2014 lilies

How horrible.

Almost no one grows lilies here, which I always thought was sad but seems to be a saving grace. People walk past and look at my lilies as if they have never seen them before. I never thought it would be a plus but it is.

Razzle Dazzle has formed a large clumping area about 30" tall. Very prolific. I have had Dimension for several years; have trouble telling the darker shorties apart (Black Out for instance). I know you sent me a Silver Sunburst but I can't find it. There are lots coming up that I have no clue about until they bloom though.

Silver Sunburst will probably turn up. It's indestructible.

Everything is out of order. Red Alert should have bloomed three weeks ago. The stems are there, but it has always bloomed a month earlier than Hiawatha, which blooms in late July. It looks like they will bloom together in about ten days.

Silver Sunburst is right on time. But since when do lilies with mostly asiatic blood show up AFTER trumpets. And my oriental Sorbonne bloomed slightly before my trumpets.

My point is that I don't really know exactly what I have, because established lilies are playing with the calendar!

What an odd growing season. Can't say that is happening to the lilies here except the earliest asiastics were late. I too am waiting to find Black Dragon because I read about it as so many designers' favorite.

My Nymph, and some others including Gold Band from OHG are starting to open but camera exposures are bleaching colors no matter what the light outside!

This message was edited Jul 17, 2014 6:52 AM

Oh cool! I have Gold Band coming in fall. I did a preorder from OHG.

I am finding that I cannot photograph lilies in the morning because of the light. I have to wait for late afternoon to photograph the ones on the south and west sides of my yard.

One of the reasons the display is getting outrageous is that I discovered that the lilies in sun spots on the north side of my yard don't bloom well, so I have moved them all to the south. And the walnut bed killed all of the asiatics. And I get extra lilies from everyone from whom I order (OK, nice problem!) The only lily that came through in the walnut bed was Silk Road, but it was half its normal height, so I moved it. (But I don't remember where!? And I had four. Where the heck are they?) This means that I have a billion lilies in much more confined spaces, so I ended up putting some on the parkway (Silver Sunburst) and some in my front yard with the roses and peonies and grasses.

From what I have read, Rosemary, the Black Dragons are all strains, and not clones. I don't see what the big deal is, but Scott at Old House Gardens keeps going on and on about how the stock out there is not "authentic" and is widely mislabeled. Every year. He says he's trying to get it. I remember liking Black Dragon, Regale, and lilium leucanthum var. centifolium - and then realizing that there were huge similarities in appearance (except that LL can grow ten feet tall) and there was no need to buy all three. So I went with Regale, and later when I got Black Dragon it didn't work for me.

I really love the lilies because the bulbs I am getting are producing just incredible flowers. Most of last year's vendors (Faraway Flowers, Hallson Gardens, and B&D) gave me lilies for which each bulb produced three flowers. The effect is spectacular, although I feel a little guilty because so many who love these wonderful flowers can't grow them anymore.

I have some trumpets this year and am hoping they come through. Got Gold Band also and while small they have multiple buds. Conc d'Or a great favorite of mine is growing well. I killed it two years ago and reordered it last year so first year in my garden. It makes it to about 36" tall is all but the flowers are huge and many. Only my small asiatics are blooming now and few of those.

You executed Conc d'Or? I think I drowned my Black Dragons.

Well, I'm a martagon assasin.

Bwhaahaaahaa! Aren't we just peachy!! ROTFL

Old House Gardens was blowing out its white martagons. I paid for 5 at 50% off and got 8. Then I installed them. In the fall. When the hostas hat came with the house were dormant. Well, seven of the eight lilies came up, but I wasn't paying attention. The hostas knocked their little heads off.

Well. there IS next year!

So the hostas damaged the lilies. How that that happen? I think Bright Diamonds is about to pop.

By growing over them and depriving them of light. And then the stems grew into them and bent.

I'm such a dummy!

you must have really big hosta

A bunch of them were there when I got there - I'm not a hosta person and never planted any. And I came from the land of sun, Lake County. So here is one group of them (I gave away about 30 to someone who was willing to dig them up). In front of them I put bergenia, mertensia, two layers of hardy geraniums, wintergreen, ornigothalem, and Scott's lilies. Overkill.

But I replaced them with oakleaf hydrangeas, and two two macrophyllas, one an Endless Summer that is finally beginning to perform after being a dud last year, and I moved a beautiful once blooming hydrangea, which I had to cut last year after moving it, so I'm waiting for its first bloom. I also put in four doublefile viburnums, and lots of ferns.

