OT: follow-up to "The Ruins"... (not very bulb-related)

Dennis Kramb dkramb@badbear.com
Mon, 27 May 2013 18:14:50 PDT
I tackled another flower bed today.  I don't often perform routine
maintenance on my beds, so when I do get around to it, it can be a
monumental task.  This bed wasn't overrun with weeds... but with trees.
Lots of saplings of maple, walnut, and mulberry.

Leitneria floridana... corkwood... is the only tree that I want in there.
Native to the south it is North America's lightest (least dense) hardwood
tree.  It isn't native this far north, so some winters it dies back to the
ground.  I have both sexes so I hope one year they'll actually flower & set
seed.  They haven't died back in several years, so my colony is about 6
feet tall this year... the tallest I've ever seen it.

Hemerocallis thunbergii has reappeared!  I planted it there years ago and
can't recall seeing it again in that bed.  But today I found over half a
dozen of them. Some of them were already 3 feet tall.... nearly half of
their maximum of 7 feet tall.  This is a giant daylily!

Iris flavescens is abundant in this bed.  It is still producing buds when I
thought flowering had ended.  I'll get a few more flowers before the end of
the month.  Because it was so floriferous this year, it featured heavily in
my pollinating/hybridizing experiments with wide crosses with species like
Iris tectorum.

Thermopsis caroliniana is another species featured heavily in this bed.  It
is just budding out and should be in full bloom in early June.  It is a
stunning plant, tall, with spires of bright yellow flowers.

Silphium pinnatifidum is producing a massive basal leaf cluster this year.
I hope this means it will produce multiple bloom stalks too.  This is
another impressive locally native prairie species that looks great
interplanted with various types of Rudbeckia and Echinacea.

I bet NOBODY has that combination of plants in a flower bed anywhere else
in the world.  :-)

Today I bought some bulbs of Polianthes tuberosa to try in the regular
garden (as opposed to container-grown).  I planted them in "The Ruins".
Maybe growing them in the ground I'll finally get some blooms?

Dennis in Cincinnati



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