With minimal effort, the gardener in the mid Atlantic is able to have one thing or the other flowering in the garden every day, even through winter, which is not so difficult with a few well chosen shrubs and a small assortment of early flowering bulbs. Along with a few orchids and forced stems of…
Tag: toad lilies
Late summer favorites
The gardener is likely to assert that he has only a few favorites; many plants that he is particularly fond of, but only a few that are truly treasured. But, as steadfast as one might insist himself to be, inevitably favorites will change through the seasons. After too many years claiming one plant or another…
New toad lilies have arrived
Several new toad lilies arrived in iffy condition, and this late in the season it will be spring before I know that all have survived. A note was attached from the Washington state mail order nursery that one was headed into dormancy, most likely due to recent extreme heat on the west coast, I suspect….
Late summer blooms
The flowers of several cultivars of toad lilies (Tricyrtis) are too narrow for bumblebees to fit to sample the nectar that is protected beneath pollen laden anthers. So, the bee simply chews a hole near the base of the flower (above), and takes its fill. The bee’s shortcut undermines the toad lily’s natural mechanism designed…
Subtle charms
There is a place in the garden for extravagant masses of blooms that can be appreciated by neighbors zooming past in their cars, though to my thinking these displays are best suited to commercial properties and entrances to communities. Many homeowners take pride in planting masses of petunias and impatiens that flower without interruption for…
Winding down
My walk through the garden on Sunday afternoon was brief, too brief. And, my treks out into the garden are becoming more infrequent. There’s just not much to see. With several nights over the past few weeks that have dropped into the mid-twenties most of the garden has gone dormant. The toad lilies and autumn…
Through freeze and frost, until ….
With little effort the gardener can find a surprising number of plants that flower late into the autumn so that the garden’s season is extended and the drab of winter is shortened. There are also winter hardy flowers for January and February, but that’s a story for another day. By early November there were frequent…
Complications
After a particularly brutal summer the remontant (reblooming ) mophead hydrangeas are flowering only sporadically (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Penny Mac’, below). Their foliage remains lush and green, but there are many fewer flowers than most years and few buds that will bloom later in October. A year ago temperatures were nearly as hot in July, and…
In late August
There’s an obvious void in the rear garden where the multi trunked Seven Son Tree (Heptacodium miconiodes, below) was toppled over by a storm earlier in the summer. The missing tree disturbs my eye, and I’ve been desperate to replace it, but hesitant to plant another tree until cooler temperatures and more regular rainfall returns…
Unintended pruning
A few weeks ago I noticed the toad lilies (Tricyrtis, flowering in September, below) were getting a bit taller than I prefer, though they were not at all leggy. Some years I’ve pruned them to be shorter and more compact, and other times I’ve let them grow. If left unpruned they will bloom a few…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 