The people who lived here were not interested in ornamental gardening, so I had about sixty hostas. I prefer more of a mix of plants, so I was very happy to get rid of what I regarded as the excess (I know a lot of people love them and don't understand my attitude).

I like them to fill in and add some interesting texture and color. Plus they come in huge (Jurassic) to tiny (Mouse's Ears) so they can be fit in as needed. Heavens knows they spread fast enough. I have only had them truly mature the last year or so. I did buy Jurassic and Sum and Substance for a large that needs filler and was in shade most of the time. I am going to also try Japanese Iris there in addition to the Bleeding Heart, Feverfew, Solomon's Seal, Astilbe.

I think my July crop is near its peak. I have nymph, gold band, Conca d'or, regale and that ubiquitous yellow noid. Looking closer, I don't think that was a regale. Probably a different noid--any guesses? The Regal lily is in my front yard.

This message was edited Jul 18, 2014 7:51 PM

It's a great crop. All that gold. That ubiquitous noid is very lovely, with a great plant habit.

I have bleeding heart (inherited), feverfew (every transplanted clump goes nuts, and I added solomon's seal. This is very cool.

My heavens That last one reminds me of "Jack and the Beanstalk". Huge 'stalk.' I love them all.

Yes feverfew show up everywhere even in the front of the house. Moved dirt, birds, wind?? who knows. Easy to pull plus I like the little starts. As they get bigger I move them to a nursery section until I decide where I want them. They brighten up every spot and grow rather upright and fairly tall. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the one plant I bought. Solomon's Seal multiplies each year but politely stays in the same few feet. I just split some clumps off for another shady spot just for the visual difference. I think they are so cool with the arced stem with the little white bells tipped with a light green. I am trying once again to get Helleborus to grow up here. It should work in with the astilbes and such.

When I was planting, I got tired of all gold so the later ones like black beauty and rubrum have pink tones, though I do like having the gold now. Now to figure out where to place Sorbonne! Feverfew is in my garden's future. Solomon seal--I especially like the variegated leaf ones but they are multiplying very slowly. I am going to remember what you lily experts are saying about too much acidity for the species lilies so they'll come up after a few more years of acid rain.

Oh yes, let us sing the praises of double feverfew!

Once I realized that feverfew not only overwinters beautifully here (remaining plants appear, in the spring, to be dead, but they are not) I started picking up little clumps of it and spreading it everywhere. The great thing about it is that if it gets too carried away you can cut it well back or tear it out.

The first picture is my driveway bed in April, with the surprise lily doing their early season sprout and the bulbs that come over from my neighbors yard - his only positive contribution! And digitalis Husker Red, that does really well here. It tended to die out in Lake County.

Last fall I moved a tiny clump to my front bed where I have lots of roses and lilies. I didn't expect it to live but it ended up mingling agreeably, in June, with salvia tesquicola and allium christophii.

In the third picture it is becoming a little more exuberant in my front bed.

The fourth picture is the driveway bed again. It's been seeding to the base of my raspberry beds, and what a pretty picture it makes. The other green plant is parsley.

When it gets carried away (it can become quite tall) I just cut it back or pull it out. All from a plant I started from seeds from Select Seeds a billion years ago. I have pics from 2006 showing mature plants!

Solomon seal is a new acquisition - the variegatum odoratum selection.

Wow Donna. Finally someone who must get up earlier than I do! I promise to try feverfew in a garden area. Don't see it much in the local gardens. Seems noone plants a flower any smaller than a Shasta daisy.

My cats like to get fed. It's supposed to be at 6 a.m., but they have figured out that if they come sit on my chest and lick my face they can get fed at 5. So I feed them, give them fresh water, make a little hawaiian blend coffee, open the curtains and read garden books for about an hour. Then I start my day.

I find that these really early hours are the best part of the day. Now that I have a flexible schedule and work on the days I want and the times I want it's really cool. I'm checking my seedlings because some can go into pots soon. I have borage, nasturtiums and four o'clocks that I direct seeded that are coming up. I do that at the beginning of every July to have color through November. And then I collect the seeds of the nasturtiums and four o'clocks and dry them out, pop them in the fridge and reuse them. Some plants come only in mixtures and you can separate and preserve the colors you like.

The one plant I started buying is salvia elegans, or pineapple sage. I bought it as part of my contribution to Illinois Extension Master Gardeners "Idea Garden", but it didn't bloom, so I dug it up and brought it home. I didn't realize that it was a fall bloomer until - pow! - it shot up to four feet tall and produced stunning red flowers.

So this year I bought it for me! Just a couple of bucks, but two of them are in the front bed with the other plants I put in for late summer.

