Late June/Early July Daylily Blooms: A Peak Season Update

July 4, 20251 Comment

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.

AI Impact on Blogging and Etsy: Insights from a Daylily Hobbyist and Artist

July 9, 2024Leave a comment

Midseason Monday Meanderings

Midseason Monday brings only 2 first blooms for 2024 to the yard. The first is an older daylily, Prairie Blue Eyes. Even though she is a classic, Prairie Blue Eyes has a nice blue hue around the eye zone.

The second is one I got as a bonus called Nona’s Garnet Spider. She is a 90s girl. Nona is a petite spider that adds a nice red accent in my front path garden.

It was a nice break in the flurry of midseason today. I had other things to get done today. Finding balance during peak season is always a challenge, and I don’t think I am at peak. This year may be more like a prolonged plateau until Fall.

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Ned Roberts Spider Daylily Collection To Date

I wanted to show off my Ned Roberts spiders so far this season. I have over 70 total Ned cultivators – I hope this isn’t an accurate mid-season picture as far as bloom rate. I am nowhere close to 35 (or midway). Here they are in the order shown below: Chaco Canyon, Chief Four Fingers, Chokecherry Mountain, Comanche Princess, Coral Taco, Echo Canyon, Fried Green Tomatoes, Kachina Dancer, Kokopelli, Maya Cha Cha, Papa Longlegs, Pueblo Dancer, Talon. 13 of 70 is about 18%, so the Southwest Road Trip Garden is lower than my yard as a whole.

To AI or Not to AI? That is the Question!

To my fellow bloggers out there, what are your thoughts on AI? I have been using the Word Press AI feature for headlines and my stats seem to be up, but it also feels a little distant or impersonal. That said, it does save a little time. The excerpt is another time-saver, but again feels impersonal. I feel like the 3rd person.

I usually use Grammarly, but it hasn’t been running for a few days for some reason. I like the feedback it gives, generally speaking. I used it for my doctorate, also, and found it helpful – although it argues with the AI I use for my Etsy listings. I SMH with the bots arguing about grammar but using AI does seem to be increasing my Etsy traffic.

Bloggers – if you are using AI, do you think it is helping with traffic? If yes – why and how much???

Speaking of Etsy . . .

Please don’t forget my Until the Last Daylily Blooms art sale on Etsy. This sale is on all of my daylily artwork – wall art, pots, clocks, and cards. Please follow my Art from the Hartt page on Facebook and Instagram for updates and process videos. Click here to visit my Etsy shop.

I will be adding some new pieces before the summer is over. I plan to do some daylily paintings over a marbled acrylic pour background. I will be talking more about my process in the next few weeks!

The Old Bucket is Blooming

July 6, 2023July 6, 2023Leave a comment

Well, the bucket itself isn’t blooming, but the daylilies I put in it are. It’s been 8 years since I rounded up all the daylilies from one of my edge gardens because they were devolving. I’m surprised how well they have peacefully existed over the years.

Both today’s new blooms are from the “bucket” AKA planter. Prairie Blue Eyes is a classic with a decent blue eye in some lights. The other one is NOID that I call Dark Mystery.

Visit my website www.ArtfromtheHartt.com

Colorado Foothills

July 8, 2022Leave a comment

Gradual increases in elevation as we climb to the peak. Today, it felt like the peak was not too much more of a climb. Grab your oxygen, here are the new blooms for today:

Cricket Call 7.7 (Ned Roberts spider #15)

Maya Cha Cha 7.7 (Ned Roberts spider #16)

Rocky Mountain Pals 7.7 (Ned Roberts spider #17)

That’s 9 new, 44 in bloom today, and 70 total that have bloomed this year. That’s a 40% bloom rate and we are headed for around 90%. 70 down, almost 100 to go to reach that goal. Makes me tired but tomorrow, we climb, again. Good thing for our Rocky Mountain Pals.

July Daylily Round-up N-Z

August 1, 20211 Comment

Here is part 1 of this blog post These posts include all daylilies that were in bloom in July in my yard. Please see first post for more details.

Nosferatu 7.12-7.19 (end 7.19-7.24 during vaca)

Oh Erica 7.17 (end 7.19-7.24 during vaca)

Pizza Crust (started week of 7.19)-present

Purple Grasshopper 6.11-present. Non-stop!

Red Hot Returns 7.11-7.19 (ended 7.19-7.25 during vaca)

Royal Braid 7.18 (ended 7.19-7.25 during vaca)

Ruby Spider 6.22-7.19 (ended 7.19-7.24 during vaca)

Spirit of the Morning 7.12-8.1 (unless I missed a bud)

No U, No V – I need to fix that with some new flowers 🙂

No X, either!

Yellow Punch 6.15-7.4 (first encore 7.31)

That is all for July, folks. Look for our Colorado Day (8/1) blooms up next!

