On With the Show, This is It!

July 4, 2022Leave a comment

As the garden rapidly accelerates to peek, I look around to see my lawn that needs mowing, my hedge that needs clipped. Oh, but the daylilies have been rehearsing for the show for months. How can I ignore them? I need a be 3 people in July.

Bunches of premiere blooms today. Where to start. Two new Ned Roberts spiders, Cheyenne Eyes and Navajo Rodeo.

I divided Cheyenne Eyes last fall and she struggled this spring. She produced 1 shore scape with 2 buds. At least I’ll see a couple of blooms.

Navajo Rodeo has not bloomed in at least a couple of years. Before that, she was reliable. Good to have her back.

The Colorado Kid, our blog namesake bloomed. She is one of my favorite near blues!

Holy Sombrero is a fun, huge yellow bloom. Nice bonus daylily several years ago.

Catherine Irene, same name as my momma, bloomed today.

Lullaby Baby, a sweet pastel color, was another new face.

Strutter’s Ball also showed up to the dance.

If I keep getting 5-7 new ones/day, it will quickly crescendo. A week, maybe. Lol, I’ll be camping. But, only miss 2 full days. On with the show, this is it!

Happy Birthday, Colorado!

August 2, 2021Leave a comment

Today is Colorado Day! My home state is 145 years old today! I remember when it was 100 and I was 21, but we won’t go there.

Today, before my one premier, I want to talk about my CO namesake daylilies. I am going to start with Cripple Creek, because she was in bloom today.

Echo Canyon – blooming earlier this year. There are several Echo Canyons in CO, so it is a guess that Ned Roberts named her with Colorado in mind.

Glen Eyrie in bloom last week. That name is Colorado through and through.

Mesa Verde – in bloom earlier this month and also 100% Colorado. We were there last weekend, actually.

Rocky Mountain Pals was named for a healthcare team in Colorado.

The Colorado Kid – our name sake. Definite Colorado ties here!

That’s a nice batch of daylilies to celebrate Colorado’s 145th BD.

Now, on to our (likely) next to last premier. I only have Adios Albuquerque left unless we get an August Surprise. I love Navajo Curls. She looks like melting butter to me. An awesome late bloomer with a ton of buds.

I’m blogged out for the moment but I will be back after a short break – later this week. Despite having over 2 dozen in bloom today, we have a lot of finales brewing.

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!

June Daylily Blooms A-Y (no Z yet)!

July 3, 20211 Comment

I’m back! My house is cleaner and I feel like I can pick-up the blog, again. Don’t worry, I spent my usual amount of time with my daylilies in the AM. I love getting photos of them – something to get out of bed for. After three years of a stressful job and a commute, I just had to clean because my poor home has been like a neglected garden. I needed to pull weeds and plant some new seeds.

I am going to show off my June blooms (A to Z) for June in this post. I am going to have a good bloom rate this year and it sort of scares me what peak will be like with all my plants so happy. Good thing the house is clean. I count 51 cultivators for June 2021. Last year, it was 50 in June – so close. I think I have about 180 cultivators now – almost 30% have bloomed.

Big Red Rhyme (my NOID name for her) premiered 6.22

Chief Four Fingers premiered 6.27 (with some bug damage but more buds ahead)

Dream Keeper premiered 6.11, finale was 7.1

“Fringe Benefit” premiered 6.27 (mislabeled bonus but I still call her that)

Happy Returns – I believe the real cultivator is yellow and some of my gold ones are actually Stella – this one premiered 6.25

Nurse’s Stethoscope (the only registered daylily I helped to name) premiered 6.24

Platinum Pink Pallet Whispers premiered 6.21

Purple Moonrise (larger bloom on the R, to the left is Orchid Moonrise) premier bloom 6.15

Purple Mystic (my name for NOID) premiered 6.24

Red Riddle (my name for NOID) premiered 6.23

Saratoga Springtime premier 6/3, finale 6.23 – The star of early daylily season. A big, fancy yellow trumpet.