And, thrill of thrills, I have seen two monarch butterflies. I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I had not seen a single one here over two summers, and I had tons of them in Lake County, where there are still a lot of prairie plants around. And I have seen a few "hummingbird moths", that look like tiny hummingbirds with lots of red on them. They like my nepeta. I see a few verbena bonariensis plants coming up. I threw out seed last year and got one plant, but then they start to migrate around the yard.

What fun!

What energy you have! How does your body handle it all? Sore body parts are my limitation. There is no plan to purchase help while three kids are in college. This year verbena bonariensis was new in my garden, and a lot more nepeta. But I have neglected the fennel dill and parsley. Pineapple sage is planned for next year's planting zone. Sadly no Monarchs here for quite a while though I even have a seven-son flower- tree in a pot in addition to the traditional monarch plants. There is a goodly number of black swallowtails--no azures yet in the linderas, some hummers and I have a ton of nice bees that especially like the baptisia and secondly the liatris. Haven't seen the bluebird that built a nest on my roof for a while. Have to insure the painter doesn't mess with it. Each year the busy pollinators grow in number (and I see they do like the lilies) but most birds are still the usual suspects.

My body doesn't handle it all. I found a phenomenal massage therapist. He was with a hospital for several years and now has been a solo practitioner for at least six (having a hospital clientele does wonders for building a client list) and I see him every two weeks. I am an aging jock - running and bodybuilding. What makes it tough is spending 8-10 hours a week in clients' gardens and then doing my own gardening. The loser is housecleaning. I cook multiple portions of chicken and soup and things like that. I sleep like a log! And with a flexible schedule, I'm a big fan of the afternoon nap, with cats sleeping on my torso. I'm sore all the time!

The new birds here are blue jays. I hadn't seen them since childhood! Lots of cardinals. Mourning dove (love the sound). None of the goldfinches of Lake County. All those plants attracted tons of migrating birds that would descend and stay for a week or two. 0ne year a bunch of Dick Sissals came through on the way to South America and wiped out hundreds of berries on the two allegheny serviceberries we had at the time. Never saw them again. The birds changed around until the robins took over. I never realized that they were so mean. They would dive bomb me in the nesting season. I also got the occasional duck, because we had a manmade lake nearby. We had bluebird boxes that people monitored, ao we had the thrill of a lot of blue birds. I hope your nest stays intact. Such sweet creatures!

Here people grow lots of evergreens and other plants that don't attract birds or butterflies

My first Anastasia! (Forgive the neighbor's lovely fence!)

I hope my Anastasia bloom where ever it is. lol. Donna, so you aren't working for that company where you had to get up at the crack of dawn and drive forever just to get there. How wonderful for you. I take it you are now an garden consultant. The beginning of your day sounds much like mine. I found out decades ago that if I got up really early no one was awake to bother me. So quiet and no demands. I have kept it up through retirement. The fact that Damien arises pretty much @ 5am every morning helps keep me on schedule. Such as it is. Sometimes 4am, sometimes 6 or 7 am. I let my body tell me when it wants to get up.

I didn't realize there was a double feverfew. I can see from you pictures that they have larger flowers than mine. And my plants are a bright lime green which I love. I guess I will stick with them. They scatter themselves enough without adding to it.

It's another lovely one!

My insurance pays for chiropractors but the one who had an infared massager retired. I find an activator trained one is very helpful keeping arms fully functional because of no neck or back problems.

As a former resident of the Fox river valley (our house was by Blackberry creek and we owned the oldest elm in the area) I can say years ago there were tons of Blue jays, yellow finches and such. Divebombing came mainly from the king fishers but the jays were merciless attacfking our dogs. Robins, sparrows, cardinals and lots of people had purple martin apartments. So sorry that these things declined in your area. Bluebirds are rare in the northeast, so I hope to do more for them. Too bad if people only plant evergreens, but of course, enough of the right ones provides good hiding places and seeds to eat.

This break time from digging and weeding. I am measuring distance from the lily area to plant a new Blue spruce--Walnut Glen which has yellow new growth but is otherwise blue. I hope it will add a golden aura behind the tall lilies, but if it's not enough contrast there can be something dark in between. it will take a few years to find out.

I am not nostalgic about the 67.2 mile commute - each way! The money was great but I had to get up at 4 in the morning to run and do the drive - they wanted you to be there early. And the people were nuts!

