Looking lovely in the early fall garden are the xAmarcrinum. These are man-made hybrids between Crinum lilies and the South African Amaryllis belladonna. Despite the later not growing well here, the hybrids are quite amazing with their sweetly-fragranced flowers. All xAmarcrinum are somewhat similar in growth, with greatly reduced foliage from most crinum parents. The
With September temperatures reaching 100 degrees F in Raleigh, is it any wonder we’re thinking about snow? Looking lovely after a recent rain is the rain lily, Zephyranthes ‘Summer Snow’. We grow a huge number of rain lilies, but none out flower our 2014 introduction of a hybrid between Zephyranthes candida and Zephyranthes citrina. This
Flowering now in the garden is one of our favorite crinum lily species, the South African native, Crinum buphanoides. The name comes from its resemblance to another South African member of the Amaryllid family, the less winter hardy, Boophane. Despite a few folks who tell us they’ve had trouble growing this, our experience is quite
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On my very short commute home, we’ve designed beds along the way that help relieve the stresses of the day. One of my favorite beds in summer is this combination of Allium ‘Millenium’, Sinningia tubiflora (white), Verbena bonariensis, and Pervoskia atriplicifolia. Both the sinningia and the verbena can be a bit aggressive in some areas
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The Taiwan endemic, Lilium formosanum is just wrapping up its summer floral show in the garden. I’d be hard pressed to imagine a garden without this garden showstopper. The cluster of huge fragrant flowers top the 6-7′ tall, sturdy stalks, starting in early August. We allow a few seed to drop each year, which results
Our 8 year-old clump of Amorphophallus bulbifer ‘Old Warty’ is looking lovely in the garden this week. We love the palm-like form in the summer garden, but selected this clone because it produces more leaf bulbils than any other clone we’ve ever seen. The bulbils, which resemble giant warts, form in late summer in the
More lycoris continue to open every day. Their flowering season coincides quite close with the hurricane season. These amazing amaryllids pop up almost overnight, sans foliage. If you’re curious to take a deep dive into the genus, check out our lycoris study gallery Lycoris chinensis is a spring-leaf species from China. Lycoris longituba is the
Many gardeners grow hardy aroids in their garden, ranging from the tiny arisarum to the giant amorphophallus, but few folks have tried members of the genus, Taccarum (tacky-arum). Taccarum is a small genus of only six species, all native to South America. As a nice addition, the flowers have no detectable fragrance. In our trials,
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Through the years, we’ve trialed 27 different clones of Amorphophallus krausei in the garden for winter hardiness, but only two have consistently survived. The largest is a 2005 Alan Galloway collection from from Son La, Vietnam. Here it is in the garden this week with the 5′ tall flower spikes. The spikes are followed by
It’s that time of year, when the surprise lilies, Lycoris, that we have scattered throughout the garden begin to pop. Actually, due to our early summer rains, they began popping in early July this year, 2-3 weeks ahead of normal. Surprise lilies are divided into two groups, based on when their leaves emerge….fall (October) or
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