Indian pipes

Because this is a gardening blog, you might be surprised to see an entry about a plant which is, in most usual senses, not in cultivation.

Yet in a sense, this one is.

For years there has been a profuse annual fruiting of a basidiomycete fungus of the genus Russula along one side of our house. This is a site which has been lawn for the last fifty years. Until recently, I had assumed that the Russula were parasitizing two Pinus palustris which grew nearby. However, the pines were removed two years ago, and the Russula persist. The only conifers nearby are a huge old Cephalotaxus and some garden yews. So perhaps one of those is serving as the host plant for the Russula.

About two weeks ago I had a huge surprise: a spot of white caught my eye near the Cephalotaxus. As I focused in on this, I could hardly believe my eyes: there was a clump of Indian pipe, Monotropa uniflora, emerging from the ground.

I’ve known this plant from childhood: its flowering was an annual event in a pine woods near my home. Back then, the plant was thought to be a saprophyte (from the classical Greek word for rot; the word sepsis is derived from a related word.) The modern take on this is even more interesting. Although Monotropa uniflora is a higher plant (in fact, it is placed in the same botanical family as azaleas and blueberries) it has no chlorophyll and is a parasite. A parasite on what? As it turns out, it’s a parasite on fungi of the family Russulaceae.

So the Monotropa is parasitic on the Russula fungus, and the Russula fungus is parasitic on a nearby conifer.

Other than planting the likely conifer host, I had nothing to do with this. In the distant past I had scattered Monotropa seed in the garden, but not as far as I remember anywhere near the plant now blooming.

Lily season 2009 brings an unexpected climax

What for me was the last of three lily shows this year took place yesterday and today at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania. This is the show sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Lily Society. Off and on for the last twenty-five years I’ve participated in these shows, usually as a judge and sometimes as an exhibitor. This year I was there in both capacities. I helped judge the early part of the judging, and it was a show marked by the generally high quality of the stems. We awarded one first place ribbon after another in class after class. And then I had to step out because I had a stem in the section being judged.

When I returned to the exhibition hall about twenty minutes later, I had a very nice surprise waiting for me: the stem I brought to the show won the Longwood Award for Best Stem in Show. Although there will be lilies blooming in the garden for several more weeks, it’s hard to top that as a climax for lily season 2009!

Modern lilies

Those of you who follow this blog no doubt noticed that June was a lean month for entries. There is a reason: lilies. That is, lilies and the lily shows. Lilies bloom here in abundance and variety from early June (sometimes late May) into the earliest days of August. There are two big peaks: the first happens around the summer solstice; the second about two weeks later. We are in the throes of the second peak now: this is when the most magnificent and staggeringly beautiful lilies bloom in this garden.

I'm happy to say I've been growing lilies for over a half century, and it's been a half century marked by continual improvement in the quality and health of our garden lilies. Modern lilies show characteristics which only a few decades ago occurred mostly in our dreams. And if you are the sort of lily grower for whom bigger is always better, then you are a happy lily grower indeed. Hybridizers have successfully combined the size, fragrance and form of some of the largest flowered wild lilies with the ease of culture of some of the most garden-reliable lilies. Now anyone with sun and well drained soil can grow spectacular lilies, reliable lilies which return year after year.

Most of the lilies in the image above are the imposing cultivar 'Silk Road'. One stands under these lilies and looks up at the inflorescence.

Gardenia 'Shooting Star'

I grew up in a neighborhood where there were several keen gardeners, the sort of gardeners who were always trying something new and edgy. I remember seeing Phygelius capensis in one garden, and in that same garden there was an ongoing effort to keep a gardenia alive from year to year. It's long been known that gardenias are marginally hardy in our area: skillful mulching and covering will sometimes bring the florist's gardenia through even our winters.

I wonder what those gardeners from fifty years ago would think of the hardy gardenias we now have? There are several of these making the rounds; the best known name is 'Kleim's Hardy'. The one shown above is 'Shooting Star'. The flowers of this cultivar and those of 'Kleim's Hardy' are similar; 'Shooting Star' seems to be a more vigorous, taller plant.

You won't mistake the blooms of these plants for those of the florist's gardenia. These hardy sorts have smaller flowers, and the flowers have only five petals. But they have the luscious gardenia fragrance in abundance, and that earns them a place in this garden. They also set fruit, although I have not tested the seed to see if it is viable.

Begonia 'Bonfire'

Last year, late in the season for bedding plants, I got wind of a newish begonia suitable for summer garden and pot use in our climate. The plant in question is Begonia 'Bonfire', said to be a hybrid of Begonia boliviensis. I searched several of the local garden centers, but was unable to track down a plant. Several of the people who worked at the garden centers knew the plant - always an encouraging sign - but had no idea of where to get one so late in the season.

This year I had better luck. The plant you see in the image above was obtained in mid-May and has been dripping with bloom since then. So far it shows no sign of slowing down. This plant seems to be a better choice for our climate than the other Begonia boliviensis hybrid likely to be seen in our gardens, Begonia × bertinii (I grow the cultivar 'Skaugum').

Note: an earlier version of this post misidentified this plant as Begonia 'Fireworks'. 'Fireworks' is the name of a Begonia rex cultivar.

A new begonia on the block

That the large-flowered tuberous begonias do not thrive in our climate is a major disappointment. The so-called Non-Stop hybrids are said by some to be more easily grown, but I don’t see them much in local gardens. Local shops sell them in the spring, and they sometimes turn up in summer bedding schemes.

