The Colorado Kid: Our Mascot in Bloom

June 28, 2016June 28, 2016Leave a comment

It was odd how daylily fever gripped me last summer. I was just coming off a rough spot in my career and headed back to school for my doctorate. The more I figured out online ordering, the more I got into looking for specialty daylilies. And, for a few weeks, the near blues intrigued me deeply. I ordered a few . . . (3/5 I lost in the spring). But, I had ordered a couple more later on, because I thought they had nice blue. The Colorado Kid is in my yard both because of color and name. I am infatuated by my first near blue bloom. Do not ask how many photos I took of it this AM. This is that one that is the mascot of this blog! Check out our logo. The Colorado Kid is prettier than I imagined it.

The Colorado Kid in shade – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

The color is more purple in direct sunlight, but still an stunning color combination.

Colorado Kid in the sun – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Other bloomers today include Ruby Spider. I love those huge red peddles. I have painted them on so many Christmas gifts!

Ruby Spider – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

And Hopi Jewel.

Hopi Jewel – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

And, last but not least, Early Bird Cardinal. His eyes were not quite open yet when I snapped this before work.

Early Bird Cardinal just waking up – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Tomorrow, I am not sure. I think Desert Flame. I guess that gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning!

Kokopelli: Changing Winter to Spring

June 25, 20161 Comment

I have always found the legend of the kokopelli inspirational. Flute players who bring bags of seeds to change winter to spring. I think one of the most inspiring depictions of kokopelli are the benches in the kivas at Lowry Anasazi Ruins just south of where I live in Colorado. The ruins are always stunning because of these kokopelli benches.

Kokopelli – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

So, is it any wonder that on one of my first trips to the Lily Auction last fall that a bloomer named Kokopelli caught my eye. I blogged a couple weeks ago about my first auction experience . . . and my goal was to bring Kokopelli to my yard. Another bonus was that the grower was in Santa Barbara, my mom’s adulthood hometown. It seemed right. So right, as a matter of fact, that I began collecting the Ned Roberts southwestern named daylilies with that purchase. And, today, my first Kokopelli bloom arrives.

Another bloom that drew me in last fall, as I began to hone in on my southwest themed daylilies, was Wild Horses. This bloom just kept drawing me back, over and over. In the end, I purchased this one at an end of the year sale (from a San Francisco area grower – my dad’s childhood home region). There is something about the shapes and colors that makes me want to visit the wild mustangs.

Wild Horses – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Today’s other blooms include Black Ice, Chama Valley (named for a place in New Mexico), and little Happy Returns. So from here out sit back and relax. The daylily popcorn is popping. There should be more new ones tomorrow. I am hoping for Mesa Verde!

Black Ice – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Chama Valley – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Happy Returns – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Ta ta until tomorrow!

Black Ice on a Summer Day

June 24, 2016Leave a comment

Black ice reminds me of winter roads in Colorado. I live rural and often have had a hefty commute to work. Black ice is why I prefer to be off those roads by sundown. And, it has caused me to fall on my face walking the dogs a few times, too.

Today, though, Black Ice brings positive emotion. I love this new addition to my garden! First bloom today. It looks like black velvet to me. And, it spilled pollen down it’s front peddle. This is another Ned Roberts creation that is in my new Southwestern garden. Black Ice may not remind everyone of the Southwest. It does me. I live here.

Black Ice – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Other blooms are Early Bird Cardinal (That yard flag in the background has a red cardinal on it and next shot, I will untangle it for the photo. Those colors are very close!)

Early Bird Cardinal – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

And, huge old Ruby Spider!

Ruby Spider – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

Lastly, poor frail Electric Lizard’s last bud (for now). I am cutting off its fans to see if it will thicken up. I am hopeful for a couple more blooms this year.

Electric Lizard – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies – C. Hartt

I have a bunch of buds that look nearly ready to bust. Wild Horses, Mesa Verde and Saratoga Springtime look the closest. It looks like more Black Ice is on the weather report for tomorrow (or soon), too. I can’t wait. It’s better than an Easter Egg hunt every morning!

