Well, here I am at 11 PM starting my blog. I had to go into work and trim my hedge . . . so, that’s life. Once again, I have over 60 in bloom including 5 premiers. IDK, I think we are still on the plateau bloom season.
Before I list the premiers, I want to point out something that I learned coincidentally. I have a three sided yard – one side is an outdoor porch between the house and the garage. Then the front and side lawns. Each gets varying amounts of sun and water. When dividing daylilies to fill spaces several years ago, I noted that the cultivators bloomed as slightly different times and even had a slightly different hue. So, blooms that I want to extend for more weeks, I put in two locations in my yard. Like a cultivator? – double it by giving it two different areas.
Canyon Colors first bloomed in my big pot on the NW corner of my home on 6.15 – almost exactly a month ago. Towards the end of that cycle of blooms, the Canyon Colors in the Southwest Garden started blooming. Today, she had her finale. And, the big pot started reblooming. I am going to have Canyon Colors all summer!
OK – Premiers:
Autumn Jewels 7.16 – a close relative to El Desperado tells me the season is moving forwardDancing Maiden 7.16 – With her close relative, Aztec Firebird, in the background. I am glad these are in separate pots because otherwise it is hard to tell which bloom belongs to which plant. I think there were a couple of years where I thought the was Aztec Firebird.Golden Eclipse 7.16 – Another bloomer that comes later in the season. I love her color, although the grower told me I might be disappointed. I’m not.Indian Sky 7.16 – I bought this from a grower who called it Indian Sky but it doesn’t look like the one on the Daylily Society website. It does look like the one on the grower’s website. So, I still think she is pretty.Navajo Grey Hills 7.16 with a funky first bloom. Bugs, no doubt. I have faith it will straighten out. I really like this Roberts spider!
Finales:
Nurse’s Stethoscope finale 7.16 – This one that was born out of a name I suggested on the Daylily Society FB page. She totally fits her name if you ask me.Lacey Doily 7.16 – A pretty little mini
There may be others that I missed so I should call these finales or near finales.
Encores:
Canyon Colors first rebloom on 7.16
That’s all folks. Thinking a couple more are going to jump in tomorrow.
Hi all – When it is Saturday and it hasn’t been the fun day that I planned. COVID had driven the world mad – and they seem to all be mad at me. So, how about a little Ned Robert’s daylily therapy? I fell in love with Ned’s southwestern named daylilies after finding Kokopelli on Lily Auction 5 years ago. I have a collection of 70 ish now. I am including a few from 2019 if they didn’t bloom this year. Comment with your favorite! Direct from Montrose, Colorado . . .
Adios Albuquerque 2019Apache Bandana 2019Apache Beacon (w Dream Catcher) 2019Aztec Firebird 7.19.20BlackArrowhead 7.19.20Black Ice 7.21.20Chaco Canyon 7.29.20Cheyenne Eyes 6.30.20Chief Four Fingers 2019Chokecherry Mountain 7.20.20Comanche Princess 6.26.20Coral Taco 6.30.20Cricket Call 2019Coyote Laughs 7.20.20Cripple Creek 7.21.20Dancing Maiden 7.20.1Desert Icicle 8.8.20Dream Catcher 7.28.20Dream Keeper 6.6.20Feather Woman 2019Fox Ears 2019Ghost Ranch 2019Echo Canyon 6.25.20Glen Eyrie 7.21.20Golden Eclipse 7.30.20Happy Hopi 7.3.20Iktomi 7.21.20Kachina Firecracker 7.30.20Kachina Dancer 7.20.20Kiva Dancer 7.1.20Kokopelli 7.20.20Land of Enchantment 6.20.20Laughing Feather 6.26.20Lobo Lucy 7.19.20Mama Cuna 8.4.20Mauna Loa 6.26.20Maya Cha Cha 7.17.20Medicine Feather 2019Moon over Chimayo 8.8.20Mount Echo Sunrise 6.23.20Navajo Curls 8.4.20Navajo Grey Hills 7.23.20Navajo Rodeo 2019Ojo De Dios 6.23.20Papa Longlegs 7.18.20Pink Enchilada 7.5.20Pink Rain Dance 7.2.20Purple Corn Dancer 8.5.20Purple Grasshopper 2019Purple Many Faces 6.24.20Purple Thunderbird 8.5.20Raspberry Propeller 7.17.20Raven Woodsong 8.8.20Rocky Mountain Pals 7.17.20Santa Fe ChristmasShape Shifter 7.27.20Skinwalker 7.29.20Spirit of the Morning 7.23.20Star Over MilagroTaco Twister 7.20.20Talon 7.27.20Twirling Pinata 7.27.20Wild Rose Fandango 2019Winds of Love 7.22.20Zuni Eye 2019Zuni Thunderbird 7.22.20
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.