This year Wayne spotted some begonias in a street-side planting down in the commercial part of nearby Bethesda, Maryland. When he described them to me on the phone, I assumed that they were Non-Stop begonias. He Googled Non-Stop and decided that what he saw was a bit different; in particular, the leaves were less pointed and more rounded. That sounded to me more like one of the Rieger or Hyemalis hybrids. He Googled these and decided that while the leaves were more like those he saw, the flower colors were different.

I was puzzled. As it turned out, I had been admiring some begonias in a neighbor’s garden recently, all the while assuming that they were Non-Stop hybrids. When I showed these to Wayne by flashlight one night while walking Biscuit, the owner of the garden suddenly appeared out of nowhere to see what was going on. Luckily, I knew him well, although I suspect that he was not sure he was not interrupting a begonia-napping.

We could see that they were not Non-Stop begonias, but what were they? The owner of the plants we saw did not have a name for them. A few days later I talked to his lawn and garden man to see if he knew the name: no luck there, either.

It was time to go for professional help. I asked about begonias at one of the big garden centers. Finally, someone who might know about them was located. He knew about the Hyemalis Hybrids and took me over to see a handsome display of these. When I told him that we were getting closer but had still not found the right plant, he mentioned that earlier in the season they had been selling some bedding begonias which looked a bit like the Hyemalis Hybrids. We went searching for these and finally found some mixed in among some Non-Stop begonias. At last I had a name: Solenia Begonias.

I purchased two and headed home. A quick Google search turned up plenty of information although not enough. For instance, how sun tolerant are these plants? Will they perform well throughout our summers? And are they tuberous or not? Later in the year I’ll post the results I get here.

Wayne now has three of them (pale yellow, light red and dark red) and I’ve got one (the dark red, a really beautiful color called Velvet Red). If these turn out to be good garden or pot plants here, they will be a valuable addition to our summer garden flora.

Mema and the cardinal

We no longer feed the birds with seed. We stopped this practice over a year ago because of the rodent problem. Squirrels are bad enough, but the other ones which come at night are even worse. We were making it too easy for them.

Now we feed the birds by smearing peanut butter on the deck railing. This has the advantage of making it harder for the squirrels to dominate the feeding stations, and there is nothing to fall to the ground for the mice and rats to eat. So far, the peanut butter seems to appeal to a limited variety of local birds: cardinals in particular seem to appreciate it.

In the image above you can see Mema putting out the peanut butter. About six feet to her right you can see an impatient male cardinal waiting for her to leave. The cardinals seem to recognize her: as soon as she comes into the kitchen in the morning, they fly up to the big glass doors and call to get her attention. When she goes out with the peanut butter, they sit nearby and seem relatively fearless.

Campanula trachelium 'Bernice'

Campanula trachelium ‘Bernice’

This plant has surprised me by growing well here, but it has disappointed me because the flowers bleach so rapidly in the sun and heat. It’s a pity because double flowered plants typically last in good condition much longer than their single-flowered congeners.

This is a relatively short cultivar, only about eighteen inches high here. Each flower is about the size of a big pecan. The single flower shown above does not suggest as much, but it's a floriferous plant.

Why didn’t I already know this?

A while back I was having a discussion with a gardening friend about the specialized requirements of certain plants. The conversation wandered into the realm of those plants which require acidic conditions. And then my friend dropped the bomb: in response to my complaint about the sometimes indifferent results I get with these plants, he pointed out that the local tap water had a neutral pH. Every time I watered a bed carefully prepared for acid loving plants, I was unintentionally raising the pH in the bed.

I noticed an interesting demonstration of this phenomenon lately. Several months ago I bought a plant of Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Forever and Ever Blue’ which had a brilliant blue inflorescence when I purchased it. That inflorescence faded and was removed. A new one began to develop recently. The new one is not brilliant blue: it’s a sort of purplish blue. I attribute this change to the influence of our tap water.

We Americans butcher this word hydrangea. It's commonly pronounced as a three syllable word: high-DRAN-ja. To begin with, it's a four syllable word. If you follow the traditional rules for the pronunciation of Latinized Greek, the stress is on the ge: hy-dran-GE-a. The y is pronounced like the e in hero, and the ge is pronounced gay. Now when was the last time you heard that?

The upper image (taken May 10) shows the inflorescence as purchased; the lower one (taken July 6) shows the influence of our local tap water.

My favorite daylily

My favorite daylily isn’t a daylily at all in the contemporary sense of the word daylily. It’s a hosta, Hosta ventricosa. If you read garden books from a century ago, you’ll see that hostas were called daylilies back then. They were so-called for the same reason Hemerocallis were called daylilies: their flowers are very short lived. But the flowers of Hosta ventricosa are born abundantly and bring a rare color to the July garden. The scapes will top three feet, and when the plants are in full bloom they produce a very appealing haze of cool color. I don’t know Hosta cultivars well, but if there is a better flowering plant in the genus, I don’t know it. The foliage is sun tolerant, and the plant is also seemingly very drought tolerant for such a broad-leaved plant.

This plant sets viable seed abundantly. If I were starting a new garden, I would raise it from seed in order to have it in broad masses. The foliage seems to be more pest resistant than that of some cultivars; and it’s a pleasing dark green, not at all like the foliage of the glaucous sorts or the yellow-green of the August lily. Deer and rabbits so far have not bothered the foliage very much here – although the deer do browse the budded scapes. The blooms of this plant combine surprisingly well with a wide variety of other flower colors. It is also very handsome as you see it in one of the images above, with nothing but other foliage to enhance its handsome form.

Please note that the genus name, Hosta, honors a Mr. Host, not a Mr. Hast.

The dragon yawns...

...and is his breath ever foul! Dracunculus vulgaris is blooming today. The flowering of this plant is always an event in the garden - a wonderful celebration of the grotesque, ribald, disgusting, exotic, outrageous, extravagant, repellent and of course hilariously vulgar... Hold your nose and enjoy it as long as you can.

