Yesterday's Garden Short showed the sprawling problem of my Giant Pineapple Lily.
Leaves and flower-stalks that should be proudly upright—and to almost six feet!—are flopped and sprawled and splayed and blown-out as bad as flat tires.

ARGH! (And who can imagine the embarrassment of the lily itself?)

Then preparations for the inevitable dinner party inadvertently brought the tools of the solution.

1. A huge ginger-jar vase that needed filling.

2. The wheelbarrow to haul away clippings that had accumulated all over the terrace in the frantic week before.
Plus, on the sideboard, the watering can (ever-present to water all the Summer containers) and the clippers (ever-present also: there's never an end to the nipping and tucking of a garden.)

In two minutes it was done: First a couple of flower stalks were harvested and slid down into the vase.

Their prostration had put some serious kink into their stems—but this looked cool when they were reverticalized. Debility was transformed into display!

Relieved of the rest of its flowerstalks, the huge and heavy potted tangle of floppy leaves was ready to be hoisted into the wheelbarrow.


My back is still aching: the pot was maximally hydrated thanks to twice-a-day watering.

So it weighed a ton.

And there were plenty of roots out the bottom, sinking deep into six inches of mulch at the bottom of the pot.

I'd forgotten: I'd even given the plant access to this extra reservoir of moisture. Given the floppy leaves, though, it still wasn't enough. Sigh.

Trundling the behemoth around to the back-stage side of the carriage house, I grunted it back down to the gravel.
It can spend the rest of the season in peace, well watered and fertilized still, but now without anyone grimacing at the sorry to-the-ground splay of its foliage.

Back to the vase. Now holding all the stalks, it was quite the eye-catcher.
True, just as much a "Jeez, what IS that?" as "Oh my what gorgeous flowers." But it's better to be noticed for anything at all than not noticed at all—clearly, a slogan I'm living, like it or not—so of course I'm delighted with the results.

And now I have an empty spot—oh joy!. Into the terra cotta cachepot goes a standard of yellow daisy bush, Euryops pectinatus 'Viridis'...

...with three spare pots of the sensational Shield-Leaf begonia, Begonia convolvulacea, just stacked around the trunk of the Euryops. Their cascading life and heavy overlapping foliage hides their nursery pots.

That's my biggest and best variegated Elephant Food at the foot. The Portulacaria afra 'Variegata' was there all along, but the floppy eucomis leaves had just about hidden it.

A happy ending all around, then, even the next morning with the eucomis stalks in an "I'm big too, but SO differently then you, bud" stand-off with the giant purple banana.


And now to clean out all those damned votive holders.

Heat-loving, blooming in Summer? I'll do just about anything to make you happy. I'm pleasing my "red" yucca enough: It's in bloom!
"Red" yucca though? Come on, guys: take a look: The flowers are, clearly, pink at best, salmon at worst.

Whatever the hue, Red Yucca's in bloom in high Summer, so in my book, it's in.

Hesperaloe parviflora is a Southwest native, and is so happy about the home-town heat and drought there that it can be planted in unirrigated highway medians. Imagine the months of pitiless radiant heat from the paving, the completely lack of shade in that planting strip down the center of the road. And no rain for a month and more at a time.

To which Red Yucca says "Bring It On!"

The challenge with growing it in this comparatively wet and clammy New England climate is maximizing the heat and sun, such as it is, and minimizing the rot-inducing potential of all that rain.
Growing in a container is one solution. Plus keeping the pots completely dry and in a cool greenhouse all Winter.

If I had a garden that wasn't perfectly flat and with deep rich soil (sob, sob), I'd experiment with growing Red Yucca in a sloping gravel or sand bed. Or I could create yet another trough.

Red Yucca is really hardy if the Winter drainage is good enough; in higher-elevation and more northerly Southwest locales, it grows even in Zone 5. Back East that would be southern Vermont, just without the precipitation.

Red Yucca is even more on my mind since High Country Gardens came out with a yellow-flowered variety.
Now I can have a pot of "red" yucca anywhere outside of the pink garden, let alone the "red" garden. I'll post when it blooms—next Summer maybe?

Are "surprise" lilies still a surprise even when you've had them for years, blooming in August just like they bloomed last August? (Can a surprise be annual and at the same time every year?)

But this Surprise Lily is, truly, a surprise: I had thought that its tiny tuft of leaves this past Spring, no more enthusiastic than it was last Spring, meant that the lily wasn't happy and was probably transitioning over to that big Compost Heap in the Sky.

But no. All of sudden—by surprise, indeed—here was a bloom spike!

Eager, proud, ready to perform.

It was my yellow Surprise Lily, Lycoris chinensis.

The vendor said (now that I went back to read up on yellow Surprise Lilies) not to expect any action for a year or even several years.

