Bulb season

The great cycle for summer dormant bulbs begins this time of year. Not only are there new catalogs to be studied and new purchases to be made, but it's also time to clean and replant those bulbs dug for summer storage. In the images above you see bulbs of Fritillaria uva-vulpis and Tulipa "Red Emperor". Notice the double quotes on the name of the latter: it's formal name is 'Mme. Lefeber', but it's been known as "Red Emperor" since its discovery.

Exciting as it is to receive new bulbs in the mail, the pleasure which comes from handling home grown bulbs is far deeper and more satisfying. 

Asarum canadense DuPage County, Illinois

Over the years my friend Bobbie L-D has generously distributed this form of the wild ginger at the plant exchanges of our local rock garden group. The most obvious difference between this plant and the local wild form is the size of the leaves. And as you can see in the image, it eventually forms a handsome clump.

Bobbie collected this plant in DuPage County, Illinois.

At the last meeting of our rock garden group Bobbie was awarded a much-deserved service award. The question was asked "how many of you have plants from Bobbie's garden in your own garden?" and plenty of hands went up - some of us held up both hands! It was that happy event which prompted me to make this blog entry on one of her plants.

×Amarcrinum 2012

The ×Amarcrinum is blooming now and really making a good impression. This is one stunning plant. Unlike Lycoris squamigera, whose garden effect is at best fleeting, the ×Amarcrinum goes on and on for weeks. This plant has what it takes to make the gardener happy! 

 

Cyclamen persicum seedlings

Late last year and early in this year I bought three flowering plants of Cyclamen persicum. These were small plants selected for their fragrance. The winter turned out to be so mild that I was able to leave these plants outside almost throughout the winter. And they just got better and better as time went on. They were still blooming in early summer, and by that time an abundance of swelling seed pods was evident. During the summer I ignored them and they died back. I was going to collect the seed and send it off to one of the exchanges, but life intervened and the plants ended up dropping most of their seed right around the pots.

Now the seed that the ants and other animals did not get is germinating around the pots - and some in the pots with the old plants. I might experiment with some of these seedlings to see if they do well in the cold frames.

If you like fragrant plants and only know the big versions of Cyclamen persicum (these big ones are malodorous to my senses), be sure to sniff around among these small ones when you see them in the shops. Some of them are potently and very agreeably fragrant. If you keep them cool, they have the potential to bloom heavily for four or five months. 

Aster tataricus

This is a favorite here, although sensible people probably wonder what such a tall plant is doing in such a small garden. I knew about this plant from books long before I saw a living example. It is often described as November blooming, and I'm not one to resist a tall, late-blooming, blue aster.

One of my neighborhood friends started to keep bees this year. Her hives are at most two long blocks away, yet I almost never see bees in my garden. Earlier this year when Passiflora incarnata was blooming freely, the flowers were visited by lots of bumble bees. But I never saw a honey bee. Today, hardy ageratum, Aster oblongifolius (aka Symphiotrichum oblongifolium)  and Aster tataricus are in bloom - and there is not a bee in sight. When the clover bloomed during the summer, there were no bees - but the rabbits sure noticed.

Years ago I saw a huge mass of Aster tataricus in a country garden. It was somewhere out in the Virginia countryside, far south of Washington. The plants filled an area maybe twenty feet or more in diameter, and they were in full bloom when I saw them. That's one reason I keep a plant or two in my garden now:  to remind me of that day and that stunning planting of asters. 

Epiphyllum oxypetalum Oops! I missed it...

For decades I've had one of the plants known as night blooming cereus. Long ago it was a sort of vegetable octopus, with stems leaning out in all directions to occupy about a cubic yard of space. Hauling that mass in and out as the seasons changed got to be too much. The day finally came when it was pruned back, a lot, and then the day came when a cutting was made and the rest of the giant was discarded. For years the plant grown from the cutting has survived rooted in about two cups of dirt. It's one tough plant!

This year I gave it a bit more attention and eventually it was moved into a comparatively big pot of good soil.  About a month ago I noticed something unexpected: a flower bud seemed to have appeared. The flower buds of this plant are a big deal. For a plant whose flowers are open only for one night, they seem such a waste of material - until you consider the size of the fruit which will result if the flower is successfully pollinated.

I've been watching the bud intently for the last week: it got bigger daily, and the big day was obviously near. Last night when I got home I forgot to check it out. When I got up this morning, I realized that I had missed the show: the huge flower was there but in a state of partial collapse.

Better luck next year...

