Last Sigh of Summer

The glory of fall has arrived on Crowley’s Ridge! These days I find myself raising my eyes often from my work to gaze in wonder at the vivid scarlet of a sumac, or the blaze of gold in the hickory on the hill, or the blue, blue, blue of the autumn sky.

My flowerbeds are mostly ragtag foliage now but there is one last sigh of summer – Nicotiana alata or flowering tobacco. Some time in the summer months I read that it attracts moths, mostly lunas, which I dearly love, so I bought the first one I came across. I obviously didn’t have my head on straight because I know that luna moths don’t feed at all as adults. They don’t even have mouthparts but emerge from their cocoons only to mate and die within a week.

Nicotiana alata

Doing a little research on flowering tobacco before my purchase would have been wise too as mine have little scent, but I love their colors, the bright, almost neon red and the pale rose. I later read that the newer varieties, which are much more colorful, don’t have the fragrance of the old-fashioned ones. Next year I’ll look for the unimproved white variety for its fragrance but I’ll also plant the colorful ones for their beauty!

Early Autumn Color

The garden is winding down for the season and there's not much blooming now, although the Sansanqua Camellias are about to start. No doubt that the drought here isn't giving the plants what they need to provide abundant late flowers. There is some interest in the garden now provided by some bright autumn foliage, although the peak is at least several weeks away. The three species featured are all native to the Eastern United States and are reliable providers of early autumn color.

First up is Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora), a plant that's been featured on this blog twice before, for its emerging spring foliage and early summer flowers.

Aesculus parviflora autumn foliage

Close-up of Aesculus parviflora compound leaf

Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) is not known for showy flowers, but it does have a neat pyramidal habit and consistently adds bright red to the early autumn scene.

Nyssa sylvatica autumn foliage

Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum) is another reliable provider of early autumn red foliage and also offers attractive summer flowers.

Oxydendrum arboreum autumn foliage

Autumnal bare bloomers

On Friday afternoon and evening the garden finally had a good rainfall, receiving almost 2 inches (4.5 cm) after two months with very little precipitation and temperatures well above average. The rain, along with the autumnal air mass that followed it, brought many geophytes into flower this week. All of these "bulbs" are unusual because they bloom in late summer and autumn without any foliage present.

Lycoris radiata, a native of China, has spidery red flowers with long, exserted filaments. After blooming, the tidy, dark green leaves, with a pale central stripe, emerge and add attractive greenery to the garden all winter, disappearing as the bulbs enter dormancy in the spring.

Close-up of Lycoris radiata

Group of Lycoris radiata

Rhodophiala bifida, a native of Uruguay and Argentina, also has red flowers on bare scapes, but the flowers have a different look. The narrow leaves emerge from its long-necked bulbs after the flowers, remain green all winter and go dormant in the spring, but they're long and sprawl around, rather than remaining tidy like those of Lycoris radiata.

Group of Rhodophiala bifida

Not all of these autumn bloomers are red, these Colchicum have pinkish-purple flowers. Unlike the others here, its broad foliage doesn't emerge from its corms until late winter, going dormant in late spring.

Close-up of Colchicum

Cyclamen hederifolium, native to Southern Europe, has pale pink flowers, shaped like shuttlecocks, that arise from flattened corms. It has a long blooming season, during most of the autumn, and the later flowers are joined by dark green, triangular leaves with gorgeous silver markings.

Close-up of Cyclamen hederifolium

Variegated Hedychium

Back in June I had an early Hedychium bloom, but most Hedychiums bloom here during late summer and early autumn. Nearly all of these gingers have showy flowers and many are also intensely fragrant. Out of bloom they make attractive foliage plants with long tapered leaves alternating along arched stems. There aren't many with variegated leaves, I've got the only two I know of happily growing in the garden.

Hedychium 'Dr. Moy' has subtle variegation, a mixture of grayish-green, sometimes white, streaks and speckles on a medium green background. Without the variegation it would still be an excellent Hedychium because it has very sturdy stems which bear broad foliage and large heads of very fragrant, light orange flowers with darker orange throats. It is a hybrid of H. flavum × H. coccineum and was bred by and named after Dr. Moy, a botanist, now retired, at San Antonio Botanical Garden.