The First Three Days

July 4, 2021Leave a comment

Finally caught-up taking photos off my camera. Never let that go for a week or two this time of year – you play heck catching-up. So, I thought I would get the blog fully up-to date by sharing our July 1-3 premier blooms for this year. Enjoy. Hopefully, tomorrow I start get back in daily sync. The good news is I got my art cove all cleaned, decluttered and added some fun stuff. That means the daylily paintings are coming – for sale through my business Art and Nature From the Hartt http://artandnaturefromthehartt.com

That’s 18 more in 3 days (wholly cow)! That brings our total to 70 that have bloomed so far. Happy 4th – hope to post the morning daylilies tomorrow.

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.

Daylilies of Corona: June Blooms

July 1, 2020Leave a comment

Last year, I posted all my blooms each week on Sunday since it is too much to do daily. This year, I am going to try to do a recap at the end of the month. So, for June 2020, we had the following 50:

Pink Spiders, Red Flags, and Things that Go Bump in the Night

June 30, 2020Leave a comment

Today was another red flag day with a fair amount of wind. Nothing like we have had a few times this spring – but decidedly dry and breezy. And, as the clouds do so often in drought years, the grey clouds seem to tease as they drift by, only leaving a few drops of moisture behind.

The premiers today were mostly pink spiders. And, pink Ned Roberts spiders, at that. Now, trying to photograph a spider daylily with wind gusts up to 30 MPH is interesting. I am like a dentist trying to tell the wind to hold it’s breath until I snap the picture. My patient is non-compliant.

First premier pink spider was Rocky Mountain Pals. This daylily has a sweet story of being dedicated to the hybridizer’s cancer treatment team. I told the story to a co-worker today because she is battling cancer.

Next, big old Pink Rain Dance catches my eye. She is a huge bloom and such a great pastel pink. I can only guess Ned Roberts named her during a drought year in the Southwest.

Funky named Pink Enchilada was also in my pack of pink premier spiders. Another big. floppy spider from my Roberts collection. I suppose they are all cousins, or something.

My last premier is an older daylily that deserves some credit for a bit of near blue – which didn’t happen much during the time she was hybridized. Prairie Blue Eyes opened her eyes for the first time in 2020 today.

I recounted scapes tonight and I think it is about 130 now. So, potentially a decent bloom rate. I can’t believe I’ll miss 6 days of it – but I will savor coming home to see the color.

As for things that go bump in the night – it is probably just my cats playing with their toys at 2 AM.

Singing the Blues

July 31, 2019July 31, 2019Leave a comment

Why is it that we always want what we can’t have? Early in my daylily addiction, when I had planted my first mail-order roots, I became fascinated with blue daylilies. Well, actually, daylilies lack the genetics to make blue. So, you know, I became infatuated with “near blue” daylilies whose mosiac genetics lead them to look blue. This predates my addiction to Ned Roberts spiders. All my near blues are in pots and come into the back porch for the winter because they are evergreen daylilies and prefer warmer temps. My near blues have a special spot in the front yard where the pots live from March-October.

So, one of my Premiers today is a new near blue added last year called Baby Blue Eyes. I honestly thought I had killed her because the drought hit and, after my skin cancer surgery, I just gave up on the yard. I kept her on the porch, though, despite the fact she looked dried up. And, come spring, she came to life. I love the colors – she is a true near blue.

Baby Blue Eyes 7/30

I am going to show off my other near blues because their bloom cycle is nearing an end. My favorite is The Colorado Kid. I was just googling place names to see if there were daylilies with that name – and she popped up. I think this is year 4 for her – she is our mascot flower. She had a lot of blooms this year and has a couple of buds left. Baby Blue Eyes has similar coloring.

The Colorado Kid – July, 2019

I also have Blue Beat, an early addition and a nice blue replica.

Blue Beat – July, 2019

Bluegrass Music is a must-have blue daylily. I got pretty ripped off by the place I bought her from, but she has paid off with several years of blooms.

Bluegrass Music – July, 2019

Mildred Mitchell is an older cultivator, but she caught my eye as having a nice blue -looking color in the right light.

Mildred Mitchell – July, 2019

Prairie Blue Eyes is not in my blue section, but she also has a blue hue at times.

Prairie Blue Eyes – July, 2019

I got Heron’s Cove as a near blue – but moved her because she rarely looks blue – but occasionally, I see a bit of a bluish tint in her.

Heron’s Cove – July, 2019

OK – So I had two other Premiers today – both Ned Roberts spiders. Golden Eclipse showed her first bloom in my yard today. I have had her 2-3 years. The grower is someone I got a lot of my Neds from and she said it was an ugly brown color and to be sure I really wanted it. I think she is a pretty gold – a unique color for a daylily.

Golden Eclipse 7/30

And, big bloom Purple Thunderbird is back this year.

Purple Thunderbird 7/30

I will be out of premiers soon with three in one day. I maybe have 6-12 left in my whole yard. Honestly, I will be glad for it to slow down. I had 58 today.

Colorado Kid Daylilies

A Blog About My Western Colorado Daylily Adventure

Tag: Prairie Blue Eyes