Rosa ‘Jaune Desprez’

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that American horticultural literature began in New England and then gradually radiated south and west. So it's no surprise that the older literature treats the teas and tea-noisettes as tender roses. By the time strong horticultural traditions had become established south of New England, the vogue for teas and tea-noisettes was passing, yet the notion that they were not hardy was still embedded in the old literature.

As a youngster I occasionally heard the term tea rose; but it was always used improperly to refer to hybrid tea roses. I doubt if any one in my gardening circles had any experience of true tea roses, and it's just as unlikely that any of them had even heard of tea-noisettes.

What are the tea-Noisette roses? The term Noisette rose refers to a fleeting moment in the history of rose hybridization: no sooner did they appear and their potential become recognized than they disappeared, their progeny hybridized beyond recognition. The original Noisettes were derived from a hybrid known as 'Champneys Pink Cluster' rose, itself not a Noisette unless you insist on the curious filius ante patrem mentality of some modern rose clasifications. Champneys is assumed to be a hybrid of the musk rose and something else. That sounds indefinite, but there is no certainty about either parent; and given the ambiguity about just what "musk rose" means, it's beyond indefinite. Whatever the parents were,  they imparted to the Noisettes the vigor of climbing roses and a sublime scent. The other parent might have been 'Old Blush'.

The Noisettes appeared on the scene during the most important phases in the development of modern roses: European rose growers were enthusiastically exploring the potential of the newly introduced china roses and tea roses. The Noisettes were quickly pressed into service in these hybridizing efforts, and the results of the tea-Noisette crosses are by some rosarians regarded as a peak never surpassed.

Among the highly regarded tea-Noisette roses is this one, Desprez’s Yellow or as the name is more usually given ‘Jaune Desprez’ or ‘Desprez à fleur Jaune’. In looking at the pictures, the first thought which is apt to arise is probably “But it isn’t yellow!” But in its day it was about as yellow as a hybrid garden rose got. Truly yellow hybrid garden roses were soon to follow,  but 'Jaune Desprez' has more than color going for it, and it's been a cherished rose since its introduction. 

It's also hardier than many of its tea-noisette relatives. There are old records of its successful cultivation at Philadelphia, and a half century ago Richard Thomson was still growing it successfully at Philadelphia. Mrs. Keays found it in a garden of her Lusby, Maryland neighborhood. More recently Henry Mitchell grew it in Washington, D.C. Careful siting helps, but it does not need coddling. 

Everyone who loves this rose seems to agree that its fragrance is one of the great rose fragrances. 

A eureka moment

I had an intriguing experience last week. I was on the telephone setting up a meeting for the following day. When I asked to whom I was speaking,  I thought I heard  "Eureka"; in fact, she did say "Eureka, like the place in California."

At the meeting the next day I noticed that this young woman had a name tag: it gave her name as Ulrica. When I asked about that, she told me "the l is silent".

After the meeting, I pulled her aside and asked her if she knew anything about how she got that name. She mentioned that it was her mother's middle name, but other than that she did not know anything about it. I asked her if she had an interst in black history. I meant the question rhetorically, and didn't really wait for an answer. I asked her if she knew about Marian Anderson and her historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial. And then I went on to tell about Anderson being the first black person to sing at the Metropolitan Opera - and that the name of the character she portrayed in that barrier-breaking performance was Ulrica.

My guess is that she had a grandparent who probably knew from first hand experience of Marian Anderson's career and commemorated that in a daughter's name. I hope that's the case, and that the granddaughter can now say she  knows a lot more of the story than she ever did.
 

Bay, Laurus nobilis

I’ve long envied those whose climate allows them to grow bay in the garden. The mild winters of recent years have allowed the occasional bay here and there in the greater Washington, D.C. area to survive long enough to put on some size – but until recently not in my garden.  Years ago an Eastern Shore  nursery advertised a form of bay which was said to be suitable for garden use in this area. I scribbled down the name of the nursery and then lost the information. When a famous local herb nursery moved from its Arlington location, I learned something else: a big bay had grown there outside for a long time. When I inquired about this at the new location of the nursery, I was disappointed to hear that rooted cuttings of that plant were not available. In fact, in asking around, I discovered that bay is not easy to propagate from cuttings. I don’t think I’ve ever seen domestically grown seed offered.

Several years ago my friend Alice showed up at an autumn meeting of our local rock garden group with an armful of trimmings from her bay. Her plant was about five or six feet high and grew out in the open near a porch in her Arlington garden. I took several of these trimmings and cut them into maybe ten six inch pieces for use as cuttings. I did not use rooting hormones, but the cuttings were inserted in a cold frame right away. It was a huge disappointment to watch these cuttings die off one by one during the winter. But one did not die; I have no idea why, because all of the cuttings got exactly the same treatment, but that one cutting not only survived the winter but rooted successfully and went on to grow well. This year it doubled its size and it is now about two feet high.