Hedychium 'Dr. Moy' flowers

Close-up of Hedychium 'Dr. Moy' foliage

Hedychium 'Vanilla Ice' is a sport of 'Dr. Moy' with very dramatic variegation consisting of abundant white streaks. Its flowers and growth habits are the same as 'Dr. Moy', and although the loss of chlorophyll reduces its vigor, it's still a decent grower. It was selected and propagated by Messenbrink's Nursery of Nashville, North Carolina.

Close-up of Hedychium 'Vanilla Ice' foliage

Hedychium 'Vanilla Ice' foliage

Hedychium 'Vanilla Ice' flowers

Hippeastrum reticulatum striatifolium

Hippeastrum reticulatum striatifolium is quite a mouthful, but it's also a very descriptive name. Reticulatum refers to the net-like veining in the flowers while striatifolium refers to the white stripe down the center of each leaf, both are features readily observed in the photograph. This beauty is not planted in the garden, it's potted in a decorative container and spends most of the year on the porch, except during winter when it's in the house.

Curcuma

Curcuma is a genus in Zingiberaceae family with about 80 species native to Asia. The rhizomes of Curcuma longa are ground to make turmeric, an orange-yellow powder used as a spice in curries. Other species are cultivated for their showy flowers and bold foliage, but they also have aromatic rhizomes, leaves, and stems even though they're not cultivated for turmeric production. The two best performers in the garden so far I grow mostly for their foliage.

Curcuma rubescens has bright red petioles supporting its large green leaves. In bright light, with sufficient moisture, even the leaves will produce red pigments, although never as dark as the petioles. It's known to have showy spring flowers too, but my plants have been reluctant to bloom so far. If they bloom someday that will be great, but even without I am happy.

Curcuma rubescens petioles

'Emperor' is an attractive selection of Curcuma petiolata with excellent variegated foliage, green with a variable creamy margin. It also produces summer flowers, but they're subtle when compared with many Curcuma flowers. They're also mostly hidden by the foliage so they don't really contribute to the overall garden scene, but it's worth your while to part the foliage and take a peek if you enjoy unusual flowers.

Curcuma petiolata 'Emperor' flower

Curcuma petiolata 'Emperor' foliage

Both of these plants are very slow to emerge in the spring, often not showing above ground until late May, causing the gardener to wonder if the cold weather from the previous winter has killed them. However, once they start to grow they do so very rapidly, reaching full height in just a few weeks.

Yes! We have pink bananas!

We have pink bananas today! Not only are these bananas pink, they're also cute and fuzzy, too bad they're really seedy and not edible.

Musa velutina fruits

They belong to Musa velutina, a small banana that grows about 7 feet (2m) tall and is winter hardy here in Raleigh, North Carolina. Its large leaves give the garden a tropical look from late spring until frost, with additional interest provided by the pink flowers in late summer, followed by the attractive, and unusual, pink fruits. I got my first plants a few years ago from my buddy Bodhisagan, the owner of this blog, and this year I had enough to share with another friend.

Musa velutina

Musa velutina inflorescence

Late Summer Crinum Favorites

Two favorite Crinums are blooming in the garden now, both are hybrids that have one New World parent, either the Southeastern United States native, Crinum americanum , or its South American counterpart, Crinum erubescens. Both of these species have very fragrant, spidery, white flowers with dark pink filaments. They also thrive on moist soils, as do their hybrids.

Crinum 'Summer Nocturne' is Thad Howard's cross of Crinum erubescens with Crinum moorei. It has large, wide open, sweetly fragrant, white flowers with pink tips. Its tall, purple scapes contrast nicely with its lush, green foliage.

Crinum 'Summer Nocturne'

Crinum 'Royal White' is the first of the ×digweedii hybrids (Crinum americanum × Crinum scabrum) to bloom in the garden, although a walk around the garden today revealed that others are getting ready. Like 'Summer Nocturne', 'Royal White' also has sweetly fragrant, wide open, white flowers, but instead of pink tips it has pink stripes.

