A Tale of Two Crinums

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... No, not that tale, but continuing with that theme, its flowers are white with red stripes, its flowers are red with white edges. The red and white flowers I'm referring to are those of Crinum × herbertii, those tough hybrids of Crinum bulbispermum and Crinum scabrum, whose peak season in the garden is rapidly approaching.

'Schreck' kicked off the season a couple of weeks ago and is getting ready to bloom again, and there are scapes rising on 'Carroll Abbott' and just about every other Crinum × herbertii in the garden. This post will focus on two that are blooming now, one with an unfortunate name, and another with no name, but deserving a good one.

The one with the unfortunate name is 'Pat's Herbertia'. It's unfortunate because Herbertia is the name of an IBS publication, also the name of a genus in the Iris family, while herbertii is the name used for hybrids between C. bulbispermum and C. scabrum. Why its hybridizer, Patrick Malcolm, mixed up these names is unclear, but despite the name, it's a good plant.

When hybridizing Crinum species, unless the seed and pollen parents are very closely related, the resulting F1 hybrids cannot form seeds. Like mules, they're sterile. The comparison with mules is not completely accurate, because the pollen of F1 Crinum hybrids is often viable.

That's what happened with 'Pat's Herbertia', it's a backcross, obtained by transferring pollen from a Crinum × herbertii flower to a Crinum bulbispermum flower. Note that while most Crinum × herbertii are half Crinum bulbispermum and half Crinum scabrum, 'Pat's Herbertia' is three quarters Crinum bulbispermum and one quarter Crinum scabrum, and like many Crinum backcrosses, it is capable of forming seeds.

In addition to having seed fertility, 'Pat's Herbertia' differs from most Crinum × herbertii by its large size, with scapes taller than 5 feet (1.5 m), and its extra glaucous leaves. My only real complaint is that it has very long floral tubes, resulting in flowers that are extra droopy during the hottest part of the day, recovering their posture in the evening.

Crinum 'Pat's Herbertia'

The other Crinum × herbertii doesn't have a name yet, but it's a great plant and really needs one. A clump of it was found in Greenwood Cemetery and after seeking permission from the clump's "owner", who for the record didn't say no, an offset was removed. It turned out to be a vigorous Crinum × herbertii with large, pink striped flowers. Another nice feature is that its flowers face upright and hold their posture well even during the heat of the day.

This excellent Crinum does not match the description of any named Crinum × herbertii, so it's in need of a name. It could be given the name on the headstone where it was found, or if that's not possible, perhaps naming it 'Greenwood' or 'Greenwood Cemetery' is appropriate.

Crinum × herbertii found in Greenwood Cemetery

Strange Alocasias

Alocasia, along with Colocasia, Xanthosoma, and other genera with large leaves in the Arum (Araceae) family, are commonly called Elephant's Ear. While I grow A. odora and A. macrorrhiza with huge leaves that earn them the common name Elephant's Ear, I also grow some with smaller and even stranger foliage.

Alocasia × amazonica has very dark green, almost black, glossy leaves with raised silvery veins and undulating margins, reminding me of a bat's wing. If billionaire Bruce Wayne ever hires me to design a landscape for the entrance to the Batcave (don't worry Bruce, your secret is safe with me) this plant would be on my short list.

Alocasia × amazonica

Alocasia cuprea is another strange one with silvery green leaves and deeply impressed dark veins, giving it the look of hammered metal. While the previous plant would appeal to Batman, A. cuprea would appeal to Lieutenant Commander Worf because its leaves look just like a Klingon's forehead. Just as strange, the backs of the leaves are a rich, reddish purple.

Alocasia cuprea

Alocasia rugosa is the smallest of the three and may be the strangest. Its stiff, textured, dark green leaves have the look and feel of plastic. Be sure to click on the close-up to get a good look at the details of the leaf texture. Although I bought one, I'd hate to make a living selling them. I can imagine a customer asking me, "Why should I buy your plant when I can get one stamped out of plastic that looks the same, requires no care, and costs a tenth of what you're asking?"

Alocasia rugosa

Night and Day

Two primroses are blooming in my garden now and they are as different as - well, as different as night and day.