Of course I’m glad that it is growing so well, so well that I have not hesitated to harvest leaves for culinary use. But that growth poses a problem: the plant is still in the cold frame, and there is no way I’ll be able to bend it down to allow the cold frame to be closed. It will have to be dug out and replanted elsewhere. I have no idea where that elsewhere will be.

Elizabeth David mentions a bay leaf which got passed around family to family during the darkest days of the Second World War.

I’m very fond of frozen custard made with a base of bay-infused half-and-half, and infusing bay into the milk to be used for a white sauce is now standard practice in our kitchen.  

Harvest basket



A harvest basket, in this case one full of shallots, multiplier onions and garlics.

Most of these will be kept for re-planting, although it's hard resisting the temptation to snitch some of the French gray shallots for the kitchen.

African blue basil tugs the heart strings

At the rehab center where mom is recuperating from hip surgery I’ve made friends with several of the staff. One of the women and I were having a conversation with another visitor a few weeks ago; the staff member mentioned that she was from Kenya. I asked “Luo?” and she gave me an astonished look as she replied “No, Kikuyu”. The Kikuyu and Luo ethnic groups are two of the largest in Kenya. Her astonishment stemmed from my knowing about that, and she was very impatient to learn how I came to know about that. Things suddenly got busy, and that explanation had to wait. But when the time came, things quickly got even more intense. As I was explaining that I knew about that from watching The Flame Trees of Thika decades ago, the look on her face became even more agitated. As I babbled on, she finally regained her composure enough to blurt out “I was born in Thika”. The seeds of friendship germinate in the most unexpected places, don’t they? By the way, she pronounces the name Thika TE-ka, not THEE-ka.   

The other day I cut a bouquet of things from my community garden plots to take up to mom: the bouquet was made up mostly of dahlias, but there was a generous stuffing of African blue basil for the color of the flowers and leaves and of course for the great scent. Mom and I enjoyed these on the dinner table one night, and then I put them out on the main desk at the nurses’ station. The night before last my Kenyan friend was at the nurses’ station, and she noticed me checking out the two little bouquets of flowers there. She noticed me sniffing a scentless rose, and mentioned that she thought that something there had a fragrance. At that point I asked her to touch the leaves of the African blue basil. As she was doing this, I began to ramble on about the origin of this plant, how it was a hybrid of Ocimum kilimandscharicum and an….at this point, I noticed that her face suddenly seemed swollen, and she seemed to be holding back tears and trying not to choke. Was she having an allergic reaction? Finally she looked up at me and said “It smells just like home back in Kenya”.

Fragrances can do that, can’t they? 

Rosa ‘Clotilde Soupert’ climbing form

This is a climbing form of a once famous Polyantha rose. The Polyantha roses are one rose group about which I know very little: they have never had much interest for me. That lack of interest has an easy explanation: in the neighborhood where I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland there were several gardens with plants of the Polyantha rose ‘Margot Koster’. The flowers of this rose have a daring color, a sort of shrimp pink. Attractive as they are when fresh, they fade unpleasantly. An old bloom is to my eyes ugly, blotched with unharmonious colors and frankly dirty looking. On top of that, the plants were small and runty looking. This caused me to write off the Polyantha roses.

Now fast forward about fifty years. I was in another garden and overheard some rose enthusiasts talking about the rose ‘Marie Pavie’: in fact, several of the plants were right there for me to see for myself why this rose pleased them so much. I was surprised to hear that it belonged to the Polyantha class. Maybe it was time for me to take another look at the Polyanthas. In fact, a plant of ‘Marie Pavie’ was soon added to the rose plantings.

In my rose reading I had frequently encountered the name ‘Clotilde Soupert’, and the name was almost always accompanied by words of praise. That made enough of a favorable impression to keep the name in my memory. The time came when I needed an extra rose to fill out a rose order, and I hit on the climbing form of ‘Clotilde Soupert’. When the plant bloomed for the first time this year, I had one of those “where have you been all my life” experiences: it’s that good.

This rose does not do brash, spectacular, flashy, exciting, blast of color, torrents of bloom or related extremes. It’s just the opposite: a very quiet rose, sweetly fragrant, one which when it opens has a very pleasing radial symmetry and globular form. I’m so glad to have netted this one in time. 