Crinum 'Royal White'

Xanthosoma

Xanthosoma, along with Colocasia, Alocasia, and other genera with large leaves in the Arum (Araceae) family, are commonly called Elephant's Ear. Xanthosoma is a New World genus with about 50 species, all native to Central and South America. Their large leaves make them attractive ornamentals and some species are also cultivated for food, mostly for their tubers, but the young, unfurled leaves are also eaten.

Xanthosoma mafaffa 'Lime Zinger' has a great name because its huge leaves are a shade of chartreuse that's sometimes called Day-Glo yellow. It's a slow grower during the spring, but grows rapidly once hot, humid, summer weather arrives. From a tuber about the size of a baseball, set out after the last spring frost, it can easily grow 6 feet tall and 6 feet wide by the end of the summer if provided with moist, rich soil and partial sun. In the past I've dug mine for winter storage, not a difficult task despite the plant's huge size, but I have enough tubers now to store some and also leave some out for testing.

Close-up of Xanthosoma mafaffa 'Lime Zinger' foliage

Xanthosoma mafaffa 'Lime Zinger'

If 'Lime Zinger' has you reaching for your sunglasses then Xanthosoma violaceum will have you removing them. That's because its leaves are a cool blue-green with purple margins. Its petioles are also purple and on a healthy specimen there's often a purple overlay on the upper leaf surfaces. I haven't been growing this one for long so I'm not sure if it will mature as large as 'Lime Zinger', but I sure hope so.

Xanthosoma violaceum

Close-up of Xanthosoma violaceum petiole

Crinum 'Jubilee'

Crinum 'Jubilee', a hybrid of Crinum loddigesianum made by Luther Bundrandt, bloomed in the garden at the end of July. It's a beauty with very large, wide open, sweetly fragrant, blush pink flowers. Another plus is the foliage, which is compact, tidy, and broad with a satiny finish, so even out of bloom it's an attractive plant. All of this adds up to a great Crinum which I rank right up there with my other favorites, 'Mrs. James Hendry' and 'Improved Peachblow'

What? Philodendron here?

One of those plants that brings to us tundra dwellers visions of the tropics is Philodendron selloum. You can find it at any theme park, green house or exhibit where the designer wishes to add a tropical or prehistoric touch.

In Florida, from the panhandle to destinations south, it is as ubiquitous as cabbage palmettos and Cycas revoluta. In those locals it never gets cold enough to kill the stems so the plant meanders about the landscape as one part vine and one part shrub.

I have always wanted to have this plant. I killed a couple over the years (neglect, it's a pretty easy houseplant) and eyed them on vacation in Florida. "Wow" I thought, "imagine, this plant grows as far north as Saint Augustine".

Imagine my excitement when I learned from a venerable plantsman Anniston Alabama that he was familiar with a clump that had grown there for years (Anniston and I roughly have the same climate).


As soon as I became a home owner, Philodendron selloum was one of the first plants I put in the ground. Years later it still surprises me each spring as it returns (watch out for slugs in April, they can really slow the emergence of this plant).Each winter the stems die to the ground, however the clumps that get enough sun do slowly increase and look fantastic. Cool as it may sound, the leaves don't even "fry" until it gets below 25F. So, often mine are still looking good on New Years.

So if you're looking for a little bit of the tropics in your more northerly garden, try The Home Depot and pick up a selloum for $10 and put it in the ground, it won't disappoint you if you live in a warm USDA 7b or higher.

Clethras

Japanese Clethra (Clethra barbinervis) has something to offer gardeners in every season. In spring and summer it has attractive, dark green foliage that's not subject to significant damage from insects or diseases. During the summer it adds showy, fragrant, white flowers. In autumn the leaves change to striking shades of orange and red, and after they drop the handsome, smooth, exfoliating bark and a nicely stratified branching pattern are revealed and may be enjoyed all winter.