He was sure right about that. But this Summer was The Year of Action.
Spidery deep-yellow flowers, with camel's-length eyelashes, I mean stamens. Wow!

And, of course, this being a "surprise" lily, the bloom is completely unexpected, two months after the leaves themselves had long disappeared. (The bulb-like foliage that appears to be at the base of the bloom spike in the top picture is that of a crinum lily several feet away.)

And so if this one of my three yellow Surprises has bloomed, perhaps the other two will kick in in another year or three too? Each of them would be a surprise as well.

Give this Surprise good Winter drainage, almost any normal soil, and plenty of sun anywhere from Zone 5 to 9, and it should (eventually) surprise you too.

I've posted on how I finally figured out how to grow an attractive lemon verbena, not just a fragrant one. But even a scraggly one is a joy to brush up against, let alone to pick a leaf and crush it in your cupped hands to inhale all the more of the suspiciously-powerful lemon fragrance.

The flowers, though, are entirely forgettable.

Poor thing: you wish it wouldn't even try to bloom. It doesn't get a whit more interesting when the teensy white flowers open.

Almond verbena, though, has taken up the challenge of doing something decent with its flowers.
Showy and profuse, the spikes of white flowers are a powerfully-delicate (so to speak) contrast to the larger and bland foliage.

As the spikes age, the appeal is, if anything, even greater: The older flowers drop off the spike all by themselves, leaving the newer flowers nicely exposed at the end of the still-lengthening top. It's like still photography of tiny white fireworks.


Almond verbena isn't satisfied with mere visuals, though. Indeed, it has doubled-down on its mission of having great flowers. The eye-appeal of the plant as well as the fragrance is all right there in the flowers. It's the leaves that are entirely forgettable now. And what a fragrance it is: Almond and as penetrating as if the plant were sucking in almond essence with a straw.

Why is it both of these bushes are so strongly fragrant of a plant that eacg is, so clearly, not? Lemon Verbena isn't a citrus tree. Almond Verbena sure isn't an almond tree either.

Is Latin any help? The Latin for both is Aloysia. Lemon Verbena is Aloysia triphylla (with leaves in threes up the stems). Almond Verbena is Aloysia virgata; virgata is, unhelpfully, is latin for rod, i.e., something about the plant is long and narrow. The flower spikes I guess; it sure isn't the foliage.

Is there an aloysia out there with the fragrance of, uhm, aloy? That can be itself, not an imposter? Another cousin, Aloysia wrightii, has leaves that smell so much like oregano that you can, in a pinch (so to speak) use them instead. Another, Aloysia gratissima, has vanilla-scented flowers. Aloysia macrostachya has thyme or oregano-scented leaves.

Apparently, then, NO, aloysias don't smell like aloy. They aren't "aloysiac" at all, at least as far as your nose can tell. Instead, they are each the adoring wannabe fan of some other plant: Lemon, almond, oregano, vanilla, thyme. Aloysias are a big family, and I've only introduced them. What other aloysias are out there? And what fragrant plant is each of them channeling?

So far, aloysias are easy keepers for me: they go leafless and dormant at the slightest frost, and then I hustle the into the basement for the Winter. I've a mind to collect the other varieties, so each Summer I can have a whole spice-shelf of fragrance.

Your African Violets couldn't survive a week outdoors, even at the height of Summer, and, of course, still in their pots. They need the filtered light and constant temperatures of your window sills. And almost all of their cousins in the gesneriad tribe—gloxinias, flame violets, columneas, achimines—are of a similar mind. Unless you live in, say, Equador, where it's always about 75 and the humidity is good but not overwhelming, your window sill is your gesneriads' next best perch.

And then I discovered this sinningium, which is hardy in North Carolina, and is a big enough performer for me to crow over it, in a pot (the plant I mean), al the way up North in Rhode Island.Here's the plant abloom in June.

Tall stalks of dangling red tubular flowers, for a plant that's two feet high and wide.
(Take THAT, lowly African violets.)

And here is it, late August, even larger and still very creditably in bloom.
This is two months of bloom and we're not done yet either.
And those dangling flowers couldn't be more inviting, suspended so prominently on the tall and almost leafless stems.

There's also a yellow variety, 'Bananas Foster'.
And so of course I had to have it. And plenty of other colors and cousins too: Buy them here.

So far, 'Towering' and 'Bananas' are easy to handle. I let them go dormant before any serious frost is out there. Their large tubers can stay in the pot year-round, and I store the pot under the bench in the greenhouse. After they wake up, water, heat and sun are all they need. No pinching, no staking, no dead-heading. Just month after month of interesting-enough foliage, and seriously-interesting flowers.

With their easy and distinctive performance, I can see many more sinningia in my Summer gardens. Yours too I hope.