Clematis 'Sieboldii'

This is the plant more often called Clematis florida sieboldii, or C. florida bicolor, or even C. florida sieboldiana. It’s doubtful that it is unhybridized Clematis florida, so I’ve listed it as you see it above.

It’s an old garden plant, how old no one really knows. It was introduced to European gardens from Japan in the early nineteenth century according to Bean. That means that it’s about two hundred years old at least. Clematis florida itself is not native to Japan, and that lends credence to the notion that this cultivar is of hybrid origin.

In the older literature it has a bipolar reputation: extravagant praise for the unusual flowers (when I Googled it I discovered that some are now calling it the passion flower clematis) combined with sourpuss comments about the difficulties encountered in growing it. Even now there seems to be uncertainty about its cold hardiness. I had to try more than once before I got a plant to settle down here.

This is not a large-flowered clematis: the blooms are about three inches wide, comparable to those of many of the viticella hybrids.

I’ve known about this plant for most of my gardening life, and it’s very nice now to have it – evidently established – in the garden.

Another dead rat story

I’m a foodie, and evidently a bit of a “super-taster”. Let me get wind of some obscure taste sensation, and I want to try it. More often that not, these “taste sensations” come from the humbler ranges of the food spectrum. Cilantro provides a good example: when I became aware of cilantro over twenty years ago, it took many trials before I could get used to its distinctive taste and smell. But get used to it I did: a day came when I smelled a bundle of fresh cilantro and began to salivate profusely. Since then, there has been no turning back.

Some people can not abide the taste and aroma of cilantro, even after many trials. I’ve been feeding Wayne cilantro, or trying to, ever since my own conversion. But to this day it’s “soap plant” to him. There is speculation that the aversion some people experience is genetic in origin: try as they might, these people will never get over their dislike of cilantro.

Cilantro has its enthusiasts, and I’m happy to count myself among them. But if it had turned out that I could not get used to it, I probably would not have cared much. But what happens when your genetic makeup denies you a pleasure which is, if not universally trumpeted, at least widely and persuasively pressed? I’ve got truffles in mind as I write this. It turns out that all the exquisite things attributed to truffles are genetically denied to some of us. To some people they are the food of the gods, evidently the naughty gods in partiuclar. To a smaller group they are nothing special. And to a third group, they are repellent. It’s my misfortune to be a member of that third group. To me, truffles smell like dead rat.

Years ago, when white truffle oil began to appear in the high end food shops, I parted with about twenty dollars for a tiny container which probably deserved the name phial. When I got home with this treasure, it was with a sense of exalted high purpose that I unscrewed the cap and brought the opening of the vessel up to my expectant nose. I sensuously inhaled the long anticipated essence - and nearly barfed. What a reek! It was not just the vague smell of rancid oil, it was the assertive scent of dead rodent. I was furious: had I been sold an out-of-date bottle? Then I tried it on someone else. I didn’t tell them what to expect. I mischievously waited for them to get the whiff of dead rat. But they seemed to like it. I tried it on the dog: the dog loved it!

What was wrong with me?

Years later I Googled truffles, began to read what other foodies were saying on their blogs about them, and discovered that I was not alone in my reaction to the aroma of truffles. In fact, I found one blog entry which described this odor exactly as I did: dead rat.

No one else complained about the odor coming from under the stove this week (see the previous entry). Were they all smelling truffles?

Dead rat story

For the last two weeks, whenever I open the cabinets under the stove where I store potatoes and onions, there has been a strong dead mammal reek. When I first noticed it, I assumed it was a potato which went bad. I took out all of the potatoes, sorted out any which had even the slightest sign of trouble, and sat back thinking the problem had been solved.

It hadn’t. Not only was the odor still there, but it seemed to be getting worse. My first thought was that it was a dead mouse. Mice follow the gas pipes which lead to the stove, and that takes them right to the potato/onion bins. I’ve never known them to bother onions, but on rare occasions a potato will show signs of gnawing. Sweet potatoes on the other hand are quickly sampled. And then there was this: the odor seemed to be getting worse. A week later it was as strong as ever. A dead mouse would not stink that long; was it a dead rat?

The vegetable bins are on one side of this space. The other side is occupied by an assortment of culinary potions which has accumulated over the years. This includes things like various vinegars (there were four different rice vinegars when I looked today), what in the bad old days were known as sauces (ten-year old oyster sauce anyone?) and various spirits ( port, sherry, rum, a very old un-opened bottle of Canadian Club, Marsala, vermouth) and the results of various impulse purchases at the import store (mostly Russian fruit syrups and juices – Aronia, black currant, sour cherry).

Convinced that the decomposing corpse of a dead rodent lay hidden among all of those bottles, I took each one out, dusted it off, checked the cap for a good seal, and put them aside. As the last few bottles came out, it was clear that there was no dead rodent. Yet the stench was still there. I got a flashlight and peered down along the gas pipes as far as I could see: there was no sign of a dead anything.

What was going on? If anything, the smell now seemed to be stronger in the kitchen itself rather than under the stove. But where in the world was it coming from? The only thing I had not examined carefully was the onion bin. I took the onions out one by one: they were Vidalia onions, an onion which has a half life of several hours in our kitchen. No, the Vidalias were fine. There was a sweet potato in the same bin – it was light and dry, well on its way to becoming a cork. There was a shallot – nothing bad there.