Chameleon

June 24, 2016June 24, 2016Leave a comment

I had a chameleon when I was a kid. It is a curious thing how they can change color based on their surroundings. Funny little lizards.

Speaking of lizards that change colors, I posted a week or two ago about my first Electric Lizard bloom. It was early, and pretty anemic looking. I asked the daylily growers and was advised to fertilize. And, so I did. It lost some of its buds, but today it did send out another bloom. And, the colors have changed to deeper tones with more variation.

So, for review, here is what the photos on the web look like:

And, here was my first (very pale) bloom:

Electric Lizard – Early June 2016 – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies

And, here is today’s blossom:

So, it looks pretty frail but the color is definitely darkening. The frailty may be partial because it was just after sunrise (5:30 AM) and it had barely opened. I don’t get up anywhere near that early usually, but today I had an out of town conference for my doctorate clinical hours. By the time I got home, it had poured rain, and the blossom was withered. I think I will have another bloom from this one tomorrow.

After that, I am cutting the foliage to the ground to see if I can thicken it up a bit because even the fans look anemic and undersized. I did use slow release fertilizer plus a slow infusion of high-bloom Miracle Grow. It is obviously perking up some but has a ways to go before it looks like photo #1. I like the blooms that are picture perfect. But, I also like the feeling of being a farmer. I like experimenting to see what helps the flowers to flourish here in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau. I think of the Anasazi and wonder how on earth they grew corn and squash in this hard clay soil with so little rain. No garden soil, no water crystals, no hose. If they can do it, so can I.

Tomorrow, in addition to another Electric Lizard, I think I will have a Ned Roberts Black Ice bloom. I want to send a photo to the grower because she sent an awesome bonus plant despite my small order. I believe I may have a couple other new faces tomorrow. Before they open their buds, I must close my eyes. What a very long day.

Jewels of the Garden

June 22, 2016June 22, 2016Leave a comment

With the light of day, two jewels glimmered in my garden. One is my old favorite, Ruby Spider. Ruby is one of the oldest of my daylily collection. I have had her close to a decade. She was added to fill a planter box that hides my drip system controls. I used ornamental grass the first couple years, but it always died over the winter. So, why not daylilies? This one is still in the same planter (although divisions are now in the main garden) with Return a Smile and Just Plum Happy. Ruby’s bloom is so big and bright that it almost looks fake to me. I know daylily season has started when this one opens its first bloom.

Ruby Spider – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

The other jewel in bloom today is a new daylily called Hopi Jewel. My thanks to Blue Ridge Daylilies for picking up my Southwest name theme and sending this as a gift plant. It’s in with my new Ned Roberts garden, as are a select few other aptly named non-Neds.

Hopi Jewel – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

I must be taken with Hopi Jewel, because I took a lot of photos of her. It is a nice shape and color combination. And, maybe it is just fun to see another new face in my new garden. It took me days to clear the rocks, dig out some of the hard clay desert soil (we call it adobe soil), and fill it in with topsoil and compost. And, now it is home to over 50 new daylilies, mostly my Southwest named Neds. It is nice, though, to have a few with rounder shapes.

Hopi Jewel – Photo by Colorado Kid Daylilies (C. Hartt)

I keep wondering if the daylilies will spread to take over or if they will stay in their current space. The desert has the sun these guys love, but the soil is hard clay and the rain virtually non-existent. It’s not Asia. It’s not even Georgia, where many of these plants came from. According to climatemps.com, Georgia gets about 5 times as much precipitation. That’s about 25 more gallons per square foot. One good thing about my Neds is that they were hybridized in New Mexico and Colorado. Still, they do so much better in bagged soil and added water crystals.

I am at a clinical conference out-of-town during the day tomorrow. I am unsure if anything else is on the verge of a bloom, but I am going to do my best to go out and check before I leave . . . sometime between 5 and 6 AM. Unlike my lilies, I do not bloom that early!

Focus on Daylilies

June 20, 2016June 20, 20162 Comments

I went camping this weekend. It’s my semester break from my doctoral program. However, I am teaching a class and implementing my project. So, it was a quick get away. I came home to find that I had missed Chief Four Fingers and Early Bird Cardinal’s first blooms. However, Happy Returns had two blossoms to greet me.