Saner, sturdier gardeners than I may find that growing their own 'Mermaid' rose to be a completely-resistible siren song.

Partly, maybe, because they already knew about 'Golden Wings'.
Quite similar yes?

Here's the Mermaid picture for comparison.

OK, OK: Mermaid's petals acquire much more of a yellow intensity as they approach the stamens. (Well, don't we all.) Golden Wing's petals just get a bit of yellow blush, which is less intense on every level.

True, Golden Wing's flowers can be every inch as big as Mermaid's.

But Golden Wing's brown pollen tips afloat over the orange stamens, while an interesting contrast in themselves, let alone to the pale-yellow-then-white petals around them, are a contrast in color and therefore mood. An interruption. By comparison, with Mermaid there's an "I'm Getting Yellow, and now I'm getting Yellower Still" progression of white outer petal to yellow inner petal to really yellow stamens. There's a single-mindedness, a dedication to the mission—of getting yellow—but hey, a goal's a goal—which goes with my whole "seductively naive" slobbering over Mermaid.

Then again, Golden Wings' flowers offer progression instead of constancy: They may be yellow-blushed white as adults, but they start out entirely golden.
And with their immature pollen still pure yellow—brings back painful memories of youth, doesn't it?—but in poignant, even dramatic, contrast to the deep burning redness at the heart—painful memories of youth in every sentence here!—Golden Wings' flowers have a narrative thrust that Mermaid's don't: Youth into maturity, yet glorious at any age, and with one's face proudly held up to greet each new dawn along the way.

And as befitting the fantasy, Mermaid's flowers follow a purer as well as quicker plot, holding to their yellow theme. After all, one doesn't grow old in the company of a mermaid. It's all over in an hour, a minute: You succumb to a mermaid's infatuation and then you're dragged under the waves and destroyed. There's no tomorrow, no follow-up. Fantasy indeed.

I'm growing both Mermaid and Golden Wings. They are mutual antidotes: If I find myself, uh, "overboard" with Mermaid, well I can just dump her in favor of Golden Wings. Similar but not, and in some ways better because of it. And even if, by luck and dogged effort both, my Mermaid flowers a-plenty and grows huge, that doesn't mean I must forsake my Golden Wings. With all possible pleasure in my Mermaid finally sated, I can return to Golden Wings free of my Mermaid yearnings. I can enjoy it for itself, not as a substitute for a fantasy.

‘Mermaid’ rose: Approach her at your peril. Where hardy (Zone 7 and up), she’ll grow into a monster, bristling with ruthless thorns. An impenetrable berm-like barrier if it rolls along the ground, or higher up, a hard-to-control swarm that can swamp a garage.

And where not hardy—Zone 6 and colder—the rest of us scheme about having any of her company at all. Just a scrap, a shrimp, a struggler. A hint, a glimpse, a gone-before-you-know-it tease. What about planting it in the favored Southwest-facing corner of the house, with mulch and burlap for the Winter? Or keeping it in a container (slow, slow, slow) where the bush never fails to gash a thumb or draw blood from the forearm as we lug the pot into cover in October and back into warmth in May?

Mermaid is worth the effort, of course, for the flowers.
(Or rather, you know that you’ve gone off the deep end in your gardening when you think Mermaid is worth the effort for the flowers.)

No one can deny that they are ravishing. Butter-white petals—just five, mind you, so each is precious—surrounding an enthusiastic yellow “poof” of stamens in a gentle but noticeably large—to five inches—soft pentagon of grace.

Is it just me, or do single flowers, which always seem so much less contrived in form than the doubles and so much more honest in function too (“Yup, those are the stamens and pistols. We’re putting it all out there front and center, to drive the bees wild and therefore get ourselves royally pollinated.”) have a simplicity that is all the more irresistible for being so calculatedly naïve? And therefore are even more sophisticatedly seductive than the far-fluffier doubles, so blatant and shameless in their tricked-out plumage and juiced-up size? Or maybe it’s just me.

Single and sophisticatedly seductive: Maybe that’s why this rose is called “Mermaid”: You’re drawn in helplessly, and only after it’s too late to get free do you realize how painful your relationship will be.

I keep my Mermaid in a pot because I’m still not confident that it would be hardy even in my most favored SW corner, mulch and burlap and all. I’m thinking, deluded suitor that I am, that I can keep my Mermaid deliriously happy in a pot, growing huge and blooming without shame or reticence, and that I’ll somehow be able to keep her vicious canes attractively under control and the bush to a somewhat manageable size. (Yes, the question is why I don’t I grow only smaller-scale semi-tender roses in pots? Both Mermaid and La Mertola would be monsters if they could.)