And there was a plastic bag with garlic. Uh oh, what’s this? The plastic bag had traces – stains - of some now mostly dried brown liquid all over it. When I lifted the bag, there was a nearly dry puddle of the same dark brew. The stench was now reaching the truly disgusting level. Of the three heads of garlic in the bag, two seemed fine except for the bad company they were keeping: the third head was soft and reeking.

Problem solved – well, sort of. Now that the stench is gone, the mice will no doubt return.

Clematis 'Madame Jules Correvon'

I first became aware of the excellence of this cultivar years ago when I read an article about its use at Wave Hill. It's one of the viticella group hybrids, a group known for the great vigor of its members. The best known member of this group is Clematis 'Jackmanii'. The pruning of the clematis in this group is simple: in early winter cut them down to about a foot above the ground. They respond in the spring by putting up new growth which can be fifteen feet or more long. Plants pruned in this way bloom a bit later than those not pruned, but they make much more vigorous, cleaner growth.

The clematis of this group are ideal for combining with the hybrid roses derived from Rosa luciae and Rosa wichuraiana. They nearly match them in vigor, and their colors harmonize nicely. Years ago this garden boasted a huge plant of Rosa 'New Dawn' through which grew an equally robust plant of Clematis viticella: this was a great combination.

According to "The Large-Flowered Clematis Hybrids A Tentative Checklist" by J. E. Spingarn, reprinted from The National Horticultural Magazine, January, 1935 the name of this clematis is  Clematis 'Madame Jules Correvon'; Spingarn attributes this variety to Lemoine, not Morel (although many other varieties are attributed by him to Morel).

For another opinion on the name, see this:

http://www.clematis.hull.ac.uk/iclsframe.cfm?page=page69

The wash bear

Raccoons are a common sight here: they raid the garbage cans nightly, they dig in the garden, they party on the roof, they make a mess in the pond and terrorize the gold fish. They are also charming, engaging, intelligent, quick to learn and brave but not aggressive.

They are also vulnerable to rabies, and folk wisdom says stay away from any raccoon wandering around in the daylight. The other day while walking Biscuit, I noticed a neighbor peering into the bushes around his house. He told me there was a sick raccoon in the bushes, and he was waiting for "animal control" to come and pick it up.

The one in the image above was doing just that, wandering around in broad daylight. I was sitting in the kitchen reading the newspaper and out of the corner of my eye noticed something outside, something big, crossing the deck only a foot or two from where I was sitting. It was the young raccoon you see above. It looked half starved and a bit sickly. I opened the door a bit to shoo it away, and it just sat there looking up at me. And then I noticed something else: it has an open gash on its back.

I took a quick look in the refrigerator to see what I could give it, give it for what might be its last meal. A moment later it was gnawing on a piece of chicken. After it left the deck, I encountered it again in the back of the garden. I think it's a female, and I'm hoping that it will show up a few months from now with some young ones.

Lilium hansonii

Lily season 2009 opened yesterday with Lilium hansonii, Peter Hanson’s Lily, and one of its hybrid progeny, a lily I call “Preston Yellow”. Both have interesting histories.

Lilium hansonii was introduced from Japan in the 1860s. To this day there is an element of uncertainty with regard to the natural distribution of this lily. There are seemingly wild populations in both Japan and around Vladivostok on the mainland; but there is suspicion that these are introduced. The known sexually reproducing, indigenous populations are apparently all Korean.

The form of Lilium hansonii introduced to the West was evidently clonal in nature: all the bulbs introduced were pieces of one original plant. Throughout the nineteenth century it was standard practice to multiply this species from bulbs and not from seed. Viable seed was rarely set. It wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that new, non-clonal material was introduced from Korea, material collected by Richard Lighty. There have been subsequent collections of non-clonal material also. These newer collections evidently did not prove to be as easily grown as the original introduction from Japan.
Nor has any effort been made to maintain a distinction between the original clone and subsequent introductions.
The lily is named for one Peter Hanson (who?), a nineteenth century Brooklyn (yes, I didn’t make that up) lily enthusiast. It gets stranger. The lily was named by Max Leichtlin, one of the bright lights of nineteenth century horticulture.
Little is known about Hanson, and what I know mostly comes from some notes put together by Marco Polo Stufano years ago. Hanson, an immigrant from Denmark, collected lilies for his Brooklyn garden. He corresponded with Henry Elwes. He grew Cardiocrinum giganteum. In Hanson, it would seem that lily culture in North America was getting off to a splendid start. But it all seems to have come to nothing: Hanson was not the harbinger of great things to come, he seems rather to have been an anomaly. If this lily had not been named for him, he probably would have been utterly forgotten. And if there was ever a "Brooklyn school of lily growing", it, too, is gone without a trace.
The old clonal form of Lilium hansonii has the reputation of being about as tolerant of garden life as any lily. This is not one of those lilies which after being planted in November bursts into glorious bloom eight months later. It’s a slow, deliberate grower. It might take several years to become truly established. But once it digs in, it stays.
It emerges very early, so early that in areas with late freezes the inflorescence is sometimes lost. The plants do not seem to suffer long-term damage from this. David Griffiths mentions that in all the years this species was grown at the Bellingham Experiment Station in Washington State, it rarely if ever bloomed because of late frosts. Yet the stock grew and increased without other problems.

Because this lily blooms so early in the lily season, it is rarely seen at the shows unless growers from north of us are in attendance. It's also hard to determine how widely this lily is grown: yet I know that it is cherished in many gardens other than my own.

Dichelostemma week

There is mention in Col. Grey’s Hardy Bulbs of a plant known to him as Brevoortia venusta. Grey notes that Carl Purdy (a once famous early twentieth century west coast collector and seller of native plants) suggested that this plant might be a hybrid of Brevoortia ida-maia (to use the name Grey used) and Brodiaea congesta (again using Grey’s names). Over the decades I remembered this name and the speculation about its parentage. All of these plants are currently placed in the genus Dichelostemma.