Hosta'Lakeside Looking Glass'

Here's the inflorescence of a hosta I picked out for its very distinctive foliage: Hosta 'Lakeside Looking Glass'. After a few months of growth, it produced another surprise, a very distinctive inflorescence. I'm not a hosta person, and I don't travel in hosta circles - in fact, I grit my teeth every time I hear the genus Hosta pronounced as it usually is: the man's name was Host, not Hast. But I can't resist the plants, in particular those with a distinctive inflorescence. Hosta 'Krossa Regal' made no impression on me until I discovered that its inflorescence can go up to five feet high. That immediately put it on the want list. The same is true of the forms of Hosta rectifolia: the tall inflorescence really intrigues me.

'Lakeside Looking Glass' is not tall, but the very compressed inflorescence is very cool looking to me. The effect is fleeting - the individual flowers are literally ephemeral under our condition (and as mentioned in an earlier post, that's why hostas were once called daylilies). The hosta crowd is focused on leaves: a Google images search turns up pages of images of leaves and few of flowers. I wonder how many other hostas there are with a notable inflorescence.  

Phygelius ‘Cherry Ripe’.

Phygelius are not well known in our local gardens, but they are nothing new. In retrospect I realize that there was a lot of horticulture going on in the neighborhood where I grew up in Silver Spring. One of the families we were friendly with on the block where I grew up had an intriguing small garden.  I saw a number of plants there for the first time. Among them was a Cape fuchsia, a Phygelius. Who would have thought that they were being sold here in the greater Washington, D.C. area a half century ago? You’ll have to look long and hard to find established plants now, and it’s doubtful if any of those introduced so long ago persist.

I’m giving ‘Cherry Ripe’ a trial this year up at the community garden plots. So far its performance has been puzzling. The plant seemed to be growing all along, and at the tips of the stems I could make out what seemed to be developing flower buds. But these did not mature into actual blooms until about two weeks ago. The plant is blooming freely now: but will it wait until August every year to start blooming? A bit of Googling turned up comments which suggest that it should be indifferent to day length and has the potential to bloom all year if temperatures allow.

Plants in bloom look a bit like the tall Sinningia blooming now such as S. ‘Scarlet O’Hara’ , ‘Towering Inferno’ and S. sellovii: the flowers dangle in the same way.

Googling turns up winter hardiness ratings of USDA zone 6 for ‘Cherry Ripe’: I’m doubtful, although zone 6 might be possible in a very winter dry climate. The plant here will probably spend its first winter in a cold frame. 

Tigridia pavonia and Ageratum

One of my community garden plots has a bed about twelve feet long and two feet wide given over to ageratum and tigridias. It's only a partial success because the tigridias (about 50 were planted) are putting in a lukewarm performance. Bloom has been scattered and meager. The bulbs planted came as a mixture, but so far the flowers have been only yellow or red - no whites, pinks or other colors.

I'll be trying this combination again because when it works - when the tigridias and the ageratums are blooming freely together - it's very striking.

The ageratums used this time are of two taller sorts, 'Leilani Blue' and 'Blue Horizon'. These are standard cut-flower versions of the plant most people know only in its dwarf edging forms. The flowers are sweetly scented, and the scent carries well on the air. It reminds me of the aroma of the candy known as Jordan almonds.

Ageratum is typically pronounced aj-a-RAY-tum, although it's properly a-GER-a-tum. 

Rosa 'E. Veyrat Hermanos'

This is a late nineteenth century tea rose (not a hybrid tea rose but a tea rose). It was raised late in the tea rose tradition and seems hardier than some tea roses. It has yet to face a severe winter here. It's a climbing rose - I'm not aware that a bush form ever existed. As can be seen in the images above, the color goes through several phases. In typical tea fashion, the flowers nod and are sweetly fragrant. 

Buckeye party on African blue basil

The little butterfly called buckeye, Junonia coenia,  is suddenly very abundant in my community garden plot. As you can see, it's a very photogenic species. It's also not shy: they are easily approached and photographed. There are three big, bushel basket sized plants of the African blue basil in this garden and that's where the buckeyes are. One plant had about a dozen on it this morning.

Although I've had African blue basil in my garden now and then during the last twenty or so years, until this year I didn't know the story behind it. This basil is grown from cuttings (or through some micropropagation technique): you won't find seed offered. According to the Wikipedia entry for the plant, it occurred as a hybrid for  Peter Borchard of Companion Plants in Athens, Ohio in 1983. A three or four inch plant will be a yard wide by mid-summer.

African blue basil has a distinct fragrance, very different from those of typical culinary basils, so it's not usually substituted for them. It has a strong camphor odor, and that's not an odor most of us associate with food.  Years ago a coworker from India prepared a sweet delicacy for me to sample. Many conversations had convinced her that I knew many of the spices used in traditional Indian cooking. So this delicacy was actually a test:  would I be able to identify the spices used? As a matter of fact, I did. Although she did not realize it then, and I never told her the full story, I did identify all the spices. But at the time I hesitated on naming one: I detected a distinct camphor scent, but since the only use for camphor I knew at the time was its use in moth balls, I did not want to insult her by telling her the food tasted like moth balls! So I played dumb and let her confirm that it was indeed camphor.