My Mermaid and me, we keep our relationship going at its currently modest level (although, clearly, I have hopes it will take off in a big way) because—of course—I actually do get a few blossoms each Summer. Just one at a time, every week or two. But I get them.

Maybe this Winter I’ll keep my Mermaid in leaf, in the greenhouse instead of leafless, moist, and dormant in the dirt-floor basement. (The parent that passed on the I’m Not Hardy genes to Mermaid is Rosa bracteata, who is happiest in the subtropics: San Diego, say, or on the Amalfi Coast.) In the greenhouse it’s no colder than Fifty, and it feels like Spring even in February. And by March I’ll pot it up unstintingly, lavish with the compost. Bigger Pot: Bigger Plant?

We’ll all see by this time in 2011.

August is the month of so much energy in the garden. The month for plants that are puffed high and wide in the heat, and are proud to say "I'm big, I'm bright, I'm the only one of me in the whole state, and I'm throbbing in yellow, orange, cerise, or burgundy."

Like in this picture: The chrome-leaved raspberry (Rubus cockburnianus 'Aureus'.) The heavy purplish strap-leaves of the eucomis. The rigid, dangerously-sharp white-and-green architecture of the agave.

The Wait-a-minute,-what-IS-that? dangling red flowers of the african violet cousin Sinningia 'Towering Inferno'.

All pretty, all pretty fabulous.

Subtlely isn't on vacation this month, though. Right in the middle, the whole time, is this marvelous little shrub.


Flowers as fragrant as jasmine.


It's been in bloom since May. (Here it is in late June. Trust me on May.)


And tidy, browser-proof foliage too.

No bugs, no rodents, no deer. No nothing: Clear, elegant, happy foliage.

This is Daphne houtteana, only the third year in the ground for me, from a small plant from Heronswood. (Who doesn't seem to sell it any more, but keep reading.)

You can tell it's a daphne right from the trunk, with the shiny bark that looks tightly-stretched around the wood...

...and the "extruded" cylindrical look to the roots as well as the trunk and limbs.

Now if only it had the black foliage that it does at nurseries that sell it. (Visit Chocolate Flower Farm. Thank you for the picture too!)
Black: what could be the antithesis of the vibrating August palette? A shrub with black foliage and white flowers.

Mine was black the first season, but ever since has been charming blue-green. Oh well: Whatever the color, Daphne houtteana is such an indefatigable performer, so elegant and so gets-along-with-everyone too.

Make yours happy with full sun with great drainage in the Winter. Mine is where the soil is half gravel too, which might also be a thought even apart from how much it helps that Winter drainage. Daphne houtteana is none too hardy—upper Zone 6—so siting is the key to its happiness. Dunno what the key is to its now-departed blackness. Summer heat? Humidity? Maybe we'll know more when there's an East Coast nursery that sold it.

After yesterday's pause for the subtlety, discretion, elegance of my Black-and-White (well, green-and-white) Daphne houtteana, I for one need a compensatory slap-in-the-face of big, bright, and bodacious.

Here's a shot out over the Mixed Border. It's as high as I can reach and higher: I'm standing on a chair and holding the camera overhead even to get this overview.
It's a bit like looking out over the canopy of the jungle. You've gotta be reaching sky-high to bask in the clear sun. Especially at the back of the bed, where even the shrimps are seven feet and taller.

Hey, right at the back left: Those stalks with long narrow leaves.


How cool are they?
Arcing out, flexing downward: These are leaves with strength, specificity, personality.

Seen from the back of the bed (and on a sunny day), you can see what a mighty plant this is.


It's a perennial, with thumb-thick stalks that are already nine feet tall and yet don't show a sign of budding out.
So they'll get taller still.

Welcome to Maximilian's sunflower, Helianthus maximilianii.

An East-of-the-Mississippi native, it's so drought-proof that High Country Gardens in New Mexico sells it.

In September, the showy foliage is showered with hundreds of bright yellow daisies...

...which is a note of tedium: So few late-Summer daisies are anything but bright yellow.

High Country found this paler version, Lemon Yellow, which is what's backing up my Mixed Border.

The flowers are actually bi-colored, with lemon centers and white tips.
So this is a daisy with size, energy, "ka-blam" floral intensity, great foliage, and subtlety. Far as I can tell, High Country is the only vendor.

As with all of these giant daisies, full sun is best. Maximilianii can be a floppy mess if it gets too much water, too much shade, or too rich a soil. On the other hand, in lean soil and with less water, it's probably shorter and even sturdier. (I'm going to test out its tolerance for the high-and-dry life by including it in a large xeric garden I'm creating for a client in Wellesley.) I've only now given mine a bit of "prophyllactic" staking: It's not flopping yet, and with two huge stakes and some twine, it never will.

Stay tuned for a post on the flowers.