When Dichelostemma ‘Pink Diamond’ came on the market I made the connection: ‘Pink Diamond’ is evidently Brodiaea venusta. I don’t know if it is derived from wild collected material or if it is the result of a deliberate hybridization to test the hypothesis of the origin of what Grey called Brevoortia venusta.

Above you see ‘Pink Diamond’ at the top followed by the parent about which everyone seems to be in agreement: Dichelostemma ida-maia. Dichelostemma ida-maia (said to have been named for either, or both, the Ides of May when it was found in bloom or for one Ida May, daughter of the collector’s guide) in the past was sometimes called the Californian Floral Firecracker. The Dutch commercial stocks seem to be very vigorous and about thirty inches tall – good for cutting.

There is controversy about the other parent. The bottom image shows the one I vote for: Dichelostemma volubile. One of the oddest plants, the scape of the inflorescence twines around other objects like dodder or a morning glory. I’ve heard that ‘Pink Diamond’ has inherited some of this tendency, and that reinforces the hypothesis that D. volubile is the other parent of D. venustum.

These name changes illustrate some of the pitfalls awaiting the unwary. Brevoortia is feminine, so the name is written Brevoortia venusta. Dichelostemma, although it deceptively ends in an a, is neuter, so in that combination the name becomes Dichelostemma venustum.

I’ve heard that these plants sometimes survive our summers, but to be safe they should get a long dry period.

Sneak attack!

I spent the morning, an overcast morning which already had a hint of the heat predicted to come later today, out on the deck reading the paper and eating a bowl of corn flakes with strawberries and banana. When I got up at 6:30 A.M., it seemed cool. But after being outside for about a half hour, it was easy to sense the slowly rising temperature.

The south side of the house is covered with what are probably thousands of fragrant rose flowers. Nearby, Japanese honeysuckle and Goldflame honeysuckle are in full bloom. Peonies bloom here and there in the garden. I ate my cereal in a cloud of gentle floral fragrances, enjoying the cheery chirping of “our” sparrows.

I relaxed and opened my olfactory sensibilities to allow me to enjoy this to the fullest.

There I was, unsuspecting and vulnerable; and then it happened. At first I wasn’t sure – there was just a hint of something wrong. This is a holiday and there is no trash pick up today. But it wasn’t the garbage can at the other end of the deck that had interrupted my reverie. This was something initially more subtle but eventually unmistakable. The odor seemed to wrap around me, as if determined to disgust me.

I know that odor. It accompanies one of the uniquely repugnant floral displays of the year. It’s a combination of warm rat feces and rotten meat which quickly evokes revulsion in me and just as quickly attracts a swarm of expectant flies. A quick trip to the garden and a brief search in some likely places turned up the culprit: the voodoo lilies are blooming. These are not lilies in the botanical sense; they are aroids, jack-in-the-pulpit relatives. And what we call the bloom is not a flower: it's an entire inflorescence. The actual flowers are tiny things deep down within the sheathing spathe.

When I was a youngster they were often sold from crates in dime stores – just the thing to give a curious boy to get him interested in science, gardening or grossing-out the rest of the family. Back then we thought they were tropical; now we know that they make themselves at home in our gardens very well. The inflorescence is followed by very tropical (and very aroid) foliage.

In books this plant is variously called Sauromatum venosum, S. guttatum and also Typhonium combined with either of the two species names.

It sets seed here; the seed clusters are about the size and color of a ripe pomegranate.

The stench comes from the spadix: remove it and what's left can be enjoyed close-up. You're left with what might pass for a very oddly shaped and colored calla lily.

Dahlia 'Goldalia'

I bought these at one of the big box stores when I was last in western Virginia a few weeks ago. The label – annoyingly – states only Dahlia Goldalia. And the same label is used for each of the several color combinations I saw. A bit of Googling turned up these likely names: 'Godalia Scarlet' and 'Godalia Rose'.

Wayne and his mom had been shopping in the store in question; when they got back his mom mentioned that she had seen a flower for sale there which she did not recognize. That was all the incentive I needed to get Wayne to hop in the car with me, go back to the shop and check things out. We drove by them (they were on the parking lot) and even from inside the car I could see that they were dahlias.
It was not until I got out and examined them closely that I saw what nice dahlias there are. Dahlias with this flower form are known as collarette dahlias, and they are an old group. I brought home the two you see above. It will be interesting to see how they take the hot weather ahead.

Paeonia 'Hot Chocolate'

There is another intriguing peony blooming in the garden today: 'Hot Chocolate'. When the bud began to open two days ago, the color was the darkest color I have ever seen in a herbaceous peony. Now that the flower is fully open, the color is more obviously red. But the bud had the sort of very dark shadows which one sees in the darkest red tulips - a really wonderfully rich color.

'Hot Chocolate' just happens to grow beside 'Garden Treasure': they make a good combination to my eyes.

Paeonia 'Garden Treasure'

There is major excitement in the peony patch this week: for the first time one of the so-called Itoh intersectional hybrid peonies is about to bloom here. The cultivar in question is Don Hollingsworth’s ‘Garden Treasure’.

Yesterday the bud had progressed to the point where a bit of the yellow color showed. I could not help wondering what it must have been like for Hollingsworth those many years ago when he stood before the first plant of this cultivar as it was about to bloom for the first time and saw that first hint of yellow. Imagine the excitement he must have felt! That’s easy for me to do, because I felt a real rush when my own plant began to show its colors.