Oenothera speciosa, commonly known as pink evening primrose, opens its petals when night starts to fall. The bowl-shaped blooms face skyward and are a lovely pale pink nearly 2 inches across. Each flower lasts only a day but the plants have a long blooming season. Distinctive features of primroses are the crosslike stigma and four-petaled flowers. This primrose grows 8 - 24 inches high and spreads to 15 inches.

Native to rocky prairies, they encompass a much broader region now. They thrive in poor soil and are a beautiful sight along our southeast Missouri roadsides in late spring. These plants can be used in a wide variety of semi-wild garden settings but they are best planted where you don’t mind them spreading as they can quickly crowd out nearby plants.

Its cousin, Oenothera fruticosa, commonly called sundrops, opens in sunshine and closes at dusk. Deep green leaves are topped by clusters of bright clear yellow flowers, from 1- 2 inches across. Its flowers also last but a day but the blooming season spans several weeks. It grows from 12 - 36 inches high.

Tolerant of poor soil and quite drought-resistant, sundrops are fussy about well-drained soil and full sun. Their sturdy, tidy stems and leaves are in contrast to the pink evening primrose whose foliage is rather coarse and sprawling.

Night or day. Take your pick – or better yet, grow both. They’re sure to catch your eye and make you smile!

Crinum 'Schreck'

Crinum 'Schreck' displayed excellent timing this year by blooming the same weekend the new Shrek movie opened. 'Schreck' was named by Marcelle Sheppard, who got it from the Schreck family of Vidor, Texas, by the way of her friend, Ruth Dubuisson.

While we don't know the history of the plant before it was found in the Schreck garden, we can be fairly sure that it is a Crinum × herbertii hybrid, the result of crossing Crinum bulbispermum with Crinum scabrum. These hybrids, called milk and wine lilies in the South, can be extremely variable for plant size, flower size and shape, and the degree of striping found on the petals.

'Schreck' is a good example of a medium sized Crinum × herbertii, with well-defined red stripes on nicely shaped flowers. Some have suggested that it's the same plant as 'Carroll Abbott', but I've found consistent observable differences and don't think so.

Hardy Geraniums

Another group of perennials that bloom in the garden during May is the Geraniums. To avoid confusion with the popular tender plants in the genus Pelargonium, which also go by the common name Geranium, plants in the genus Geranium are sometimes called Hardy Geranium or Cranesbill.

Geraniums generally prefer cooler temperatures than I can provide for them here in central North Carolina, but there are a few that have proved to be satisfactory in this climate. Geraniums give their best performance here when planted in partial shade with moist, well-drained soils, although Geranium sanguineum can take more sun and less moisture and still perform adequately. The native wildflower, Geranium maculatum, blooms in April along the edge of the forest, but I didn't photograph them so they won't be featured in this post.

Bloody Cranesbill (Geranium sanguineum) is the species that's most commonly seen in southern gardens. It has attractive, finely textured, palmately lobed, glossy, dark green foliage which often turns red in late autumn and persists for most of the winter.

Foliage of Geranium sanguineum

The most common flower color is rich magenta, which I like, but some gardeners find it a bit loud.

Typical flower color of Geranium sanguineum

I have two other cultivars of Geranium sanguineum with more subdued flower colors. The first is named 'Prostratum' (var. striatum) and it has light pink flowers with darker veins on short compact plants that make a nice, low groundcover.

Close-up of Geranium sanguineum 'Prostratum'

Geranium sanguineum 'Prostratum' habit

The other cultivar of Geranium sanguineum growing in the garden is 'Album', with white flowers.

Close-up of Geranium sanguineum 'Album'

Another species that does well in the garden is Bigroot Geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum). Its flowers are smaller than those of Geranium sanguineum, but its leaves are much larger and fuzzy, releasing a medicinal odor when touched. It's also mostly evergreen, with some leaves taking on red and purple coloration during the winter.

Close-up of Geranium macrorrhizum

Foliage of Geranium macrorrhizum

Cranesbill, a reference to the beak-like fruits, is the other common name for plants in the genus Geranium.

Beak-like fruits of Geranium macrorrhizum

My favorite Geranium is a hybrid of G. himalayense × G. wallichianum 'Buxton's Variety' named 'Rozanne'. It's my favorite because its large, pretty blue flowers begin blooming in May and continue until frost shuts them down in November. It also has attractive lobed foliage, but unlike the others it's completely deciduous in our climate. It's also sterile, which partially explains its long bloom season. The others seed around a bit, not aggressively, but 'Rozanne' never does.

