Drain the Swamp

Last week, Zac and I made our first visit to the Dutch enclave in the Terra Ceia region of coastal NC. This region was founded in the 1930s and 1940s, when several Dutch families arrived in America, after fleeing problems back in the homeland, looking for inexpensive land on which to farm. Back in the day, before we had a good understanding of wetland ecology, it seemed to make sense for farmers to drain the swamps of Eastern NC, which was done by constructing a system of large canals, so that the peat-based wetlands could be converted into usable farmland.

Back in the mid 1800s, the Federal Government promoted literal “drain the swamp” programs with grants to encourage states to convert wetlands to farms. Today, the Federal government pays more of our tax money to convert farms back into wetlands. You’ve gotta love that stewardship of our tax dollars. As you can imagine, converting Eastern NC swamp land was a herculean task that involved eliminating massive trees like bald cypress, while dealing with farm land that where work animals would sink, and the underlying peat deposits would regularly combust into an un-extinguishable fire below ground.

We were here, primarily on a plant mission to track down an odd orange-flowered surprise lily that kept showing up occasionally in shipments of the pink-flowered Lycoris x squamigera. We received photos from more than one customer of the same plant, each thinking they had stumbled on the mysterious Lycoris x cinnabarrina. One of our former staffers, Jon Roethling, now of Director of Reynold House Gardens, had shared a bulb several years ago, which finally flowered this year. It produced splendid orange flowers, but was not Lycoris x cinnabarina. Lycoris x cinnabarina is a hybrid of Lycoris sanguinea and Lycoris aurea, and as such, would have foliage that emerges in early fall. Our plant, instead, had foliage that emerges in spring. Since there are only four spring leaf species, it was easy to work backwards to determine the parentage. The only combination of species that could produce such a cross was Lycoris sanguinea (which contributes the orange color), Lycoris chinensis (which contributes the yellow glow, ruffling, and better heat tolerance), and Lycoris sprengeri (responsible for the blue-tinged flower buds).

All of these odd lycoris that we had heard about, traced back to a single source, Terra Ceia Farms in Pantego, NC. An email to Terra Ceia owner, Carl Van Staalduinenm, resulted in an invitation to visit and see the odd lycoris that they had already sorted from their original block of Lycoris x squamigera. Carl explained that Brent Heath of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs had supplied him with some original stock many years earlier, which Brent had purchased from a bulb broker in California. This is where the trail runs cold.

At the time, there would have only been one person in the world who would have likely possessed such an unusual hybrid, and that was Sam Caldwell of Tennessee. I have a good bit of Sam’s correspondence from the 1960s-1980s, in which he mentions breeding with these three species. A few years prior to this bulb transaction, the now deceased Caldwell had his lycoris collection raided by what Sam described as a knowledgeable plant collector, shortly after he moved to a retirement home. While we aren’t sure that this is the origin of these bulbs, they seem to most likely trace to Caldwell’s work.

We arrived at Terra Ceia Farms n Pantego in early morning after the 2.5 hour drive from JLBG to be welcomed by Carl.

Being my first visit, I wanted to learn more about Carl’s family farm. Carl’s grandad, wife, and ten children immigrated from Holland in 1938, but didn’t arrive in Pantego until 1943, after a bureaucratic delay that left them stuck in Canada for five years. The farm started small, but over the years, the family was gradually able to acquire more and more land.

Of the current 1,200 acre farm, 300 acres are used for plant production, 120 acres are covered in solar panels, and the rest is leased to vegetable producers. While Terra Ceia are best known for selling bulbs, the lion’s share of the business is actually selling cut peonies. Every year, between 1.5 and 2 million peonies are cut from 165 acres of Carl’s coastal farm, and shipped to grocery stores, up and down the east coast. The hand labor required to first disbud 2 million stems, and then go back and cut the stems is beyond mind-boggling. The cut stems are immediately loaded into 34 degree F, refrigerated trucks parked in the fields, then off to grocery store distribution facilities. While this sounds like a great venture, Carl’s dad had warned him to expect disastrous late spring freezes about every 20 years. 2015 was a complete crop wipeout, followed by the floods in 2016, that drowned the majority of the peonies.

Carl is the only remaining family member, currently working in the family business. Carl’s brother Mark, who we also met, and Mark’s wife Teresa, run the high end Spoon River Artworks and Restaurant in the nearby town, Bellhaven. Since the restaurant didn’t open until 5pm, a return trip will be required to enjoy their venture.

Despite riding through the fields, the massive blocks of peonies were hard to spot. Carl has developed a fascinating weed rotation management practice for his fields where he allows certain annual grasses that most of us consider weeds, to sequentially cover the fields after harvest. This keeps the soils cool, and keeps other more problematic weedy grasses from getting established. The grass debris is burned off in spring, prior to peony emergence. After the peonies are divided, it takes five years before they are ready to be harvested. The harvesting window lasts for ten years, before the fields are divided again.

To say that the 50 acre field of canna lilies was striking was a grand understatement.

We finally arrived at a single row of lycoris where Carl’s staff had been rouging out the orange lycoris from his block of Lycoris x squamigera. The first thing we noticed was blue flower buds, something we hadn’t seen on our plants back at JLBG. That made it obvious that this was a tri-specific cross as described earlier. Carl agreed to allow us to christen the new surprise lily, Lycoris ‘Orange Glow’, which we hope to arrange to offer in the 2025 Plant Delights catalog. Based on its parentage, it should be winter hardy anywhere that Lycoris x squamigera grows, which is Zone 4a-8a.

On the way back to JLBG, we made a quick stop at on our favorite Coastal prairie habitats, the decommissioned Voice of America site A, in Little Washington. While we’d both been before, we had not had the time to visit in mid-August. Unlike the Pantego area, these swamps have never been drained, and while they look dry on the surface, the water table is just below the soil surface.

Large swaths were covered with Marshallia graminifolia (grass-leaf Barbara buttons), including some particular large flowered clones, and even a few albino-flowered clones.

I’ve seen quite a bit of the yellow pitcher plant, Sarracenia flava, in the wild, but don’t recall ever seeing on with purple vein patterns that showed up on the outside of the hood.

One section was filled with a black-flowered schizachyrium (bluestem), that looked particularly ornamental.

Another ornamental grass that caught my eye was several stunningly pink-flowered clones of Muhlenbergia expansa. We only have one clone of this at JLBG, and it has no flower coloration. The plant is much smaller than the better known, Muhlenbergia sericea, that everyone mistakenly calls M. capillaris.