A Rainy July Day in the Gardens

This has been a strange year weatherwise but that can be said about many places in the world these days. An El Nino is forming and we started with a nice cool and sunny but dry spring into late June when the heat and humidity and rain came back in droves. The heat hasnt been as bad as some other places, mostly still in the 80s but we have hit the low 90s and the humidity amplies the discomfort. Nonetheless there is much color in the garden now, just as there was earlier in the season, only the cast of plants has changed.

This simple daylily is a form of H. fulva grown from seeds that were harvested by Bjornar Olsen in Anhui Province, China. I grew a handful of plants and this is the first to flower. I figure that it is a diploid form of this usually (in cultivation) triploid species. Hopefully it doesnt run like the triploid version but it will need more time in the ground for me to assess that.

Never did figure out for sure what this awesome black flowered daylily is. I got it from Bridget W who probably got it from Manatawny Creek Daylilies. In some years the flowers are mared with yellow streaks from thrips but this year it has done really well. I sometimes spray the emerging scapes of daylilies to reduce aphid and thrip issues which can be a problem when you have a lot of daylilies. I didnt get around to all of them and the drought was hard on the bed of daylilies in one corner of the property where I need to hook up two hoses to reach so not all of them have done well this year. But this tall beauty is within easy reach of the hose and really is looking good this year.

One of my more interesting seedlings, this one has both stipples and stripes. This is its second flower which also shows stripes as did the first so it may be stable in this one. I will keep it, I actually dont have any striped daylilies in my collection though I do have some with stipples.

The waterlilies are looking great and the rainstorms are washing the annoying aphids off their leaves. However I notice some of them have rhizomes which float to the top of the water in summer. I guess the pots I put them in were too small but I did not expect them to rise up like that. I first saw this last year and if I recall correctly, they sink back down come fall. If not I will tie rocks to them and sink them anyway. We now have a sprinker and camera system which has thwarted the raccoons from eating the flowers and herons from eating the fish, thanks to our son in law who is good with such things.

The absolutely breath taking Gladiolus decorus is blooming now. Its a shy bloomer in my experience but a good grower. I got seeds thanks to a kind lady in Malawi some years ago and when I took apart my pot of corms this spring I had so many I was able to make five large pots of them with numerous corms in each. Its a shame the tropical African gladioli are not better represented in cultivation, some such as this species are really quite exquisite and not hard to grow.

Galtonia (or Ornithogalum or whatever genus they assign it to these days) candicans is in full bloom now. Quite hardy and this particular one is really good at making a nice clump, as they dont always do that in my past experience. They make easy to grow black seeds, especially if hand pollinated, and they are easily sprouted and the first year bulbs kept dry in their pot inside for winter in a cool location. They can be grown in pots for another year to get larger or put in the ground that spring. I have never seen it self sow unlike many other hardy South African plants that I grow.

Its the season of lilies, and this is one of the orientpet sorts. It is quite fragrant and an easy grower as orientpets tend to be.

The agapanthus, gladioli, and crocosmia are lighting up the South African garden with color. Offspring of Gladiolus Ruby Papilio often are much like the parent, and there are other hybrids of mine in all sorts of colors as well as some I got from the usual bulb sources. These agapanthus were grown from seed and get some wood chip mulch for winter but dont need a very deep covering such as gerberas prefer here in New York (USDA z7/6 border). Crocosmia Pauls Best Yellow is a nice one and I have unnamed red ones as well in various spots.

My wife really liked this daylily, Laughing Giraffe, when we went to a daylily nursery (I think it was Grace Gardens in Penn Yann, NY) and it has proven to be a good doer.

Zantedeschia albomaculata is the hardiest of the genus and even resows here. I have it in both spotted and unspotted leaf forms. They are pretty much indestructible other than the flowers sometimes being attacked by Japanese beeetles. This year they started opening before the beetles appeared so the beetles are a bit late to the party.

Agapanthus Ever Twilight was a gift from the breeder who arranged to have two each of five varieties shipped to me. Quinton does his breeding in South Africa but these are available in Europe and the USA. It is one of a series that were bred to rebloom, something I have never seen an agapanthus do before. This one has attractive bicolored flowers, here even the buds look good. I gave them winter mulch as they were not bred for hardiness and it worked for most of them. This is their first blooming the year after I got them and I will be able to assess how well they rebloom here in New York, and report my findings to Quinton. Last year was not the best of summers to establish them as it was exceptionally dry but now that they are settled in they are growing well and most are coming into bloom now or will be.