As always, I ran out with my Canon Powershot and my Kindle to get a shot. After that, I went in to download my vacation pictures. On the same card are my first camera versions of the photos that I have shared here. I thought would do a couple of comparisons.

Below is my first bloom, Electric Lizard. The first one is by Kindle, the second with the Powershot.

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Electric Lizard Daylily taken with Amazon Kindle

Electric Lizard taken with Canon Powershot

Below is Dream Keeper, first by Kindle and then by Powershot:

Dream Keeper taken with Amazon Kindle

Dream Keeper taken with Canon Powershot

I paint my Christmas gifts from the photos, so detail and color are important. Still, I am on a student budget until I return to work. So these are my options. The Kindle does a decent job for something that I can post immediately. However, the Canon sure has crisper detail.

I welcome any thoughts experiences readers have had with photographing these beauties. I am hopeful for another bloom or two very soon.

First bloom

June 11, 2016June 11, 2016Leave a comment

Today came the first bloom. Electric Lizard opened it’s bud as the first daylily for the season, 2016. It is a pale and anemic bloom . . . just like Indian Sky was when it bloomed in March. For some reason, both evergreens bloomed early despite scraggly foliage. It is still pretty, it just looks very different from its online photo.

I could be upset of disappointed. Mostly, though, I am curious about how to be a successful daylily gardener. It fascinates me how the color can be so off. So, I asked the American Hemerocallis Association Facebook page. One of the nice hybridizers inquired about fertilizer and gave me suggestions. He also said this one is a hybrid from Ohio, even though it is evergreen, so it could probably be left outside in the winter.

OK, so I am curious about differences in climate between Western Colorado and Ohio. I found a website where I can compare Denver to Dayton. The main thing I see there is that Ohio gets more moisture and isn’t quite as cold, on average. Oh course, Denver is on the other side of the Rockies, so I am unsure how true the comparison is to my garden. More than those items, I wonder about how our crazy Rocky Mountain springs impact the more delicate daylilies. It will be 75 one day and 25 the next, over and over. I am sure that is what got two of my evergreens this spring. That is what makes this Western Slope gardening so interesting. (I bet the soil is way different, too!)

So, of course, the dilemma is to leave it out or not leave it out next winter? First, though, I have got to treat the anemia. If I can get it to flourish (I adopted it in the fall last year so it is still a baby), then I would consider leaving it out. At any rate, tomorrow I will get some slow release fertilizer for the two spindly ones and watch for the next bloom.

What is next? I am not sure but Happy Returns is an early bird. Mesa Verde, Dream Keeper, Kokopelli (and a couple of others in the new garden), Early Bird Cardinal, etc. all have some decent sized buds forming. Lots of scapes out there. Oh, and The Colorado Kid! I can’t wait to see how close the colors on that are to the logo on this blog. I don’t think any will open tomorrow . . . but soon, very soon.

Leaping Lizards!

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016Leave a comment

One of the interesting things about adopting some evergreens this year is watching them adapt to life outside of the winter porch, again. I had one premature bloom on Indian Sky in March and had to cut the fans back because they were a little anemic looking after that. It seems to be recovering.

The other one that I have been keeping an eye on because it looks a little scraggly is Electric Lizard. This guy is special to me because he was one of my very first Lily Auction buys. I remember that day so well. I was editing a final paper for one of my first term courses while I waited to participate in the bidding on a couple of daylilies that I really wanted for my Southwestern garden. Well, the first one came and went with me totally losing out to a flurry of bidding. Total neophyte at online auctions, I was. And, I really wanted the other one that was up for bid later.

It became obvious that I needed to find some affordable lilies that were up for bid between now and the time of the second Southwest bloom. Why? So I could figure out the system. I ended up winning three before that second lily came up on the clock. And, I figured it out. First, on a slow item . . . then I slowly turned up the volume.

Electric Lizard was my first fast bidding experience. And, I obviously won the iridescent bloom. Won, of course, is a misnomer because you pay more when you battle the competition. And it’s addicting. I have never done a full-day like that since.

