SprottHaus: A Gardener's Journey

No matter how long I have known and grown  Lycoris  (surprise lily), I am always surprised and delighted when the first bloom scape shoots out of the ground.  I'm on the lookout for them in early July, as soon as peak daylily season begins to wane.  On my several walks through the garden each day, I eagerly check every spot where I know they're planted.   For me, the surprise lily season normally begins the first or second week in July with the cheerfully sunny  Lycoris chinensis .  Its flowers are the most delicious warm yellow, somewhere between Lemon Yellow and Buttercup Yellow of the British Colour Council's Horticultural Colour Chart  (#nerdalert).*  This bulb has been with me since 2020, thanks to a very generous fellow Lycoris-o-phile friend who grows it--and many others--in Maryland.  Everything I had read about yellow types (mostly referencing  L. aurea , which can be tricky in this section) did not instill much hope o...

Over the years, I've grown several Epimedium (commonly known as barrenwort or fairy wings), but none has captured my attention like Epimedium sp. 'The Giant'.  And I'm here to tell you, the name absolutely fits.   Tower of (Ethereal) Power:  Epimedium sp. 'The Giant' rises (delicately) far above the rest! I actually purchased this in 2016 as a sort of challenge.  When I read the Edelweiss Perennials catalog description for an Epimedium bloom that reached "5 feet tall," I thought, FIVE FEET TALL???  Seriously??  And then I thought, Let's see about that.   I mean, even if it underwhelmed at half that height, it would still be impressive as heck, right?  How could I NOT buy it? Over the years, I've planted 20 different kinds of Epimedium .  I've killed half... some of them more than once.  (Don't judge me; I'm stubborn AND I'm a real gardener.)  The problem came from what I kept reading and hearing at. the time: that they were...

Every year I eagerly await the first bloom scape of Lycoris , yet I am inevitably taken by surprise when it appears.  It is so appropriate that the common name for this genus is "surprise lily".  I have several types and varieties of Lycoris planted throughout our garden.  This may or may not be because they are pretty well dead easy to grow: average garden soil in part sun to part shade, in a place where they don't completely bake or get bone dry.  The season starts in early July with L. x squamigera .  (I know, it's a mouthful.  I say it "lye-KORR-is skwah-MIG-er-uh.") L. x squamigera begins the season of Lycoris . Up to November 2010, I knew nothing of this troupe of fascinating amaryllids.  That's when I entered Elizabeth (Libba) Lawrence's world, and she began teaching me (through her writings and her garden) that I had a LOT more to learn about plants.  This was especially true of bulbs.  In 2011, when I picked up her classic The Lit...

I just came into the cool after two hours of (sweating) vigorous soil amending (sweating) and planting (sweating) in the garden.  (Did I mention sweating?)  It feels really good in here.  I might have to stay in the rest of the day.  Oh, who am I kidding?!  The flit of a butterfly's wings, a zipping bee in flight, or the glint of sun off a flower or leaf will catch my couch-bound eye, and I'll have to head back out. One thing I was thinking about while I was out there (sweating), was a plant that has become one of my favorites, Tinantia pringlei .   In our garden, Tinantia pringlei grows happily in full sun and almost as happily in darn near full shade. I acquired mine in 2011 from Big Bloomers Flower Farm in Sanford, NC.  Back then the common name was "speckled wandering jew".  Now it's listed as "spotted widow's tears" and "Mexican perennial dayflower".  (This is why I prefer using botanical nomenclature.)  It's native to the mo...