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.
My daylily counts are dropping into the teens. It’s OK, because I get kinda burned out with the camera this time of year. At peak, the battery needs to be recharged twice a week.
Orange Vols 7.28.20
I hit 130 different cultivaters for the year today with one of my most orange daylilies of the whole bunch. The orange is so deep and so saturated – it looks like my mural paint that is deep orange with a little yellow stirred in that shows up here and there. I do not know for sure which daylily this is because I put in in with the landscaping before I was paying much attention to names. Someone on a daylily page said it looked like Orange Vols – and it does, so I am going with that name.
Shape Shifter 7.28.20
Unbloomed scapes on not-yet-bloomed cultivators are down to a handful. Maybe 5 or 6. I might get an August scape or two – although often I don’t. That puts us at about 80%. Not low 90s like after the rainy spring last year, but not the 60’s I got before the pots and drip system. Speaking of pots, I have some nice ones for the buried Southwest garden in my Target online cart waiting for payday. I think if I do 20 a month – August, Sept, Oct – that is 60. I have 75 in that garden – some still need to be dug out of the mud, clay and roots, too – takes time. Probably 20 or so left to dig up that aren’t in cheep pots. I could leave them for spring.
Dream Catcher 7.28.20
Fall chores take over my brain. Soon, I trade my camera for a shovel.
Change of shift is obviously when one group goes home and another one takes over. Well, since I left on vacation last Wednesday, I have had a lot of premiers and finales. I am not sure how many of each – but I do know that I have 44 in bloom today and 21 are new since I pulled out on my trip.
Rifle Falls State Park, CO
I had about 400 trip photos to go through, so I haven’t had time much time to count finales. I do know I missed at least one and others I only saw one bloom.
Wild Mustang in the Sand Wash Basin, CO
Was it worth it? Oh, yea – Colorado is beautiful and it is good to get out of town. Of course, the downside is that I now worry about COVID. Oh, I masked and carried hand sanitizer everywhere – around my neck. That said, there are a lot of people wondering around Colorado and our cases are on the rise.
Rocky Mountain National Park, COState Forest State Park, CO
I’ve now had about 104 bloom (+/-) so we are at a 61% bloom rate. I’d like to get to 80%, but we will see. I am just going to list the 21 new bloomers (Premiers) in alphabetic order:
Black Arrowhead 7.17.20Cripple Creek 7.17.20Dancing Maiden 7.17.20Dream Catcher 7.17.20Fine Time Lucille 7.17.20Glen Eyrie 7.17.20Hesperus 7.17.20Longlesson Show-off 7.17.20Mama Cuna 7.17.20Marque Moon 7.17.20Painted Petroglyph and her sad, bug eaten bloom 7.17.20Prelude to Love 7.17.20Raspberry Propeller 7.17.20Red Hot Returns 7.17.20Red Mystery 7.17.20Ruby Stella 7.17.20Shape Shifter 7.17.20South Seas 7.17.20Spirit of the Morning 7.17.20Taco Twister 7.17.20Zuni Thunderbird 7.17.20
With 44 in bloom, I am still at peak. We will see what tomorrow brings . . .
Today is my granddaughter, Maia’s, birthday. I limit my words on the anniversary of her birth. Honestly, there are no words for all I feel about her
Adios Albuquerque 8.22
I will say I had a nice bouquet for her today. And, I wanted to see if my computer would run smoother on WordPress tonight. The blog post I did yesterday crashes the app on my phone . . . I don’t know why.
Fox Ears 8.22
Anyway – enjoy Maia’s flowers. The featured photo is Maya Cha Cha – not in bloom today but a great tribute to my beautiful granddaughter.
Frans Hals 8.22
PS – Blogging is a bit easier with this new Lenova 300e tonight – but there is still something funky about Microsoft Edge and WordPress. Is it just me?
It’s crazy – I had 13 cultivators in bloom today. Hello . . . It’s August 20th. The weather is now acting like desert weather. Hot and dry. It was in the 90s today.
Purple Corn Dancer 8.20
It’s been a year tomorrow since my surgery. After that, I could not be in the sun for a few months, so the blog just stopped . . . Until the poinsettias bloomed. I only had Purple Corn Dancer in bloom, anyway. Healing was a journey.
Purple Thunderbird 8.20
I never know what to think this time of year. Tired of the heat but dreading the cold, dark seasons ahead. Tired of my camera but don’t want to miss the late bloomers. Hate to see camping season end but ready for some mellow hikes around home. I think my daylilies are in a similar place with life right now – still blooming but longing for a rest.
Cripple Creek 8.20
PS – I ordered my new 2 in one laptop. My old one was tired, too.
The school year feels like it has started. The new faculty are awesome. Eventually, the routine will settle in, but the chaos takes time to run its course.
Indian Sky 8.19
And, as that happens, the daylilies thin. I have maybe 18 cultivators with buds. Probably about 100 buds. It’s hot, some of them are too thirsty. I lost a few this week.
Shape Shifter 8.19
I start to think about fall chores. Should I put a drip system in the front garden? I need to fix some things in the Southwest garden.
Purple Grasshopper 8.19
By the time the final grades come in, we will be talking about Santa Claus. And, my poor poinsettias. Why aren’t they growing faster. I usually start forcing the first ones about now. I have 2 of 6 that are blooming size. Maybe I need to up their water? Why did 2 grow big?
Frans Hals 8.19
And, my amaryllis have bloomed more this summer than last winter. I had 4 blooms this summer, though my seeds haven’t sprouted.
Navajo Curls 8.19
Fall and winter start to occupy my mind. Air plant decorating . . . They look cool in with cactus, which gives me all sorts of ideas.
Cripple Creek 8.19
For now, I need to focus on this week. Looks like I need a new computer. Sigh. I’m hoping Santa can still afford to bring me a new camera for Christmas.
Only 40 something daylilies today and no Premiers. So, it leaves time to talk about some of my daylily categories. I have talked a lot about my Ned Roberts spiders. I originally started collecting them after seeing Kokopelli on the Lily Auction – I love the Southwest and had to have her (I got the bid)! From there, I added more = lots more. At first, it was all fully Southwest names. Then, I gathered some animal and insect names to my Ned collection. And, some stellar names. IDK, is Dancing Maiden a name from the Southwest?
So, tonight, I will show you my purely Southwest named daylilies – the obvious names from the Southwest. But, first, Mildred Mitchell had an extra petal today – a genetic flaw that made her look pretty cool.
OK – Here are my Southwest Ned Roberts spiders. (These are the ones that have bloomed the last two years. Mostly this year, except Kokopelli did not bloom this year – which is unusual).
Colorado Kid Daylilies 