So, now this somewhat skinny-leafed friend has a scape with a bud that looks ready to open soon. Very soon. Maybe tomorrow. It has to think spring started in February on my porch to be the first bloomer of 2016, because it is supposed to wait until mid-season. Happy Returns is always the first, but it looks like it will get beaten this year. And, once the daylily popcorn starts to pop, it’s just going to keep going. Can’t wait . . . time to charge the camera battery because this blurry cell phone shot does not do it justice.

(PS the Electric Lizard bloom photo is from the Lily Auction).

Getting my Kicks

June 8, 2016June 8, 2016Leave a comment

As the scapes grow in preparation for blooms and the outdoor thermostat gets turned up, I think about the first sign of spring. For me, that is my Southwest road trip. It is a new tradition for the last three years. When you drive south from Colorado, it is nearly impossible not to hit #Route66.

The first year, it was the goal to travel Route 66. We took the old road as much as we could, and took the Route 66 turnout at our end point, the Petrified Forest. I love this old car at the turn-out!

The Petrified Forest/Painted Desert have become favorite stops because they are #dogfriendly. There are very few National Parks with such open rules about dogs. So, it is a great ice cream and a hike stop.

And, the scenery is like something out of Jurassic Park. What was once the far point of my trip is now more of a gateway to the Senora Desert.

So, what does this matter to a daylily blog? Well, first of all, I take the trip about the time that the daylilies are starting to send up new growth for the year. But the other really cool part is that after that first trip to Route 66, I came home to find a daylily named Route 66.

I found it in the local garden shop, before I got addicted to the mail order daylilies. It was one of those strange coincidences, just like my 6/5/16 blog about finding a local Stephanie Returns daylily the year my daughter, Stephanie, returned to Colorado. Route 66 is an older daylily that was hybridized in 1967. The colors match my Route 66 tea shirt. It is a hardy daylily and I look forward to seeing it again in 2016!

Welcome to my daylily blog

June 5, 2016June 5, 20162 Comments

Thanks for visiting my daylily blog. Last year, I started back to school full-time to complete a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. I am an educator and healthcare leader, so I felt ready for some added wisdom. I have always been a fan of daylilies, and the past year I would say that they have become my therapist. I am also a resilience coach and believe these flowers are the symbol of flourishing.

So, last year, I discovered the joy of ordering daylily roots directly from the hybridizers and growers. Before that, I was dependent on the varieties at the local nurseries. I have gotten some great cultivators that way! However, last year I decided that I wanted to reorganize my languishing front path garden and make daylilies the primary flower. And, for cost and variety sake, I decided to try my luck at using mail order.

Like all new hobbies, there is a learning curve to this stuff. And, so I ordered too late for blooms last year. I used coconut pots that cramped the roots, which didn’t help. At first, I used just one grower. Then, I got fascinated with the near blue daylilies, and those searches lead me to a couple of other farmers. By fall, I figured out the auctions, as well as several other mail order daylily suppliers.

I studied evergreens, semi-evergreens, and dormant varieties. The blue ones were often evergreen and spent the winter on the porch. Those blue ones that were semi-evergreen stayed outside and succumbed to a late freeze. Even one of the ones that looked good inside has slowly died this spring. That was hard because they were expensive! And, I didn’t know about getting the best deals, so I paid too much for them.

Fortunately, I still have five near-blues that are thriving. I also have around 140 other varieties. My late summer interest was the Ned Roberts daylilies with Southwestern names. I started with Kokopelli on the auction. Now, I have a whole section of the rock garden converted for a variety of those blooms.

And, so this blog is born as a way to document the beauty of the daily flowers with photography. I have almost a dozen scapes growing on daylilies, so the first blooms are only a couple of weeks away. I hope you enjoy and will share your adventures with your own gardens here.

Today, I am sharing a photo of one of my favorites, Stephanie Returns. This variety is one that I got from a local grower last spring. That was the same season that my daughter, Stephanie, returned to Colorado. Until those blooms happen, I will be blogging about some of my oldies from last year.

Colorado Kid Daylilies

A Blog About My Western Colorado Daylily Adventure

Tag: daylily