just thought i would post a couple of pictures of my St Josephs lilies in bloom. i dug these last fall from my Great Grandmothers old home which has been abandoned for over 20 years. i guess with the improved soil, they are blooming like crazy!
tracie
here is another of the same clump showing thalia daffs in the front, along with snaps and pansies.
That's looks great aggie! So much colour and greenery so early in Spring, especially the reds and whites! Little pansies in ther too.
thank you. actually the pansies and snaps are fall thru spring flowers here due to the heat. my pansies were gorgeous all winter and now they are pretty much wilting away.
tracie
Gosh you are lucky to have got those aggie! They must be very old, and are quite likely to be the true St. Joseph. You're lucky to be able to grow them outside too, a lovely show!
what is funny is that when you drive around town here in Lufkin, you see these at a number of houses. mostly older homes for a patch of them. you also see the byzantine glads which are also very expensive online all over the place. Old house gardens wanted me to send them my bulbs, they verified they are the original St Josephs lilies. they are very nice over there and are doing a great job preserving heirloom plants/bulbs.
tracie
Did you send some to Old House gardens? You could do a good deal with them for a few bulbs! G. byzantinus is very cheap here, I don't know why they are so expensive there.
no, i didnt send them any. i have been trading some of them on this forum for lots of nice plants that i want. its much more fun! according to OHG, the cheaper glads that are called byzantine glads are not the real deal. i dont know if that is true, but that is what they say.
tracie
Good for you!
The cheap byzantines in the US are G. italicus, here they are the real thing. They say byzantinus doesn't make seeds, it does and multiplies quickly by bulbs too. I have it!
that is defineately true! when i got my byzantine glads, a saw a lot of babies with almost no corm. they looked like seedlings, really. i guess OHG means the cheaper byzantines that are sold over here. after talking with them, it seems that the prices are so much higher for these heirlooms because they are not commercially grown and widely available. i have another glad that has bloom at my parents property for the entire 30+ years that they have owned it. the glads are located at an old home site and may have been growing there since the turn of th 19th century. anyway, i trading a number of those last year on this site. OHG again wanted me to send them some, but i declined. they are one of the original species parrot glads.
tracie
I grew G. dalenii from seed I got from VanDusen botanical gardens, it varies quite a lot. Yours is very pretty, it sounds like you have a gold mine of old plants there! Seed can be bought of other glad species from siverhillseeds.co.za
