Each Little World

Mixed success with lilies

I have had great luck with Martagon lilies from the start; but much more limited results with the other lilies I've planted. I planted a group of 'Fusion' lilies in with my Maidenhair ferns, picturing them blooming above all that lacy green foliage. Turns out that was too much shade and competition. I managed to find and dig out a couple of the bulbs and moved them to a much sunnier spot. Voila! Now I just have to try to find some more of the hidden bulbs. 

This is my first try at growing Lilium canadense and I am thrilled with the results. 

They are the sweetest and most fragile looking of all the different lilies I've tried. 

The yellow ones got knocked over in a storm. I'm going to try to get a few more orange and some of the deep red ones next. 

I planted 5 bulbs of the American native Turk's cap flower, Lilium superbum, a few years ago with mixed results. 

The squirrels dug out 3 of the bulbs and transplanted them in my neighbor's yard, where they grew better and bloomed earlier than the ones left in my garden. 

Last fall I planted a few more but nothing appeared this year but the original two stems. Can't decide if I should try again or quit while I'm ahead. 

I've heard this is a difficult one to grow and I have to agree. 

GBBD: 7.15.2021

Some plants seem a little behind this year while others are a couple of weeks ahead of their typical bloom date. By midsummer, much of my garden is green but there are a few things in bloom like Astilbe taquetii 'Superba' with Hemerocallis 'Lady Inora'.

I am an obsessive Thalictrum lover and added two more of the tall summer bloomers this year.  

Thalictrum rochebruneanum 'Lavdender Mist' (above and the two photos below) with Vernonicastrum virginicum 'Fascination'.

T. 'Lavender Mist' has the largest flowers of all the ones I'm growing which makes them visible at a bit of a distance. 

Astrantia 'Star of Fire' and a flowering wand of an unknown Heuchera.

Ligularia stenocephala 'The Rocket' with the end of the orange-flowered Lilium canadense.

My Lilium leichtlini keep disappearing on me. I'm down to one plant from the 10 I planted in 2014.

Luck with lilies

Back in 2006 I saw Martagon lilies in a local garden and fell for them. I bit the bullet and bought three bulbs of 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse' from Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery. They cost a whopping 3/$56.00 and I was very nervous at spending that kind of money on plants, let alone bulbs.

But Mrs. Backhouse has been a workhorse since the day she arrived. I now have a huge sweep of them. Some time ago I moved two groups of bulbs onto the slope below the Tea House. They have done so well that I dug them out yesterday. Both groups were planted near little trees which have now engulfed them. It's had to believe that the almost invisible little Hemlock by the lilies in this photo is now a bigger presence than the bulbs.

I assumed that the plants looked so tall because they were growing on a slope above me. Nope. They are easily 5 and a half feet tall. They are going over quickly in the heat, so I didn't feel too bad about digging them out.

But I was surprised to discover one of the bulbs had sent out bulblets and the whole thing had grown together in a huge clump of six connected stems. I am going to replant them in the Tea House garden but in locations where they hopefully won't have to get moved again. 

A quiet evening in the garden

I splurged on this Peony a few years ago more for its emerging foliage than the flowers. This photo was taken on April 23rd.

Now that I have more than one flower I admit they are rather nice looking as well. The buds come out pale yellow, fade to cream and then white. Picture taken on May 23rd. Hmmm, I will have to pay attention next year and see if it always takes a month for the flowers to bloom.

I have been babying an Iris germanica in the garden for a couple of years waiting for it to bloom. This year it did so and turned out to be the plant I was hoping it was: an old fashioned pale yellow Iris that was growing in Tim and Mary's garden next door, right at the base of the clothes pole. 

I asked if I could have a piece and Tim said to come and dig it out. So I did. Since then, Tim died and Mary sold the house and moved closer to one of her children. I am so happy to know that I have a memento of our long time neighbors and their garden. 

IVOM: Before the next freeze

We got down to 31°F on Friday and tonight's low is forecast to be 33°F, so I cut flowers for indoors all weekend. 

White daffodils are my personal favorites rather than the bright yellow ones. This is Narcissus 'Dreamlight' with the peach ruffle and N. 'Stainless' below it.

I trimmed our 'Tina' crabapple and decided to add my prunings to the arrangement. 

I bring many of these daffs indoors for bouquets since they are in the bed by the street where I barely see them. Thus I never feel bad cutting them. 

This is a mix of early Iris, Muscari and Epimedium 'Lilac Fairy' with Heuchera foliage. 