It's another plant that I'd expect to see everywhere, but the only place I've observed any, other than my own garden, is at Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina, where there's a nice grove of them. Here in Raleigh we're towards the southern limit of where it can be successfully cultivated, so it must be sited carefully in moist, well drained soil in partial sun because it will not tolerate any combination of hot sun and dry soil in our climate.

Notice in the photo below that the flowers are all clustered at the top of the plant. This was caused by the April freeze that damaged this plant and others in the garden. The plant pictured lost nearly all of the new leaves and shoots on its lower two-thirds, and along with them the tissues that would have become this summer's flowers. Although the natural form of Clethra barbinervis is a large shrub, it can be pruned to become a small tree, revealing its handsome bark in all seasons. Each year it will grow a few new suckers low on its trunk, but they're easily removed and not much of a maintenance problem.

Clethra barbinervis is not the only Clethra growing in the garden. Its North American counterpart is probably Cinnamonbark Clethra (Clethra acuminata), also a desirable plant, but that's not in the garden, at least not yet. The other Clethra in the garden is the native Summersweet Clethra (Clethra alnifolia), whose common name refers to its summertime blooming of sweetly fragrant flowers. The most common flower color for this species is white, but the form I have pictured is an attractive pink flowered selection named 'Ruby Spice'.

Notice that this plant is covered with flowers from top to bottom. Because Clethra alnifolia is one of the last deciduous plants to leaf out in the spring it completely missed this year's April freeze. Like Clethra barbinervis, best growth of Clethra alnifolia occurs on moist soils. It can take full sun as long as the soil isn't too dry and even thrives in wet soils that would rot the root systems of many plants. In contrast to Clethra barbinervis, Clethra alnifolia doesn't have particularly interesting bark and can't easily be pruned into a small tree. In addition to growing shoots on its lower trunk, it also grows them from its entire root system and without maintenance it will soon colonize an area. It's not that aggressive so this usually isn't a problem, but a gardener considering using it should be aware of this habit.

Hymenocallis 'Tropical Giant'

A few weeks ago, in his post about Hymenocallis × festalis (syn. Ismene × festalis), Bodhisagan mentioned that he also grew some sexier Hymenocallis. I can't be sure which he was referring to, but the one featured in this post, Hymenocallis 'Tropical Giant', is one that comes to mind.

Like all Hymenocallis, its flower construction consists of six spidery petals surrounding a central cup (corona). The cup, like that of the familiar daffodil (Narcissus), a genus in the same family, Amaryllidaceae, is featured prominently in the scientific name because Hymenocallis translates literally to "beautiful membrane". A unique characteristic of 'Tropical Giant' is that three of the petals curve down while the other three point out.

Hymenocallis is a New World genus, with species native to the southern United States through northern South America, and all places in between, including the West Indies, but the exact origins of 'Tropical Giant' remain a mystery. In some garden literature it's referred to as a hybrid, but in other places it's attributed to H. caymanensis, a species from the Cayman Islands.

Despite its mysterious origins, one thing that's clear to me is that the combination of bold, glossy, dark green leaves and large, fragrant, white flowers make it one of the finest perennials for gardens in the Southeastern United States. In addition to its good looks it's easy to grow, it thrives in full sun to part shade in average to wet soils. It also multiplies readily by offsets, so sizable clumps develop with time.

Even if we had clear knowledge of its origins, another mystery remains. With all of its desirable qualities I'd expect to see this plant widely grown, yet it's a rarity. I don't know the reason for this, perhaps it is not thought to survive in climates with sub-freezing winter temperatures, or maybe it just needs more publicity, but it's a shame it's not used more frequently.

Passiflora incarnata

Passiflora incarnata is a wildflower, common in the southern United States and in Latin and South America. It is native to Crowley’s Ridge, the upland in the lowlands where I live and garden in southeast Missouri.

A sprawling or climbing perennial vine, the unusual and beautiful white and purple-fringed blooms are up to three inches across. They open quickly around noon and last but a day. However, bloom time is extended from June through September here in Missouri. Large three-lobed, serrated, deep green leaves add to the plant’s attractiveness. It spreads by underground roots and should be planted where it can be controlled. The two-inch fruit is edible. It is said to be sweet but seedy and mostly benefits wildlife. I haven’t tried one yet but it should be good as it’s what gives Hawaiian Punch its distinctive flavor. The entire plant is used medicinally mainly as a sedative and it is host to fritillary butterflies.