Close-up of Geranium 'Rozanne'

Foliage of Geranium 'Rozanne'

Calla Lilies

The calla lilies (Zantedeschia) are putting on a nice show in the garden right now. I have 2 cultivars of the White Calla (Zantedeschia aethiopica), the huge 'White Giant' and the dwarf 'Child's Perfection', and a hybrid calla lily with deep yellow flowers named 'Millennium Gold'.

'Child's Perfection' (aka 'Childsiana') is the dwarf (about 18 inches tall) and I've grown it for about 5 years. It performs best with moist soils and partially shaded conditions that would suit most hostas. If potted and submerged in a garden pond it can take full sun, but in the garden partial shade keeps the foliage looking better during the hottest weather. Their thick, glossy, dark green foliage emerges early in the spring and they bloom a little in April, peaking in May. They sulk during the hottest part of the summer and many of the older leaves turn yellow and collapse. As autumn approaches they become invigorated by the cooler temperatures and produce lots of new, attractive foliage.

Zantedeschia aethiopica 'Child's Perfection'

Calla lilies with daddy-long-legs (Opiliones)

'Millennium Gold' (aka 'Yellow Mammoth') is a recent acquisition, so I can't say much about its long term performance. It has very showy, deep yellow flowers on 18 inch stems and attractive spotted foliage.

Zantedeschia 'Millennium Gold'

'White Giant' is a new addition to the garden this spring and not too impressive yet, so no photos of it in this post. It has white flowers and spotted leaves and is known to grow to 7 feet tall. I've planted it in very moist soil with full sun and so far it's happy and growing.

A visit from "The Bulb Hunter"

This week, Chris Wiesinger, founder of The Southern Bulb Company, paid a visit to me and the garden. He had a talk at Tryon Palace in New Bern, North Carolina over the weekend and, fortunately for me, decided to stay for a few days and visit some Carolina Crinum growers before heading back to Texas.

Last July, The New York Times published an article, The Bulb Hunter (subscription required), about Chris and his business of finding, growing, and marketing heirloom bulbs that grow well in the Southern United States. After reading the article I contacted him via e-mail and he responded enthusiastically, having known about me through my efforts on the Pacific Bulb Society Wiki to describe and photograph other old favorite southern bulbs, Crinums and their hybrids. During that e-mail exchange I had extended an open invitation for a garden tour and when a speaking engagement brought him to central North Carolina he took me up on it.

Chris was enthusiastic about all kinds of garden plants, not just bulbs, and the time I spent with him was enjoyable. After the garden tour, during which he shot dozens of photographs, we decided to check out the creek behind the house. He was equally enthusiastic about the huge trees and boulders, as well as the diversity of native plants that grow alongside the creek and I think he took as many photographs of the scenery there as he did in the garden.

We ended our visit promising to share and I'll be putting together a box of bulbs to send to Chris soon. I would have liked to have visited longer, but I had an appointment early in the afternoon and couldn't manage it. Hopefully he will return for another visit someday and see how some of the newly planted Crinums and other bulbs have grown. While Chris shot lots of pictures during our visit and displayed some of them on a blog post he wrote about his visit, I didn't take many, but did get one picture of him posing next to Crinum 'Carnival'.

Oh, So Sweet

Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) any other time is to be grubbed out – and I’ve pulled bushels of the stuff. It does awful damage to our eastern woodlands. It displaces native ground plants, and strangles young trees and anything else that gets in its path. But in May, I’m glad Crowley’s Ridge is not barren of honeysuckle.

Evening time in early May brings the scent of honeysuckle wafting in the window with every gentle breeze. I love the scent of honeysuckle! Not the cloying bottled kind but the fresh one when the first blooms open.

One of her classmates died when my grandmother was a young girl. Being poor, she said, the children cut honeysuckle to heap on her grave and she could never again enjoy its scent. I’m so glad I have no bad memories of that sweet fragrance.

When each grandchild had enough manual dexterity, I taught them how to “suck the honey” as I did their mothers. With my thumbnail, I’d demonstrate how to press carefully just above the base of a bloom so that it cut all the way around but not through the style, then pull gently. When the stigma gets to the opening, there’s a drop of nectar shining, ready to plop in your mouth and savor the sweetness. That’s one of our favorite spring rituals.

