July is here, and with it comes peak season. I don’t think we are quite to peak yet, but it is approaching quickly. My day starts with photographing each daylily in bloom. Then I feed dogs, irrigate, jog for an hour. When I return, I sit on the front porch and edit the photos. Then, I put them in folders online and post to my personal Facebook page. By then, it’s 2 PM and time for breakfast!
I have had a bunch of new ones since my last post. I will put them in a gallery below. I’ve had 50 new ones since my last post last week!!!
I have had 73 cultivators bloom so far this season out of approximately 190. I lost some last winter. I really need to update my inventory in the software program. Based on those numbers, my bloom rate is about 38% currently. My hope is for 80% this season.
Today, the rain came. Finally! I am hoping for a good monsoon season. We need it. The drought lingers and is growing to the north. So many wildfires out west. I’m surprised that my daylilies are as happy as they are all things considered.
I adore daylily season. But it is always a lot of work that takes a chunk of the day with the photography. However, at this elevation, heat and humidity, the blooms don’t last long. Somedays, they are pretty faded by noon. They look like melted wax to me.
It’s a very different summer with my civic volunteer work. I adore my mornings on the porch editing daylily photos. Finding balance is hard in a “drought of time.”
Catcha next week. I hope your 4th of July garden brings you joy. Sometimes, we are best to focus on the small things right before our eyes and feel gratitude.
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.
Coneflowers in my pet memorial garden.
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.
Fairytale PinkMildred MitchellNearly WildClassy LadyOpen My Eyes
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.
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.
Process video of a pour acrylic pet memorial plaque.New Pour Acrylic StyleGreen Style AFlowered Style B
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.
Today, mid-late season arrived in my yard with a bang. Eight new cultivators. Of note, this was Oh, Erica’s first healthy bloom after three years in my yard. She only has 2 buds, though. The desert if hard.
Titan Sky had the first bloom ever and I’m in love with the colors! My second Ghost Ranch plant bloomed for the first time – the first one died about 3 years ago. I got the new one 2 years ago. If you live in the tropics, it’s different here.
Perhaps it is a bit premature to start my “between the seasons” chores. However, the best time to update my garden map was with several of the cultivators in bloom. It is funny what I forget when they aren’t blooming and look like a cross between grass and a spider plant. So, I printed off the old map and thought it would be a few adjustments. However, the garden grew and changed over the years and the numbering system was confusing – so I started from scratch.
Garden maps are great, though. You know what you have and what you don’t have. You know approximately where your cultivators are – so when that bloom you don’t remember pops up, you can figure out what it is (esp if you lost the label.
Anyway, back to the blooms – I had 3 very different premiers today.
El Desperado 7.17 – This was actually the first cultivator I had in the Southwest Garden (that was much smaller and just had yucca. I put it in a pot and set it out there with no water system other than my watering can. Suffice it to say, she didn’t flourish. I moved her and she did fine but up and died a couple years ago, so this is a replacement. She taught me that I needed irrigation out there before I tried daylilies in that spot, again. Now, there are 79.Oh Erica 7.17 – This is a new addition to the family garden this year. I found the daylily by searching the family member’s name but couldn’t find it for sale. I found the hybridizer and he sold me the fans. I hope she does OK – she looks a little but eaten.Purple Many Faces 7.17 – Pretty late for a premier bloom from this Roberts spider. It usually blooms early July. IDK – moving to the pot – also the drought – she was very slot to start this spring due to looking very dry.
Finales included a lot of big yellow-white flowers today. Sad to see them go.
Heavenly Curls finale 7.17 – She had her best bloom year ever, though!Ghost Ranch finale 7.17 – She only had 2 buds so one premier and one finale. Glad I ordered more.Papa Longlegs finale 7.17 – He also had a good bloom year.Hopi Jewel finale 7.17 – I think of her as an earlier bloomer so it is unusual to still have her blooming.Coral Taco finale 7.16 – I missed her yesterdayPrelude to Love finale 7.17
Only about 36 hours until I head for New Mexico for a few days – to see a Truchas sunrise and visit Ghost Ranch – Oh, and drive the Enchanted Circle in the land of enchantment.
Colorado Kid Daylilies 