The passionflower as it is commonly called is named not for the passion of love but for the passion of the Christ, the hours of suffering after the Last Supper until his death on the cross. When Christians from Spain arrived in South America, different parts of the plant were reminders to them of the crucifixion. According to their elaborate analogy, the corona in the center of the flower was thought to resemble the crown of thorns. The flower’s tendrils symbolized whips, the five stamens represented the five wounds; the triple stigma, the three nails. Five petals and five sepals that surround the corona corresponded to the ten faithful apostles, minus Peter who denied and Judas who betrayed. The scientific name continues the analogy. Incarnata means to be endowed with a human body. Those Christians believed that the person who was crucified was God in the flesh. Though it was not named for love, that analogy fits too. Great sacrifice always demands passionate love!

Crinums of the Northeast

Because I want others to enjoy them, and also because I'm curious about where they'll grow, I've sent Crinums to relatives living in the Northeast. Last week I traveled to Greenport, New York to visit family, stopping in Hershey, Pennsylvania along the way, and got to check in on some of the bulbs I've sent, some just recently planted and others that are now fully established.

At the first stop, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the Crinum bulbispermum that I sent several years ago was in bloom. While not in bloom yet, both Crinum 'Seven Sisters' and Crinum 'Mrs. James Hendry' survived last winter in the ground, and Crinum × powellii 'Album' and Crinum 'Cecil Houdyshel' are new additions this spring. All of these are planted in a sheltered location in front of the house with a southern exposure.

Crinum bulbispermum in Hershey, Pennsylvania

At the next stop, in Greenport, New York, Crinum 'Cecil Houdyshel' was in bloom and Crinum 'Mrs. James Hendry' was preparing to bloom with a scape already up. Filling out the group was Crinum × powellii 'Album', a new addition this spring. 'Cecil Houdyshel' and 'Mrs. James Hendry' have survived several winters in this sheltered location against a south facing wall, backed by a hedge and then a two story building, all of this about 50 feet (15m) from Greenport Harbor.

Crinum 'Cecil Houdyshel' in Greenport, New York

C. × powellii 'Album', 'Cecil Houdyshel', and 'Mrs. James Hendry'

Crinums by the shore

Note that in both gardens the bulbs and the sites where they were planted were chosen carefully. All of the bulbs have Crinum bulbispermum in their ancestry and the sites have protected southern exposures and, in the case of the Greenport garden, very close proximity to a temperature moderating, large body of water. So far it's working, the plants are surviving the winters and are growing and blooming well. A really nasty winter could wipe them all out, but the results so far are encouraging.

While I expected to see Crinums at our first two stops because I sent them there, I did not expect to see Crinums in the heart of New York City, but in Rockefeller Center I found the large, red-foliaged Crinum procerum splendens used in combination with Alocasias, Alpinias, bananas, palms, and bromeliads in a really attractive summer display. Obviously none of these can survive a New York City winter outdoors, but I was happy to see them on display in such a prominent location during our summertime visit.

Tropical landscape at Rockefeller Center

Crinum procerum splendens with Alocasia, Musa, and bromeliads

Hymenocallis × festalis - unsexy but cool

This plant, sold in the trade as Peruvian daffodil, is not as sexy as many of the species types that are now available, which other blog contributors and I collect. Its foliage isn't as dark or as broad and its flowers are less delicate and interesting.

It is however, very easy and reliable in sun to part sun and in regular soil or soil that is wet. Mine sits tight until the first wet period late in Spring or Summer. Then it quickly displays leaves followed by these flowers.

Unlike some of my other hymenocallis, there is no repeat ever for me. That's OK since the show is for a fairly long time and it is sufficiently impressive. I get one show for about three weeks starting in May or June depending largely on rainfall.

So, it may not be so sexy, but I'll keep growing it.