Hills – 7/25

Today’s Premiers include Classy Lady – she was one that was either a bonus or an add on to a lily auction order. I like her shape and color – she is a consistent bloomer.

Classy Lady 7/25

Tiger Kitten gave us her first purr for the season. I am fairly sure she was a bonus. Seriously, I paid nothing for many of my daylilies. Others were only a few dollars online. Nurse’s Stethoscope was my most expensive at about $100. But, I helped to name her so it was a treat. (She suffered a set back with the cold spring but finally has a scape.)

Tiger Kitten 7/25

The last Premier is Bella Boo. I got Bella Boo and Platinum Pink Palet Whispers for $10 for 2 deal at a local nursery a couple years ago. I stuck them in the same pot. I think this might be Bella’s first bloom ever in my yard.

Bella Boo 7/25

My flowers are so beautiful at peak. I love the huge spiders the most. Tomorrow, we will see what blooms after the downpour. PS – Speaking of Christmas and poinsettias, the cold spring has my plants looking like they should in mid-June. Sort of wondering if they will come back enough before fall.

Colorado Kid Daylilies

A Blog About My Western Colorado Daylily Adventure

Tag: Classy Lady