Tag: Denver

My Colorado Kids

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Faculty comes back to work tomorrow (except me – because the boss gets to work all summer 😉 ) Still, I had 40 cultivators in bloom today.  Last year at this time, I was having surgery in a week, in-process with interviewing for this job . . . and I had only a handful of daylilies.  There were none left to bloom.  And, mid-August, the blog dropped into nothingness until poinsettia time.   It is Jugust in my yard – my poinsettias look like it’s June and my daylilies think it is July . . . and faculty come back to work tomorrow.

Anyway – I still have 5ish that have scapes and have not bloomed yet and a lot with buds left – this blog season is not close to being over yet.  So, what to talk about today?  Well, I was going to talk about my daylilies with Colorado names.  A couple are in bloom today – but let’s look at the summer.

Cripple Creek is a golden Ned Roberts spider that I assume is named for the gold rush town of Cripple Creek in Colorado.  Ned, the hybridizer, lived fairly near Cripple Creek, CO.

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Cripple Creek – 2019

I believe Echo Canyon is named for a canyon near the Royal Gorge.  Ned Roberts lived closeby in Colorado Springs.

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Echo Canyon – 2019

Glen Eyrie IS a place in Colorado Springs – no doubt about it!  It is an old castle and new conference center.  Another Ned Roberts spider.

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Glen Eyrie 2019

Hesperus is the name of a sacred (to the Navajo) mountain in the San Juan Mountain Range near my home.  I have no idea if the cultivator was named after the mountain, but I like the theory enough that I bought the daylily.

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Hesperus – 2019

Mount Echo Sunrise – I am guessing this is named after Echo Mountain that is the tallest mountain visible from Denver.  It is a guess because it is another Ned Roberts daylily.

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Mount Echo Sunrise – 2019

Rocky Mountain Pals was named for the folks at the University Cancer Center in Denver – there Ned Roberts went for treatment later in his life.  At least that is the story I was told.

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Rocky Mountain Pals – 2019

The Colorado Kid is named after the movie – but when I saw the name early in my place name and blue daylily addiction, she had to be mine.  She is the mascot of this blog!

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The Colorado Kid – 2019

 

First bloom

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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.

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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.

Electric Lizard

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.