Chorus Line 8.6.20El Desperado 8.6.20Moon Over Chimayo 8.6.20Navajo Grey Hills 8.6.20Purple Thunderbird 8.6.20Ruby Stella 8.6.20Shape Shifter 8.6.20Skinwalker 8.6.20Treasure of the Southwest 8.6.20
. . . 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!
Purple Corn Dancer 8.5.20
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.
Purple Thunderbird 8.5.20
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.
Navajo Grey Hills 8.5.20
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 8.5.20
Cripple Creek is an early riser and was bright-eyed for the AM photo shoot.
Desert Icicle 8.5.20
Desert Icicle actually looks really good first thing in the morning. She resembles Skinwalker first thing in the morning.
Shape Shifter 8.5.20
But, Shape Shifter is having a hard time opening her eye.
Golden Eclipse 8.5.20
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.
Well, today just about wraps it up as far as premiers in my yard this year . . . other than Purple Corn Dancer all my cultivators with scapes have bloomed. 2020 brought 134 cultivators (two while I was on vaca) to my yard or a 78% bloom rate. Last year, I had 162 bloomers, a 95% bloom rate, and a rainy spring. So, 17% fewer blooms this year. Spring brought a drought and long hours of Corona Virus adaptation for work. I didn’t get the drip system fixed until mid June and I paid for it.
Navajo Curls 8.4.20
My next to last premier this year is Navajo Curls. I love her plump yellow petals. She has sort of an odd name for a blonde daylily. I wonder what Ned was thinking when he named her.
Chaco Canyon 8.4.20Hesperus 8.4.20
Enjoy the other flowers. Tomorrow, it is back to work I go.
Mama Cuna 8.4.20Navajo Grey Hills 8.4.20Royal Palace Prince 8.4.20Ruby Stella 8.4.20Shape Shifter 8.4.20Skinwalker 8.4.20Treasure of the Southwest 8.4.20
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.
Chorus Line 8.3.20
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.
El Desperado 8.3.20
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!
Heirloom Heaven 8.3.20
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.)
Navajo Grey Hills 8.3.20
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.
Purple Thunderbird 8.3.20
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.
Ruby Stella 8.3.20
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.
Shape Shifter 8.3.20
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.
Skinwalker 8.3.20
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.
This was a camping weekend – and, like it or not, the last weekend before school starts. I had a frightening encounter with a drunk driver on the ride home. Not awful, but it coulda been.
Purple Thunderbird 8.2.20
We got home early afternoon. With temps in the 90s with high UV, my blooms were pretty weathered by the time I took pictures. I had one premier – Purple Thunderbird. That leaves only a couple of Roberts premier spiders to bloom in 2020. Purple Thunderbird is a big flower. Her scapes are short in my yard, though.
Navajo Grey Hills 8.2.20
I also noticed that the weathered coloring makes Navajo Grey Hills look, well, grey. She is decidedly purple in the morning.
Shape Shifter 8.2.20
I ordered my first round of improved pots. I need to get soil and manure for the transfers. Might start next weekend and work around those still in bloom – a number that dwindles daily.
Today, I had two Premiers – both Ned Roberts spiders with names from the State to south of here – New Mexico. The first one, Navajo Grey Hills, I believe to be named after a trading post just south of Shiprock, NM (Four-Corners region). I drive that way sometimes but never noticed it . . . I need to keep a lookout.
Navajo Grey Hills 7.23.20
Star over Milagro is the other Premier of the day. Milagro is east of Albuquerque. Off our road trip circuit by a few miles.
Star Over Milagro
Let’s see – Orange Punch was an Encore today.
Yellow Punch 7.23.1
Finales – Stephanie Returns, Fringe Benefit, Longlesson Show-off, Black Arrowhead, and Cheyenne Eyes. I like about 25 blooms – it is a good amount but not overwhelming. And, the monsoons have been back all week.