Several good yellow-flowered garden peonies are now within reach of those of us for whom the old expression “if you have to ask how much, you probably can’t afford it” has relevance. The week before last I saw nice gallon pots of several of these intersectional hybrids for $40 each. That’s hardly inexpensive, but compared to what they brought in the recent past, it’s within reach of just about anyone.

With respect to this yellow color, peonies are now where roses were a century ago. Although there were pale yellow hybrid garden roses throughout the nineteenth century (just as, if you count Paeonia mlokosewitschii, there were pale yellow peonies), it was not until the so-called Pernetiana roses appeared about a century ago that bright yellow roses began to become common in gardens. To this day, yellow roses have a certain cachet among rosarians, a certain apartness which roses of other colors do not share.

And there is another parallel: just as the longest-known yellow-flowered garden rose, Rosa hemisphaerica, played no part in the development of yellow-flowered garden roses, so Paeonia mlokosewitschii played no part in the development of these yellow-flowered intersectional peonies. These yellow-flowered intersectional peonies get their yellow color from one of the early French hybrids of the woody Paeonia lutea. I’ve read that the tree peony hybrid used by Itoh was the cultivar 'Alice Harding'. If that’s true, it’s a nice touch: Harding did much to promote peony culture during the early twentieth century. So much, in fact, that there is a herbaceous hybrid named 'Alice Harding' and a woody tree peony hybrid named 'Alice Harding'.

To some people, flowers are just flowers; to me, they are history books.

Moraea polyanthos

This handsome South African is blooming here today for the first time. The individual flowers are said to be fugaceous; this one opened in the late afternoon (at about 4 P.M.), and I expect it to close later this evening. The frail-looking plant seems to have several flower buds on each of two scapes.

I'm still unsure about the culture of this plant. It's been in growth since last fall, yet it's coming into bloom only now. Will it have a dormant period? In the wild it grows in areas with abundant rainfall which is likely to occur throughout the year. I don't expect it to be winter hardy here, so it will spend the winter in the protected cold frame.

The remains of a giant

The huge black oak which dominated the back half of the garden was taken down this week. The tree seemed healthy, but recently it dropped an enormous, live limb. It also had a slight tilt - in fact it leaned directly towards the house. I agonized over the decision, but the thought of several tons of wood dropping onto our house during a storm helped me to make the decision.

I have not been able to find any sign of decay in the trunk.

It's surprising how little damage the tree crew did: parts of the area under the tree were trashed, but other than that the garden escaped major damage.

We're keeping the wood and the chippings. I'll be working (struggling) to store the wood at the periphery of the garden during the next few months. There is enough oak firewood there to last us the rest of our lives. And here's an idea: maybe I'll start a shiitake farm!

I'll try to make a ring count soon and report it in a future entry.

Malephora crocea; I originally and incorrectly identified this as Delosperma 'Red Mountain'

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Be sure to read the comments on this one. I originally and incorrectly called this Delosperma 'Red Mountain'.

Here's another bit of brilliant color.  I purchased it last weekend at a small nursery in western Virginia. It was in a tray of Delosperma nubigenum, the only one of its kind.

A bit of Googling suggests that it might be the new cultivar 'Red Mountain'. Whatever it is, I'm glad to have it. The color and its intensity are hard to describe: the copper-red of the upper petal surface is wonderful to see. Turn the petal over and you'll see that it's purple-red. If this one settles in to be a good garden plant I'll be very happy.

Scarlet tanager

Wayne came by yesterday with a sad gift: he found this gorgeous bit of color dead on his patio. It had evidently hit a window on one of the upper floors of his condo building. This is the scarlet tanager, a bird we see once or twice a year here. You would think that a bird which is both common and so brilliantly colored would be easily spotted. But once the trees leaf out, this shy bird becomes very hard to find.

As I examined the dead bird I was amazed at the intensity of the red color: the red feathers look as if they had been crafted of red reflective metal.

Guaraná

Has it ever been so easy to learn? Has it ever been so easy to track down otherwise obscure concepts or assemble tenuous scraps of connections into a meaningful whole? Or for that matter, to follow up on one concept only to find yourself wandering off onto something related but utterly unanticipated? How did we survive without the Internet, Google and Wikipedia?

One amazing aspect of all of this is that it is not only the major, important issues which get the in-depth treatment. The mundane and trivial also get a good going over.

Until today I knew, or thought I knew, about the botanical families Aceraceae (maples) and Sapindaceae (various mostly tropical trees and shrubs). What I didn’t know is that some contemporary botanists now place these two groups into one family, one family for which they use the name Sapindaceae. The term I grew up with, Aceraceae, is no longer used by those botanists.

But it is how I learned this which is the point of this piece. The other night I was skimming through a forty-year-old cook book, Latin American Cooking, from the Time/Life Foods of the World series. Much of what I read was by now a bit stale: our eating habits have changed a lot in the last forty years. Ours is a household where the tortilladora gets a frequent workout, and the diners (with one holdout) have long since made their peace with cilantro (but not hot chilies). But our knowledge of south-of-the-border cooking has a strong central American flavor; other than a few well-known national dishes, South American food does not appear on our table too often.

Now try to imagine a sixty-five year old man tasting Pepsi or Coca Cola for the first time. I had that experience today. But it wasn’t Pepsi or Coke I was tasting, it was guaraná, the Brazilian soft drink. And it was all due to what Jonathan Norton Leonard, author of Latin American Cooking, had to say about it those forty years ago: “To my palate, no commercial soft drink in the United States is nearly as good”. I was not only intrigued, I was pretty sure I had seen guaraná on the shelves of the local import store.