Camphor or not, African blue makes a great sorbet!

A great combination

A great combination, yes, but you probably won't get that impression from the image above.

The plants you see above are Iris dichotoma, the vesper iris, and Talinum paniculatum, called Jewels of Opar and sometimes pink baby's breath.

I've known about Jewels of Opar for all of my adult gardening life: each year for decades there was a tiny photo of the plant in the Park Seed catalog. From the picture it was hard to get any idea at all of what the plant was like. I didn't see a growing plant until sometime in the 1980s, and then it was love at first sight. It's such a distinctive looking plant, a plant which stands out in a crowd. They've been in the garden off and on since. But three years ago there were none, and last year I picked up three little potted seedlings at the end of a plant exchange (no one else wanted them). I never planted them in the garden, and as freezing weather approached I decided to see if they would survive the winter in a cold frame. Two of the three did. Their reward is a spot in the community garden this year, where they have luxuriated into bushel basket sized clumps. They are in full bloom now and the masses of flowering stems form a dome about a yard across. The plants I had grown in the past as annuals never reached this size for me.

It was purely an accident that the vesper irises ended up beside them.  And it was purely an accident that I discovered what a splendidly serendipitous placement this is: both the irises and the talinums open their flowers in the afternoon so that by the end of the day both are in full bloom together. The photo above does not do them justice: you have to see them together in the garden. There are so many agreeably harmonious and complimentary things going on between these two that I'm having trouble resisting the urge to sneak up to the community garden to take another look.

The vesper iris is easy from seed; the Jewels of Opar is too easy - it can get a bit weedy (if you end up with too many, you can eat them).

Baby ringneck snake season is underway

The week before last Wayne called me to let me know that he had found several baby ringneck snakes at his place. Meanwhile, I've noticed several recent hits on the previous ringneck snake post on this blog. You can view that post here: http://mcwort.blogspot.com/2008/08/northern-ring-neck-snake.html

The adults can sometimes be found by lifting flat stones, logs or boards. They are harmless to humans, but be aware that they will discharge a foul smelling fluid if you try to handle them roughly.

If the young enter ground-level rooms they can become entrapped in thick spider webs and carpeting. A search along floor boards or around ground-level doors will sometimes turn up trapped young. 

Kniphofia

Eighteen Kniphofia are on trial this year in the home garden and  up in the community garden plots. I’ve always liked these plants for their form and color – and for the novelty of growing plants of south African origin in the garden. Many of them do seem to be reliable as garden plants in our climate. And the deer don’t seem to like them. 

In the old Bailey Cyclopedia of American Horticulture there is this: “This genus includes the Red-hot Poker Plant…which is unique in its appearance and one of the most striking plants in common cultivation. No one who has ever seen its pyramidal spike of blazing red fls. borne in autumn is likely to forget when and where he 'discovered' this plant.“  Count me among those who have not forgotten. In the Silver Spring, Maryland neighborhood where I grew up few of the lots had fences. As children we ran freely from lot to lot in play. I have not forgotten the day I turned a corner of a neighbor’s house and there in front of me in full bloom was one of these amazing plants. I don’t remember how long I stood there enjoying that delightful mixture of astonishment and curiosity which occurs when I see a new, exciting plant. But I’ve never forgotten it.

These plants are nothing new in our gardens: nursery lists of a century ago describe plants which from the written descriptions could pass for some of the cultivars now sold. In the image below you can see the list of cultivars offered by Bertrand H. Farr in his 1917-1918 catalog:

Here's an image from Daniel Foley’s Garden Flowers in Color, Macmillan Company, 1943. By now most copies have probably been de-accessioned or otherwise trashed: what a pity!  Copies of this are still available and typically inexpensive: get one! Read the text thoroughly,  and you will come away with a sense of what an ideal eastern American garden from a half century ago must have been like. Many of the old favorites are here and given loving treatment. The flowers illustrated in this image differ little from the cultivars now making the rounds. Here's the poker picture:

Two Kniphofia from my garden are shown here. At the top of the post is the startling K. thompsonii. The first time I saw this one I was momentarily baffled: was it a huge Lachenalia? A strange Aloë? It took a moment to realize that it was a very distinctive Kniphofia – now one of my favorites.

And here is 'Echo Rojo':

If you own rights to the Foley image or the Farr image and object to their usage here, let me know and I will remove them.