IVOM: Before the frosty weather

Last week we had four nights where the overnight low was below freezing, which meant I spent an hour covering plants to protect them. It seems to have worked.

Before I started that process, I cut bouquets for the house and two for friends who I visited. All were variations on the one I kept for my self. Interestingly enough, the star of this display, Fritallaria thunbergii, sailed right through temps down to 23°F with no damage to the flowers. 

The Chinese gentleman got to enjoy the display closeup. I cut a stem from one of my Helleborus foetidus to get something that would hold everything in place. It's the greenery in the center and its flowers are not particularly obvious here. 

Unknown daffodils and yellow Epimedium flowers add a note of color contrast.  

I really put this vase together, however, to showcase the Frits. They are a pleasure from any direction.

Spring perfection

We're in a stretch of unseasonably warm weather. That means it's great weather for working in the garden, but the spring ephemerals are bursting into bloom and won't last long at all. After waiting so many snowy months for this moment to arrive, I hate to have it pass so quickly. That said, there are treasures everywhere I look in the garden.

I discovered this Hellebore buried under fern fronds. It's a Pine Knot Farms hybrid selected for foliage. 

When I bought this, I noted their website said that the flowers were larger and more colorful than the usual species crosses. I find it hard to even notice the foliage when the flower is this beautiful. 

I love Hepaticas but have completely lost track of who's who. 

Erythroniums are another plant I love but I have not had a lot of success with them so far. That means I am confused more often than not when they appear. My best guess is that this is E. dens-canis 'White Splendor.'

Foxgloves are popping up everywhere. I've planted them a few years in a row and let them seed. I'm hoping that means I will have flowers every year from now on. 

Early birds

It has been warm enough that the early spring plants are popping up quickly. The only problem is that this coming week has overnight lows going down to 20°F.

Since they are early bloomers they may be fine with a big chill, but I don't want to take that chance. I'm covering them today with evergreen branches — just in case I am being too optimistic. The branches will be easy to remove and light enough not to harm anything. 

Iris reticulata

 One of the first Hellebores I ever bought, Royal Heritage Strain. I moved it a few years ago and it has settled in with no problems

Another old clump of Royal Heritage Strain Hellebores.

Helleborus niger 'Sunset Group' has large flowers that face outward and foliage that lies flat, making a very nice display. 

Helleborus foetidus 'Red Silver,' aka Bear Claw Hellebore, is looking gorgeous. It's come through two winters very nicely.

The flowers are usually less dramatic on mine than in warmer climates.

One of the Hepaticas finally showing some color. This one can be seen across the garden once it's in bloom.

Two clumps of Crocus tommasinianus 'Lavender Striped' emerging through the old foliage of Japanese Blood Grass. 

Erythronium 'Pagoda' are up before any of my other Erythroniums have made made an appearance. 

Luzula 'Solar Flare' interplanted with snowdrops; an idea I adopted from Adrain Bloom's garden in the U.K. The big rock has lichens all over it that are the same color as the Luzula.

Before the cold weather hits us, I made a dwarf display of these early season favorites. 

I couldn't resist placing it near this painting as the colors seemed to echo each other to me. 

In a tiny vase on Monday

For the first time in months, I was able to pick a few flowers in the garden to bring indoors. 

The first Hellebore I ever bought: Royal Heritage strain developed by John Elsley at Wayside Gardens.

A mix of nicely scented Snowdrops.

The coming week offers rain and warm daytime temps, but chilly nights in the low thirties and possibly the twenties. Still very much March weather.

March in black and white

Late last week the weather was so beautiful I began a little light cleanup in the garden. Hellebores, like H. 'New York Night, were sending up big fat buds, snowdrops were blooming in white clumps and it seemed like spring might really have arrived.

But it is March in the Midwest, so snow immediately followed the first flowers on Monday.

It came down wet and heavy, but there's not enough of it to last. The roads were clear by mid-morning Tuesday, so we drove out to our favorite gallery to look at a group of new tea bowls by one of our favorite potters, Bill Farrell. 

We have serving dishes, large containers and many tea bowls by Bill. We have enough of his work that we really didn't need any more. But these are raku, unlike all of our other pieces by him which are wood-fired stoneware. They were too lovely to resist; a fact we were fairly sure of before we even left the house. 

By the time we got home from the gallery in mid-afternoon the view out the window showed the snow was melting on all the stonework in the garden, nicely re-iterating the tones and marks of Bill's bowls inside the house. 

Rain is predicted for much of next week, which will get rid of the snow and send the spring bloomers above ground for sure.