When I got to the store I discovered that I had two brands from which to choose. Within a hour I was home having my first sip. It’s hard to describe the taste – it’s fruity, but unlike any particular fruit I know. And it’s delicious and easy to drink. It’s also sweetened with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

At this point an appeal to Wikipedia was in order: what is guaraná made with? And that’s where the big tie-in happened. Guaraná is made with the fruit of a sapindaceous vine, and since one thing led to another I was soon also learning that maples are now placed in the Sapindaceae by some botanists.

To celebrate all of this I poured myself another glass of guaraná.

Jonquils

The little sweeties seen in the image above are true jonquils. Each flower is about the size of a penny and has a potent, characteristic fragrance.

Just when gardeners new to the genus Narcissus think they have gotten straight the usages of the words daffodil and narcissus, they no doubt encounter the generally dubious usage of the word jonquil. The etymology helps here: jonquil itself is derived from the Latin word for rush, juncus. Have you ever seen the foliage of a rush? Jonquil foliage looks like rush foliage: very thin, superficially tube-like but actually not round in cross section. From that, it’s an easy step to the point of view (encouraged here if not everywhere) that no daffodil with flat leaves is a jonquil.

Hummingbirds and columbines

The first hummingbirds appear in the neighborhood at about the same time that the native columbine comes into bloom. I assume these little birds follow the blooming of the columbines northward, although I can’t rule out the possibility that we simply notice the hummingbirds for the first time as we’re admiring the columbines. We humans are definitely drawn to red things. Hummingbirds on the other hand show virtual catholicity in their choice of flowers to patronize. The only criterion seems to be that the blooms are full of readily accessible nectar. The cobalt blooms of Salvia guaranitica are as readily visited as those of scarlet Cuphea.

In other words, I think the reason we associate hummingbirds with red flowers is because we humans are apt to be looking at the red flowers when the hummers visit. But the hummers themselves visit any suitable flower without respect for color.

That's Aquilegia canadensis in the image above.

Asarum nobilissimum

Gross, repellent, bizarre: there is something of all three about the flowers of the members of the genus Asarum. The fact that some members of the genus are pollinated by slugs hardly adds to their allure. But they do have allure, and it’s mostly derived from their handsome, often evergreen, foliage. The flower shown here is that of Asarum nobilissimum, one of the larger, marginally hardy forms. It grows in the protected cold frame here, and seems to be taking well to life there.

The evergreen asarums would seem to be a boon for our gardens, but I have not found them to be reliable for winter interest in our climate. Some species, notably the European Asarum europaeum, although technically evergreen, collapse during the winter: the foliage becomes thin and papery and lies flat on the ground. The foliage of other evergreen species seems to be easily damaged by below freezing temperatures if not covered by a protective mulch of some sort.

In the garden of my dreams I have them growing in an extensive battery of cold frames where throughout the winter their handsome foliage will be snug under the glass yet still plainly visible to the gardener.

Those species with deciduous foliage generally are much better garden plants in my experience. The common local species is Asarum canadense, generally if misleadingly called wild ginger (it’s not related to gingers in the botanical sense; the dried roots have been used as a ginger substitute).

Several of the other evergreen species from the southeastern United States are in commerce, but as a group they don’t seem to have caught on outside of the always acquisitive coterie of most enthusiastic gardeners.

It's very unpleasant to hear so many American speakers pronounce this name a-ZAR-um. Historically, the stress has been on the first syllable. Years ago I was very happy to hear an Italian gardener refer to the plants as A-sa-ro, with the stress on the initial A: that's where it has presumably been since before the days when Latin was morphing into Italian.

Peony 'Early Scout'

This handsome early-flowering peony has been in the garden for decades. But for most of that time it rarely bloomed; in fact, it came close to dwindling away. As the back garden became shadier over the years, several once flourishing plants began to slowly decline – among them was this otherwise fine peony.

‘Early Scout’ is a hybrid of Paeonia lactiflora ‘Richard Carvel’ and an unnamed form of P. tenuifolia. It was raised by Edwin Auten Jr. and presented in 1952 (this from The Peonies edited by John Wister). It’s been a reliable grower and bloomer here, and it’s among the first of the peonies to bloom each year. The flowers are small as garden peonies go, but at their early season they are not in competition with the big garden peonies.

The plant is worth having for its foliage alone: long after the flowers have gone the mound of finely cut foliage remains handsome and distinctive.

Peony season 2009

The first peony to open here this year was Paeonia mascula. It was followed almost immediately by three others: a white-flowered Chinese tree peony with no name (one of their utility grade peonies grown for the medicinal bark), a peony long-grown here under the dubious name P. arietina, and the little hybrid ‘Early Scout’. By now, several garden tree peonies have also joined the party.

That's the medicinal bark peony shown above.

These earliest peonies bloom when the garden is at its most tender, freshest best. There are dogwoods, redbuds, tulips, wisteria, phlox, daffodils, and a bewildering array of minor players; the foliage of the trees is still tiny and pale green, giving a magical greenish haze while allowing in plenty of light.

Little by little the migratory birds are reappearing. I sat on Wayne’s patio the other morning listening to a wood thrush and watching two male hummingbirds trying to boss each other around at the feeder. The first towhee of the year appeared on the patio the other day. The dawn choruses of birds are at their best: strong and varied and urging the sleepy-headed gardener to get out of bed and get going. The chortling of woodpeckers is now an oft repeated part of the daytime bird sound: are they poking fun at me?

Bird song is not the only aural entertainment on the air now: toads continue to call at the ponds. The call of the local toads is very soothing on the sort of nights we’re having now, nights which suggest July rather than April.

What a year: we’re just out of the first full week of spring, and the weather is saying summer. In response to this, there is another less pleasant sound now demanding attention: the whine and whirring of air conditioners has already started: what are those people thinking?