I am what I think of as a garden consultant and manager. Someone else does the composting and mulching, but I plant, prune, maintain, diagnose and cure (just treated some roses for a magnesium and or iron deficiency) and help you choose new plants, and where to move old ones. I also had work done by an arborist for a great company and they are willing to come out and diagnose. I also chew you out if you buy Knockout roses. I have two glorious clients in St. Charles with great big lots and fairly formal, but exuberant houses. My job is, basically, to make sure it looks great for entertaining. Perfect job for an anal person like me. A way to be obsessive and get PAID!

I get to pick my own days and hours. This time of year I tend to head out in the morning, and spend the time necessary to make everything look great. One family's husband is celebrating his 60th birthday, and they are having an all day open house, so I pruned and trimmed in anticipation.

But the best part? Talking to my clients, going around the yard and solving problems, and listening and suggesting. And dealing with their (believe it or not) absolutely wonderful teenaged children, who tell me that the yard has never looked this wonderful, and can they get me some lemonade? When my first client put her hand on my arm last week and told me how proud they are that I work with them, and said I was like family, I just said how much I loved being there - because I do.

Then I went home and boohooed. Why wasn't full time work like this?

How funny. Many years ago (about 1976) I lived here in Anchorage and cleaned houses because then I could be home when my son came home from school. Laura was in preschool (think daycare). If I had gotten a job as an accountant he would have to have been in after school care.

Anyway one family had four teenaged daughters, mother was a nurse. And they hired me to clean their fairly large house. Three full baths, several bedrooms, large kitchen with jenn Air etc. It became impossible to get home after they added the third house to meet Jimmy when he got out of school so I quite that house. @ Christmas I filled in for a lady on leave and was met at the door by the girls who fussed over me and said that they could always tell when I had been there and that the new person made very little impact on the house. Wouldn't I please stay on with them. I felt the same way. Valued. When I left a Calif S&L in 68 the manager I worked for (pre children) asked if I could just get divorced and stay on with them. lol. It was a pretty interesting job in Berkley. Lot of black/white tension. Turned out I got on better with the black ladies than the snobby white gal who was supposedly my immediate supervisor. Being a plain old Alaskan didn't set me up for bigotry.

I was always convinced that you are incredibly cool and you just confirmed it!

I have to show you this. I was heading out and saw something in my yard. This is my pal, the cat who cuts through my yard almost every day. A fried brought me plants, and after I took the out there was just soil at the bottom. It kept raining, so it got topped off with water, and I have been struggling to drag it to the back of my yard and use it to water the veggie bins. So what do I see?

Sometimes this guy just sits in my yard and watches me from a distance. Three cats cut through my yard, but I have never seen a dead bird, so we're on good terms.

Sounds like you've goat a great life, Donna. And Mary must be enjoying reitrement very well with the glorious gardens and all.

Cute kitty. Animals make gardening so much more fun.

One of the tricks is understanding how lucky you are. There are so many people who have so little. I know that I have enough.

Love that kitty. I love the little dog I have now but I am at heart a cat person. The bigger and chunkier the more I like them. They can stand a good hug.

Thanks Donna. As Popeye would say "I am what I am and that is all that I am" lol

I too have so very much to be grateful for. I am so much happier now than when I worked. Took a few years to simmer down, but here I am. :)

I had feverfew (tanacetum vulgare) in my flowerbeds and found it so invasive I pulled it all out, again and again until it was gone. I have since fallen in love with tanacetum niveum and it does reseed, but just about 5-6 plants a year. I keep 3 or so and share the rest.

tanacetum vulgare - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/320/

tanacetum niveum - http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53288/

I'm thinking the one in your photos is tanacetum parthenium, yes?
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/319/

I don't have either of those. But mine does resemble the second one more than the first. Well, duh. Mine have tiny daisy like flowers white

Mine is neither vulgare or niveum. It's the one with minimal yellow. It's feverfew 'Tetra strain' which is a tetraploid. Which I understand to mean 4 sets of chromosomes. The result is the elimination of most of the yellow, which is what I like about it. I believe from what I have read that it is a tetraploid form of parthenium.

Tetraploidy in lilies leads to stronger stems and all kinds of other goodies. They did the same thing to basic feverfew. Mine spreads, but it's not invasive.

This message was edited Jul 20, 2014 6:59 AM

It is special. When I start feverfew, i will definitely get the tetraploid. I am more familiar with this genetic experimentation resulting in a quadraploid oyama magnolia, Collossus. I can grow it in the semi- shade and still see gorgeous blooms upon it.

Oh, Rosemary, you rock! A quadraploid? Cool!

It's young but this gives the idea of the blossom. As you can see, it is still hasn't grown much

Niveum has larger flowers, not double. It looks so happy, all those mini-daisies smiling at me. It's a bit like comparing Crazy daisy to Shasta daisy.