There’s a quality to the air here in early May – maybe it’s everywhere, I don’t know – but it’s soft and tender, like someone dearly loved touching your face. Adding to the atmosphere are fireflies and the songs of the cricket frog. It almost makes me swoon for the beauty of it all. And then I’m glad for honeysuckle. For one glorious month, it is, oh, so sweet!

Crinum 'Carnival'

The Crinum show continues without interruption as 'Peachblow' has passed the torch to 'Carnival'. 'Carnival' often shows random white stripes on its reddish flowers and for this reason it has been described as a chimera by several authors, but unless genetic tests have been performed this claim is dubious. The flowers in these photographs aren't showing that characteristic much, but are showing subtle darker striping on the keels. It is a large plant with foliage that's very broad at the base, tapering rapidly to a fine point. It is not the tidiest Crinum because its foliage can be floppy, but this flaw tends to be more pronounced on younger bulbs, with larger bulbs having more rigid foliage and better structure.

Two-Flowered Knobby Knees

My Solomon’s Seal bloomed for the first time this week! I’m so excited! It was just a tiny thing last spring when I moved it from the woods and it not only survived but also grew and bloomed. It’s beautiful - a graceful arching plant with lovely bell-shaped, greenish-yellow flowers dangling beneath its deep green leaves.

The scientific name for this plant is Polygonatum biflorum. Polygonatum means “with many knees” which probably refers to its knobby root. Biflorum, of course, means two-flowered. Two is the usual number of flowers at each leaf axil but there can be more. The common name derives from the fact that each year a new stem emerges from the root and old stem scars remain on the rhizome. These scars resemble the seals once used to seal letters with wax.

Besides its graceful beauty, this plant has practical uses. The flowers give way later in summer to blue black berries eaten by birds and small mammals and it also serves as cover for wildlife. The young shoots are edible either raw or cooked. Its roots are rich in starch and can be used to make bread or added to soups.

My sources say that Solomon’s Seal can be grown in either full or part shade but requires moist soil. In optimum growing conditions, its rhizomes slowly spread to form colonies. My little one doesn’t look too impressive right now but if it likes where I put it, maybe in a few years it will!

Crinum 'Peachblow'

Last week I wrote about Crinum 'Alamo Village' blooming in late April. It was immediately followed by Crinum 'Peachblow' (sometimes written 'Peach Blow'). The two plants seem related to me because both have fairly compact, attractive foliage and nicely scented flowers that open wide with narrow tepals and recurved, clawed tips. The wide open flowers with narrow tepals suggest that they both have the Southeastern United States native, C. americanum, or its South American counterpart, C. erubescens, in their ancestry. The recurved, clawed tips probably come from C. zeylanicum or its relation, C. latifolium. These hybrids may be complex and have genetic influences from other species, but I won't speculate on that.

Unfortunately, one of the other characteristics they share is the tendency for their scapes to topple. Although 'Peachblow' is the most susceptible of the two, both benefit from staking as the scapes rise and bloom. You might notice the handy stake supporting the scape in the picture of the whole plant below.

Wild Child's Wild Garden

What is it that makes me love wildflowers so? I don’t know – but I do. Perhaps it’s because wildflowers have been evolving for millennia and there is a “rightness” about them that fits their environment.

For many years I contemplated landscaping our home with native wildflowers and plants but I didn’t even know where to begin.

In 1998 my husband and I took a trip into south Texas and came home via Austin. I’d picked up some brochures somewhere that listed Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center as an interesting place to see. It’s a botanical garden dedicated to the native plants of Texas. For plant geeks, it’s awesome! Some of its goals are to help people ”to understand the role of native plants in a healthy ecosystem, to value the natural landscape, and to take action to protect, conserve and restore the natural landscapes of North America”. In several areas of the garden, they made arrangements of exotic plants, and then showed how native plants could be substituted to give a similar look. That impressed me. It was emphasized that when natives are planted in the right locations, they don’t require additional fertilizer or watering as exotic plants often do in normal years. This not only saves the energy of the gardener but also helps the environment.

