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.
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.
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.
Enjoy the other flowers. Tomorrow, it is back to work I go.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Are you ready for a beautiful July parade? Here goes – a listing of all of my daylilies that had first blooms in July. I count 81. Enjoy!
The end of July lurks, school starts soon . . . why does summer break end halfway through summer? I mean, it has only been 6 weeks from Solstice. I had 18 in bloom this pre-fall day.
My daylilies follow the academic calendar, mostly. My students graduated the end of May and the blooms started 6/6. Now, I have Heirloom Heaven as a premier, a steady and late-blooming mini daylily. I only have a couple premiers left to bloom . . . 3 maybe. IDK, maybe the monsoons will bring some August scapes.
I had a second premier today – Royal Palace Prince. I really don’t remember that one being a late bloomer. But, this bonus daylily is definitely on the late side this year.
What’s left? Some cool Roberts spiders – Purple Thunderbird, Navajo Curls and Purple Corn Dancer all have scapes.
I dread return to work. No windows in my office and a bleak brick building with gravel around it. I will miss my dogs and my yard. I finally decided to spend a few bucks on photo squares of a few of my Roberts daylilies for my office. I need to get some of my summer camping trips, too – next paycheck. It is the best I can do right now.
I had no premiers today. It is the time of summer where I am kind of burned out on blogging but there is enough still happening (26 cultivators today) that I am not quite ready to space to biweekly.
I am starting to think about moving the daylilies to better buried pots – thinking I need to purchase the pots soon. Somewhat dreading the work – but know it will be an improvement. That’s fall thinking.
I also decided to get some photo tiles of my favorite daylilies for the office. I think it with be my Ned Roberts spiders – but which ones? I decided I like the light ones that seem to be dancing or laughing – Winds of Love, Skinwalker, and Coyote Laughs come to mind. Darker ones – definitely Zuni Thunderbird. Aztec Firebird and Kokopelli would be high on the list. There are so many I love . . . I will have to see what the pricing is before I decide how many. But, for tonight – enjoy the pale ones who seem to be laughing . . . at me.
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.
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).
Adios Albuquerque – 2019
Apache Bandana – 2019
Apache Beacon – 2019
Aztec Firebirds – 2019
Black Arrowhead – 2019
Chaco Canyon – 2019
Cheyenne Eyes – 2019
Chief Four Fingers – 2019
Chokecherry Mountain – 2019
Comanche Princess – 2019
Coral Taco – 2019
Desert Icicle
Dream Catcher
Echo Canyon – 2019
Feather Woman – 2019
Ghost Ranch – 2019
Glen Eyrie – 2019
Happy Hopi – 2019
Iktomi – 2019
Kachina Firecracker – 2019
Kokopelli – 2018
Land of Enchantment – 2019
Laughing Feather – 2019
Mama Cuna – 2019
Maya Cha Cha – 2019
Medicine Feather – 2019
Mount Echo Sunrise – 2019
Navajo Curls – 2018
Navajo Grey Hills – 2019
Navajo Rodeo – 2019
Ojo de Dios – 2019
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Pink Enchalada – 2019
Pink Rain Dance – 2019
Purple Corndancer – 2018
Purple Many Faces – 2019
Purple Thunderbird – 2019
Santa Fe Christmas
Shape Shifter – 2019
Skinwalker – 2019
Spirit of the Morning – 2019
Star Over Milagro – 2019
Taco Twister – 2019
Talon – 2019
Truchas Sunrise – 2019
Twirling Pinata – 2018
Wild Rose Fandango – 2019
Zuni Eye – 2019
Zuni Thunderbird – 2019
The peak lives on with 72 blooms today. One of the things about photographing so many daylilies before I have to leave for work is that I get in a rush. I focus on the flower and hit the shutter button. Sometimes, when I am editing later, I find stuff that I didn’t notice at the time.
My favorite photobombs have other daylilies that I didn’t notice in the background – like Happy Hopi today:
Happy Hopi with friends Laughing Feather and Zuni Thunderbird 7/26
And, the most common photobombs are when I cut off a petal in the shot by a lot. Why am I struggling to get photos of Navajo Grey Hills?
Navajo Grey Hills 7/26
Of course, there are occasionally cat photobombs:
Skinwalker and my cat, Sokasbai – 7/25
Or, dog photobombs:
Blue Beat and my dog, Maizzy – 7/25
The most embarrassing, though, are the foot photobombs. The flower is at a weird angle, so you try to bend over so you can get a front shot. What was I thinking?
Black Ice and my feet – 7/26
OK – so what about Premiers. Only three today. The pace slows a bit, although I saw my neighbors at dinner and the first thing they talked about was my giant daylilies. So, it isn’t over yet!
Nona’s Garnet Spider was a bonus. She hasn’t been a consistent bloomer but is putting on a good show of buds this year.
Nona’s Garnet Spider – 7/26
Autumn Jewels . . . I think this was a bonus, too. She is related to El Desperado. I had a huge El Desperado for years but lost it to the weird, cold, wet spring. I lost a couple and several had setbacks . . . but so many are blooming this year that haven’t before or the regulars have a higher bud count than usual. It’s interesting the yin and yang of this year. Anyway – I got a new El Desperado and it is just putting up scapes now. I like both of these cultivators.
Autumn Jewels – 7/26
And, Nearly Wild is another bonus plant – she looks like her ancestor, the ditch lily or Fulva. I am sure that is where she gets her name.
Nearly Wild – 7/26
It is raining, again. We will see what that brings.
What a long day. I started at 6:30 AM ET and it’s now tomorrow ET. But, I’m back on MT. And, I’ve been home since 8 PM MT. It’s the time of year where there is still a little light. So, of course, I raced to take daylily photos. Not the best photography AND the poor flowers have had a long day, too. I had 72 cultivators today – it’s another record breaker.
I’m just do Premiers because I’m fading, too.
Ruby Stella 7/20
Wild Horses 7/20
Mayan Poppy 7/20
Chorus Line 7/20
Nosferatu 7/20
Red Bird Mary
Star over Milgro 7/20
Skinwalker 7/20
Lobo Lucy 7/20
Santa Fe Christmas 7/20
Dream Catcher 7/20
Spirit of the Morning 7/20
Shape Shifter 7/20
Desert Icicle 7/20
Colorado Kid Daylilies 