Scorpio premier 6.26, finale 6.29. Only two buds for the first bloom ever after 5 years in my yard.

Stella premier 6.7 and dwindling – I don’t think we have a finale yet but maybe.

Let’s close the book on June for 2021 – It’s a wrap!

The Mascot has Arrived!

June 24, 2021Leave a comment

Today, I didn’t feel semi-retired. I had a meeting until noon and then more meetings to set up for the next few days. It’s interesting work, but likely won’t change the outcome.

I ran out quickly before the meeting started to photograph my blooms. It’s definitely daylily season. I was almost late to the web meeting.

I went out later and found my blog mascot, The Colorado Kid, had a bloom on a short scape that I missed this morning. I hate being rushed in the morning this time of year.

At any rate, several premieres to add to 2021. My drip system and repotting is resulting in mostly happy plants. There are a couple that are too crowded. I’m thinking of putting little red flags in the ones with no scapes. I’ll pull them is I see a scape. At the end, I’ll have the non bloomers marked and can make adjustments for next time.

6.23 – Lady Fingers – one of my early xeriscaping landscape plants

6.23 – Land of Enchantment is a daylily that lives up to her name.

6.23 – My blog mascot – The Colorado Kid. She looks better earlier in the day.

Red Riddle – another unmarked cultivator originally from my backyard garden.

Several more are very close. Hopefully, the hint of rain we got this evening will bring some blooms.

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:

Spikes or Waves

June 25, 2020Leave a comment

Ah, the talk of pandemics. Nothing like having a doctorate in nursing at a historic time like this. I almost wish I was back in biostats or epidemiology class right now.

People debate if this is a spike in the first wave or a second wave. Hmmm, well, it reminds me a little of the epidemic of daylily blooms in summer. There are days with 8+ premier blooms (new cases) and days with only 1 or 2. Are the busy days waves or spikes within a wave? IDK that there is a right and wrong answer – but I would say the second.

Like the epidemic, we will see a peak and a decline after that. Fortunately or unfortunately, daylilies are seasonal. There will be no second wave during flu season . . . or Christmas.

So, today was a good day if you are into low numbers. I only had 2 premiers. Both are old daylilies from my early days of collecting these plants. Lady Fingers is one I got for my landscaping circa 9 years ago. It is simple yellow – but a spider, not a trumpet. I like the green throat.

The other one from today is Inwood, who is having a better than average year. Her buds are healthy and she has more spikes than average. I was delighted to see such a pretty bloom. She reminds me a bit of Canyon Colors, who is having a bad year and I think it is because the grass is taking over her pot. As soon as her sad scape gets done blooming, I will dumb her our and dig the grass off of her roots.

Fall project – I think I will start working on putting my Southwest Garden daylilies in better pots, like my daylilies out front. I think they are more protective against tree roots AND after my sewer issue last winter, I am reminded that my garden is on the easement. That means if the water pipe gives, the City digs. If they are potted, it will be much easier to deal with. I have them in pots, just not better quality ones. I may do half this year and half next. It will be way easier than digging them up the first time!

Anyway – We will see if tomorrow brings a peak, but I think it is all one big summer wave. PS – I have 32 folders of cultivators on my computer now – out of 171 possible. That’s almost 20% bloom rate. Less than 3 weeks since the first bloom. Let’s see where we are in a week. I should do a graph like the epidemiologists. Really.

Short and Sweet

June 23, 2020Leave a comment

Tonight, my blog will be short and sweet so that I can get enough shut-eye. I will tell you that I wish my evening hadn’t been such a wreck. My old dog is still sick and needs to go into isolation and get treated again. I have to clean everything with bleach, again. If I didn’t work hard at my day job or if I had help around the house . . . tonight it seemed overwhelming.

I feel a little underwhelmed by my bud count. I still have about 110. That number has been flat for a week. Unlike Coronavirus, I hope for another spike in scapes. And, I must have broken a scape off of Heron’s Cove while working on the drip system. Ugh.

