Tag Archives: flowering bulbs

The Last Surprises

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I posted photos earlier from our lycoris selection back in August, but the season extends through September and into October. Below are some of the later flowering varieties. With a selection of cultivars, you can easily have a lycoris in flower from early July until mid October.

Lycoris ‘Tipping Point’ looks like the common Lycoris radiata, but instead of yellow pollen, it has white, creating interesting anther tips.

Lycoris radiata ‘Tipping Point’

Lycoris x caldwellii ‘Eye Scream’ is a hybrid between two spring-leaf species, Lycoris longituba and Lycoris chinensis.

Lycoris x caldwellii ‘Eye Scream’

Ledebouria Bling

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We’ve been fascinated with the African genus of bulbs, Ledebouria for many years, and one of our best successes has been the South African Ledebouria ovalifolia, which has thrived outdoors in our garden

In 2015, we spotted a single streak of variegation on one leaf. After eight years of work, we have isolated that original streak into a stable edged pattern as you can see below in our newly named, Ledebouria ovalifolia ‘Rainbow’s End’. Since it’s only managed three divisions in eight years, we’ll be experimenting with some other propagation techniques.

Ledebouria ovalifolia ‘Dawie Human’
Ledebouria ovalifolia ‘Rainbow’s End’

Hello Lily

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The US native (Maine south to Alabama) Lilium canadense is looking quite lovely in the sunny garden this week. This particular form is from Cabarrus County, NC. Hardiness Zone 3a-8b.

Lilium canadense

Oh, Katherine!

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I can’t imagine a summer garden without the South African woodland bulb, Scadoxus multiflorus ssp. katherine. This amazing bulb in the Amaryllis family, grows best in light, open shade, where it bursts forth sans foliage in late June. This clump is right outside our kitchen window, making it hard not to smile. Hardiness is Zone7b and warmer.

Intermingling in the Garden

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We love intermingling plants, often planting more than one type in the same space, where their growth habits allow them to comfortably co-exist. Here is a three year-old planting where we used ‘Gold Queen’ Hyacinth among a patch of our North American native groundcover juniper, Juniperus horizontalis ‘Bar Harbor’. Despite what many folks seem to think, there are no laws that plants in the garden can’t touch each other, so how about some more hand-holding in the garden.

Cracking Crocus

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Spring crocus are popping all through the garden, and it’s a challenge to photograph them all. We just happened to recently catch Crocus isauricus ‘Spring Beauty’ in full flower. Crocus isauricus (formerly Crocus biflorus ssp. isauricus) is an endemic to Southern Turkey in the region along the Mediterranean Sea.

Late Summer Rains

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We are fascinated with the wonderful genus zephyranthes (rain lilies). Zephyranthes are unobtrusive, summer-flowering bulbs that can fit in any garden, with a flower color ranging from yellow to white to pink. The great thing about zephyranthes is the lack of large foliage that often accompanies many other spring-flowering bulbs, so site them in the front of the border, or in a rock garden to be best appreciated.

Zephyranthes are one of our specialty collections at Juniper Level Botanic Garden, with 25 species and 257 unique clones. Here are a few of the zephyranthes blooming this morning in our alpine berm. You can view our entire zephyranthes photo gallery here.

Zephyranthes ‘Heart Throb’
Z. La Bufa Rosa group white
Z. La Bufa Rosa group
Z. ‘Star Spangled’

When it rains, it pours…I mean, flowers

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Here’s our reference stock blocks of zephyranthes (rain lilies). Within 3-4 days after a rain, the beds are ablaze with what the late rain lily breeder, Fadjar Marta, called a floral blitz. We concur.

Welcome back, Katherine

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Every year around July 4, we celebrate with our own horticultural fireworks show as the South African Scadoxus multiflorus ssp. katherine bursts into flower. Here are our plants at JLBG this week. This amazing bulb requires light shade to grow and thrive. Anyone whose woodland gardens suffers from the summer doldrums, would do well to include Katherine. Hardiness Zone 7b-10.

I Spy Lily

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One of the June joys at JLBG is flowering season for Lilium x sulphurgale ‘Vico Gold’. We have grown to love the summer-flowering liliies for their ability to leap from the ground amongst a crowded landscape to provide a burst of color and fragrance during the heat of summer. Lilium ‘Vico Gold’ is not just a star, but it has a great back story. Alabama gardener Wade Mahlke shared this with us in 2013, from his trip decades earlier to the Switzerland garden of the now deceased Sir Peter Smithers. For those who haven’t read Sir Peter’s books, his career was as a spy in the British Secret Service, working for Ian Fleming. James Bond fans will certainly recognize the name. After his retirement, Smithers served in British Parliament before retiring to Switzerland, where he indulged his passion for gardening and plant breeding until his death in 2006 at age 93. Lilium ‘Vico Gold’ is his introduction of a hybrid of Lilium sulphureum and Lilium regale…a superb introduction that we’ve “bonded” with in the garden. It looks like we may be able to finally make it available through Plant Delights next spring.

Uun-yaaw \noun\ (Cajun)

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We’ve got some really superb unyaaw’s blooming now. Actually, if you’re not of the Cajun persuasion, they’re onions…of the genus Allium. The North American native Allium canadense is quite showy in the late spring/early summer garden. The first is a superbly dense flowering selection, Allium ‘White Flag’, made by the late bulb guru, Thad Howard. Allium canadense var. lavendularae is a lovely purple-flowered form. Purple seedlings pop up occasionally in wild populations, but we’ve been able to isolate a particularly nice purple form from light lavender flowering plants that originated in Kansas, shared by plantsman Aaron Floden.

Allium canadense ‘White Flag’
Allium canadense var. lavandulare