One each of how many tulips?

Tulips have been a constant thread in the fabric of my horticultural life. There have been years when it took some discernment to notice that thread, and there have been years when that thread has been one of the dominant ones in the rich tapestry of spring.

This year the tulips are here in both abundance and variety. Over the decades I have occasionally done something unorthodox to enhance my tulip experience: I’ve gone out in the autumn and bought one each of every different tulip sold in local shops. I did this to celebrate my sixtieth birthday, and I did it again last autumn. The result is that there are well over two hundred different tulips blooming in the garden here this year.

In the view above you can see the main planting of these one-each tulips.

A Well-reconciled Troad?

Words fail me on this one, so I'll let Reginald Farrer take it: "They are a doomed and lonely race of irreconcilable Troades in weeds of silken crape, sullenly and grandly unresigned to exile and captivity, passing out of their captor's hands in a last defiant blaze of dark and tragic magnificence. They are chief mourners in their own funeral-pomps, wistful and sombre and royal in an unearthly beauty of their own, native to the Syrian hills that have seen the birth of gods, but strange and hostile to the cruder colder lands. They are the maidens that went down into hell with Persephone, and yearly in her train they return to make a carpet for her feet across the limestones of the Levant. But not for ours - their loyalty to their mistress holds only good in Syria; they do not recognise her in the rain-cloaks that she wears in the West, and lands of younger divinities shall never twice re-greet such children of mystery as these."

Nobody does purple as well as Farrer! And let's hope that his "lands of younger divinities shall never twice re-greet such children of mystery as these", appropriate as it might have been for Farrer's Scotland, finds an exception here in warm, sunny Maryland.

And so what is the glorious creation shown above? She is a hybrid of Iris kirkwoodii and Iris hermona, two oncocyclus irises. The internet bulb forum friend who raised it from seed sent me a piece last fall; if he reads this, I hope he realizes that my not mentioning his name is an act of kindness on my part, not one of ingratitude. How, indeed, does one express gratitude for such largess?

Eating locally

While walking Biscuit this evening, we stopped at one of our usual corners; Biscuit seemed undecided about which way she wanted to go. While waiting for her to make up her mind, I was absentmindedly scanning the vegetation in the area. I noticed a patch of seemingly dead grass, and then, on second look, I noticed something else, something exciting. There, pushing up through the grass at the edge of the dead grass patch were morels, several big, fat morels.

I pass this place as a rule twice a day when walking Biscuit. The morels were not newly emerged - to judge by the bit of dryness on some of them, they had probably been up a day or two. But they were still fresh and esculent.

Now to get out some cream, butter, eggs and maybe a bit of chives and parsley - some thick, crusty, toasted, real bread will serve to soak up all the goodness.

Fritillaria michailovskyi

This plant, Fritillaria michailovskyi, is a good example of the power of modern growing practices. Twenty years ago it was still a rarity. Now it is one of the commonest Fritillaria in commerce. I've heard grumbling from long-time growers that the plant in commerce is a much pumped-up version of the original.

Fritillaries are a bit like tropical fish: once you start to collect them, it's hard to stop.

Tulipa cretica

Tulipa cretica is a small tulip, smaller even than its two relations Tulipa saxatilis and Tulipa 'Lilac Wonder'. It has grown here for several years now, and seems to be a good doer. However, so far it has always had the advantage of a cold frame: at first in the protected cold frame and last winter in one of the unprotected frames. As does Tulipa saxatilis, it produces above-ground foliage in the late autumn. Unlike Tulipa saxatilis, it blooms yearly.

More frits

The peak season for Fritillaria bloom is fast approaching. Here are four winsome, dainty species which would get lost in the garden. Top to bottom they are Fritillaria kittaniae, F. forbesii, F. carica and F. bithynica. They are a lot alike, aren't they? Once the collector's urge sets in, the names sometimes come to mean more than the plants themselves.

Not only are they winsome and dainty, they are tiny. The plant of Fritillaria carica shown here was all of three inches high - if that - when its picture was taken. Frits have a way of expanding in size as they mature, and some are noted for emerging from the ground buds-first, only rising to their full height later.

Magnolia stellata

Decades ago I planted three tiny Magnolia stellata between the sidewalk and the street. Now they form what one of the neighbors has called "the hedge" in front of our house.

The three are in full bloom now, freely scenting the air with their potent fragrance. On a warm, moist day the fragrance carries on the air freely. Passers-by frequently stop to enjoy the fragrance (and occasionally to snitch a bloom; that's fine with me).

When these were planted they were little better than eighteen-inch sticks. Two of the neighborhood boys took delight in riding their tricycles into them. A few years ago, I answered a knock on the door, and there was one of those boys - now a young man. He asked me if I remembered him: I sure did! I didn't tell him I remembered his tricycle, too.

The image I've used here is from 2007; it shows the trees with the masses of Helleborus foetidus which grow under them. This is a favorite combination.

Hacquetia epipactis 2009

I showed this to you last year; as you can see the plant is getting thicker and more floriferous.

This is a favorite. And no plant I have featured on my web site or blog has elicited as many requests for information about sources.

Some early fritillaries

The fritillary season is underway, and here are four early ones. From top to bottom they are Fritillaria montana and then the very similar F. nigra; then follow Fritillaria caucasica and F. pinardii.

F. montana and F. nigra are about eight to ten inches high at this time; F. caucasica and F. pinardii are tiny things only about three or four inches high. Fritillaria pinardii is very variable, and when this plant first bloomed I did not recognize it. I had grown this species about forty years ago, and the form I grew then was a dull mousy gray-brown with a thin yellow edge to each tepal.