My premiers – the mascot for my blog, The Colorado Kid opened today. She is my favorite near blue.

And, simple Pink and Cream, another Stella cousin, had her premier today.

I had 12 total. Still a lot of yellow trumpets. Let’s see what the sun brings tomorrow.

The Colorado Kid

May 23, 2020May 24, 2020Leave a comment

No blog about Southwest (and West) daylily names would be complete without a blog about our namesake, The Colorado Kid.

So, what say we take a ride down the Colorado River for a spell. It is only an hour from my house and runs through some of my favorite camping and hiking spots.

The mighty Colorado starts in Rocky Mountain National Park, not too far from where I grew up (in Estes Park). Born in the Colorado snowpack, it (like me) heads straight the desert.

The Colorado runs through Grand Junction – I love camping at Colorado River State Park and exploring the Colorado National Monument. It is amazing the force of wind and water on sandstone.

So, on my February trip, we took the back road (Utah 128) that runs by the Colorado River.

Fisher Towers formed by the Colorado River – 2020

The river then runs through Dead Horse Point – a favorite, dog-friendly hiking spot.

From there, it heads down through Lake Powell.

And on to the Grand Canyon.

Horseshoe Bend, five miles downstream from Lake Powell – 2015

The Colorado Kid daylily was a must-have daylily when I first started collecting daylilies for their place names.

The other reason I picked her is that she is near blue. I was absolutely infatuated with near-blues when I first discovered that daylilies didn’t come in blue. I guess we want what we can’t have. At any rate, her color is best before the sun hits her – she is on the north side of the house. Once the light hits, her blue is decidedly purple.

She is one of my favorite near-blues in my near-blue pot section of the yard. And, she is the namesake of this blog. And, another reason to go road trippin’ vicariously through my daylilies during the COVID pandemic.

My Colorado Kids

August 8, 2019August 8, 2019Leave a comment

Faculty comes back to work tomorrow (except me – because the boss gets to work all summer 😉 ) Still, I had 40 cultivators in bloom today. Last year at this time, I was having surgery in a week, in-process with interviewing for this job . . . and I had only a handful of daylilies. There were none left to bloom. And, mid-August, the blog dropped into nothingness until poinsettia time. It is Jugust in my yard – my poinsettias look like it’s June and my daylilies think it is July . . . and faculty come back to work tomorrow.

Anyway – I still have 5ish that have scapes and have not bloomed yet and a lot with buds left – this blog season is not close to being over yet. So, what to talk about today? Well, I was going to talk about my daylilies with Colorado names. A couple are in bloom today – but let’s look at the summer.

Cripple Creek is a golden Ned Roberts spider that I assume is named for the gold rush town of Cripple Creek in Colorado. Ned, the hybridizer, lived fairly near Cripple Creek, CO.

Cripple Creek – 2019

I believe Echo Canyon is named for a canyon near the Royal Gorge. Ned Roberts lived closeby in Colorado Springs.

Echo Canyon – 2019

Glen Eyrie IS a place in Colorado Springs – no doubt about it! It is an old castle and new conference center. Another Ned Roberts spider.

Glen Eyrie 2019

Hesperus is the name of a sacred (to the Navajo) mountain in the San Juan Mountain Range near my home. I have no idea if the cultivator was named after the mountain, but I like the theory enough that I bought the daylily.

Hesperus – 2019

Mount Echo Sunrise – I am guessing this is named after Echo Mountain that is the tallest mountain visible from Denver. It is a guess because it is another Ned Roberts daylily.

Mount Echo Sunrise – 2019

Rocky Mountain Pals was named for the folks at the University Cancer Center in Denver – there Ned Roberts went for treatment later in his life. At least that is the story I was told.

Rocky Mountain Pals – 2019

The Colorado Kid is named after the movie – but when I saw the name early in my place name and blue daylily addiction, she had to be mine. She is the mascot of this blog!

The Colorado Kid – 2019

Colorado Kid Daylilies

A Blog About My Western Colorado Daylily Adventure

Tag: The Colorado Kid