Tag: winter watering

Pacific Moisture Impact on Daylilies: Winter Watering Tips

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Pacific Moisture, Winter Watering, Rearranging Daylilies

More Pacific moisture today on the Colorado Plateau in Montrose, CO. It’s an unusual amount of moisture for us so far this summer. I have a feeling it will be too little too late to increase my daylily scape production. That winter watering matters when we don’t get much precipitation. Next year, I am going to put a reminder in my phone every 2 weeks starting in February to find a warm day to winter water. Lightbulb: When there is no ice build-up on my front porch in the winter, there isn’t enough moisture for the daylilies during these months.

Catherine Irene

The day started off warm and sunny, so I decided to slip away and buy the daylily that I passed up the other day (Collier) because one of my pots needed more daylily. Once I got home, I wrestled the crabgrass out of my beloved Canyon Colors daylily pot and was left with 4 scrawny fans. That is why I got Collier. The colors are fairly close, so I hope they each stand out – but I won’t get any blooms from Canyon Colors this year in the pot – fortunately, I have it in another area and it has scapes.

Canyon Colors 2023 bloom
Collier (web photo)

Then, I moved stuff around. I rescued Just Plumb Happy from the border garden and put her in a pot. She is also very scrawny and won’t bloom this year. I divided my Kwanso (ditch lily) and put some of it in my little front corner garden. Now, that plant is supposed to be slightly invasive (unlike its hybridized daylily offspring) but the high desert is no tropical ditch. She won’t bloom in the pot. I also put a couple fans in my native plant garden. Another day, another experiment. If she becomes invasive, I’ll regret what I did today.

Prairie Wildfire

Today’s First Blooms of the Season

I had a lot of first blooms of the season today. I’ll post my reel with all the names below. Pandora’s Box was added just a couple days ago. I have almost bought this daylily online so many times! I also want to mention All American Chief as being a favorite spider daylily today.

Pandora’s Box
All American Chief

Etsy Shop Daylily Art Sale

This is a friendly reminder about my “Until the Last Daylily Blooms” daylily art sale. How about these beautiful fun-shaped flat cards? These make great thank-you notes! Click here or on the photo to go to the listing.

And, I also have several houseplants on sale. The Tiger Kitten begonias are so pretty and hardy. Very easy care. Click here or on the photo to go to the listing.

If you need a small planter, I have a bunch! How about this cute red, white, and blue VW-type hippy bus for fun 4th of July decor? Click here or on the picture to go to the listing (email me if you like this specific bus because I am still in process with listing it.)

Poinsettias in the Bloom Closet!

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Poinsettias are a sign that the holidays are just around the corner. I started collecting them a few years ago when I was a starving sixty-something doctoral student. I bought a pretty orange one and babied it because it was a luxury to buy a plant back then.

That plant bloomed all winter and flourished all summer. However, my first experiment in making a bloom closet that fall didn’t work out so well. The poinsettia bloomed, sort of, but was horribly leggy and didn’t survive winter #2.

I’ve gotten better with them. Trial and error. I have two that I’ve had going on four winters. I got a couple more the next year and, again, last year. Well, actually I got more than that, but lost a few along the way. I lost both of my orange ones from last winter to the cold spring.

I have 4 in bloom and one that’s still in the bloom closet. I have two still recovering from the cold spring that I’ll bloom in a couple of months.

How do I rebloom mine? Well, forget all the advice about putting it in a closet by night and a sunny window by day. I’m way too forgetful. But, I have a plant closet in my basement family room that has plant LED lights on a timer and a blackout curtain closed all the time, except when I water.

It’s year #3 for the closet and my poinsettias thrive down there. Once they bloom, they come upstairs for several weeks u til they start dropping leaves. Generally, they go back into the closet until May, when they sit in my front yard and get sprinkler system rain every day.

It’s hot and dry, but the poinsettias do fine. This is the first year that they have struggled a little. They are euphorbia, after all- just like my 6 ft pencil cactus.

I bring them in and put them in the bloom closet just before freeze. I have blooms by late October or early November. Have you ever rebloomed a poinsettia? Meanwhile the drought has returned and I need to winter water the daylilies during Thanksgiving break.