I came home all excited about “growing native” and I thought and thought about how I could landscape our home. I poured over natural planting books but still nothing seemed possible. I couldn’t bring myself to tear out what I had worked so hard to establish. My opportunity came in 2003 when we decided to build a new home beside our old one. There was nothing on the site to cut down except one spindly shrub and I could handle that! About that time, I learned about Grow Native! which is a joint project of the Missouri Departments of Conservation and Agriculture. Their website, http://www.grownative.org/, has been a continuing source of information and inspiration.

The plants in the front and at the entrance of our new home are all native. In a cleared area just behind the house I chose to plant some things that are not. Other flowers in the bed are native and were chosen because they are attractive to both butterflies and hummingbirds. The plantings among the trees will be shade-loving wildflowers that will look at home there.

A hedge of native shrubs and trees planted along the property line will eventually screen our old house from view. In the front yard, I have tried somewhat to reproduce the look of the woods in back. The trees and shrubs I’ve planted were chosen because they provide food and/or cover for the wild critters found on our land. I spoke earlier about the “rightness” of native plants. They do fit - as do the birds and animals of a certain area that depend on them in so many ways.

I consider our woods to be an extension of my garden. My dream is to bring the wildflowers of the woods to my wild garden for everyone to enjoy.

Aquilegia canadensis

Dicentra eximia

Phlox divaricata

Baptisia Trio

Several kinds of Baptisia are blooming in the garden this week. Although they look very different, these pea relatives have a few things in common with the plants featured in my previous two posts, Crinum and Paeonia. In addition to all being favorites of mine, what they have in common is that they require patience because they are slow to establish and resent disturbance, are very tough and long-lived once established, getting bigger and better every year, and have attractive foliage and large forms that allow them to serve as anchors in the garden even while not in bloom.

The first to bloom in this trio is the Southeastern United States native, Baptisia alba. As you might have guessed, this one has white flowers. The specimen pictured I have been growing for more than 10 years and each growing season it gets to be shrub sized. Although it reaches its maximum height of about 5 feet while blooming, the foliage really thickens and the plant acquires much more visual mass after blooming.

Baptisia alba

The next to bloom in the trio is Baptisia 'Purple Smoke', a spontaneous hybrid of B. minor and B. alba from the North Carolina Botanical Garden with smoky blue flowers. So far it's been smaller than my largest B. alba, but that might just be the difference in their ages because I have only had 'Purple Smoke' about 5 years. It's topping out at about 4 feet and is now producing lots of flower spikes.

Baptisia 'Purple Smoke'

The last to bloom, although they all overlap, is Baptisia 'Carolina Moonlight', with light yellow flowers. Like 'Purple Smoke', it's also a hybrid (B. sphaerocarpa × B. alba) from the North Carolina Botanical Garden. I've had this plant only a few years and it's coming along just fine. For some reason, I keep wanting to call this one 'Carolina Moonshine', but that has another meaning altogether. Tony Avent of Plant Delights Nursery refers to Baptisia as Redneck Lupines, so perhaps that explains my association between Baptisia and Moonshine.

Baptisia 'Carolina Moonlight'

Peonies

Just days after the first Crinum bloomed in the garden the first Paeonia are now blooming too. That's not entirely the truth because the tree peonies bloomed about a month ago and also I usually allow a few suckers from the herbaceous rootstock of the tree peonies to grow and they bloomed about two weeks ago. However, the peonies that I'm writing about in this post are herbaceous, are not serving as the rootstock for a tree peony, and are showing off their stuff in conspicuous garden locations.

First up is Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt', with fully double, rich pink flowers. While I like these full flowers, they're very heavy and will perform a face plant into the mud if a spring thunderstorm drenches them while in bloom. We use large rings to support the stems, but these must be placed early as the peonies begin growing or they're very difficult to place later. Also, a really heavy rain will still weigh down the flowers and some of the stems will break where they contact the ring. Despite these drawbacks we continue enjoy these beautiful, fragrant flowers as well as the handsome clump of foliage that remains for the rest of the growing season.

Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt'

The other peony to start blooming this week is Paeonia 'Krinkled White'. The single, white flowers are not as fancy as the fully double 'Sarah Bernhardt', but I enjoy the contrasting yellow centers and they also have the advantage of not needing rings to support the stems. The flowers are large, but the stems are sturdy enough to support them, even in a downpour.

Paeonia 'Krinkled White'