Very few of my Tiger Lilies bloomed, but what did reminded me of why I grow them!
M Y G A R D E N —Though more than six feet tall, some bugs/beetles have devoured my Tiger Lilies! Of the dozen or so plants, all but three have been stripped bare and never even flowered! Whatever the insect was ate the leaves and then ate the buds. I can't believe the small red bugs I see on them wer able to do it, but I really haven't seen anything else except for a few Japanese Beetles. It definitely wasn't the deer—they just eat everything very neatly, lol. But whatever, of the few that I have blooming, I'm still in love with them! The way their petals curl backwards all the way and then some is so dramatic! The anthers are very stylized as well, and the polka-dots are not only a different color than the petals but are three-dimensional, they're raised up a bit. As true perennial gardeners and NY Mets fans always say, "There's always next year!"
Hard to find a bad angle to shoot Tigers. Well you know what I mean!
I JUST WANT TO SIT IN YOUR GARDEN.
ReplyDeleteTHE WONDERS OF LIFE.
ONE TIME YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS TAKING A WALK WITH MY FRIEND ON HER 100 ACRE RANCH. SHE BENT OVER AND PICKED A FLOWER SO SMALL YOU WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN SEEN IT IF YOU WEREN'T LOOKING. ANYWAYS, SHE TURNED TO ME AND SAID DO YOU EVER STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES. EVEN BACK THEN WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND OF COURSE, GOOD LOOKING, LOL, I SAID WHY YES I DO.....I NEVER FORGOT THAT WALK. SHE DIED OF CANCER AND I'M STILL SMELLING THE ROSES/
GRANNY
Thanks, Granny! I think some of the smallest flowers are the most beautiful. It's like they have to try harder because they're so tiny! My mother used to have something called Stargrass which looked like a type of crabgrass until it flowered. Then it had the prettiest corn-blue flowers about 1/4" in diameter, but only one per plant. It's going to be mid 90s again today, but I think i'm going to ride along the beach road and take some pics of their flowers over there. they can afford the good ones, lol!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I love your love of tiger lilies. I always thought of them as our "poor" flower. They were thick when I was growing up and I still see them on abandoned and unkempt places (of course I see them in gardens as well.) My family wasn't well off and stayed frugal even when things went well, so I always thought that (hollyhocks and irises) were what one planted when you were being frugal. You have given me a new appreciation for them. I think I will go to a vacant house next to my daughter and "borrow" a few to plant here.
ReplyDeleteWill be anxious to see the pics on your ride today, bet your flowers are just as lovely (or even moreso because of the care you give them)
Maybe you show us a picture of the 'beach road' itself, hm? Sounds interesting.
105 here yesterday..will try to stay cool today..hope you're surviving the heat as well.
mare
GRANNY: WISH YOU HAD A BLOG AS WELL..YOU HAVE SOME BEAUTIFUL THINGS TO SHARE. SPEAKING OF BEAUTIFUL, WE HAVEN'T SEEN YOUR FACE, BUT WE HAVE SEEN YOUR HEART AND YOU ARE YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL!!! HUGS TO YOU
ReplyDeleteMARE
i bet those flowers were considered frugal because they came up every year with very little work, and multiplied. i LOVE hollyhocks and don't have any. they're such an old-fashioned flower. I see them in old photos a lot.
ReplyDeleteI'll take some photos of the road and houses too.
Casey, Great job on the photos !
ReplyDeleteI love intense orange colors in a garden - mix in a little blue and purple....
Its been insanely hot here also - mid 90's is too hot to enjoy anything outside - and I hate hibernating in the air all day.
I spent my summers growing up at my aunt's house in Michigan's Keweenaw penisula, surrounded by Lake Superior - the town of Calumet specifically, and hollyhocks grew prolifically, out of every crack & back alley,(kind of a ghetto flower) but I still think they're beautiful anyway.
Keith: I can't even imagine a plethora of hollyhocks! I can't think of a single person that even has them anymore. My friend Mary used to grow them, but I don't think she has any this year. I'm going to put them on the list for next year, maybe instead of dahlias. My dahlias this year are barely a foot tall and it's july already! Every other year they've been 5-6 feet by September. I don't see them getting very big at all.
ReplyDeleteThis weather is not conducive to anything growing well - plants thrive in warm wet environments - not these desert conditions.
ReplyDeleteMy uncle used to pride himself in his dahlias - I don't know all the exact details but my Mom always told me that they were a tremendous amount of work - you have to pull the bulbs every fall, constant pruning,etc.
I also noticed that something is eating your tiger lillies leaves as well.... hey, just blame it on the weather LOL
yup, your mom was right about dahlias. I don't bother to pull up the bulbs anymore. You have to keep them in a moss type stuff, they can't get too cold, or too warm, and even if you do everything right, they still don't come back up most of the time. My friend Mary gives me fresh bulbs every spring for my birthday from some nursery in Oregon. I'm a bit spoiled as I can just plant them each year. I've only had to pinch them once so far though, since they're still so short. You pinch them so they don't get spindly. Wherever you pinch them, you'll get two stalks instead of just the one.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Tiger lilies were DECIMATED by some type of bug or beetle. I should have had at least a dozen stalks in bloom, and only 3 made it to this stage, and even at that, most of the buds had so many holes in them they didn't blossom. I've only gotten about 6 full flowers. Very disappointing, but what can you do?! I"m not one to spray insecticides or anything, i just say live and let live and I'm happy for whatever comes up.
Talking about decimated, my honeysuckle was eaten alive by some kind of caterpillar early this spring. The leaves came back about 40% after a liberal spritzing of soapy water but all the buds are gone. It's on a trellis right outside my office window and when it blooms it attracts hummingbirds - I've only seen two hummingbirds in the 5 years or so I've had the honeysuckle but when you see them it makes your day ! Such beautiful little birds !!
ReplyDeletei've only seen a hummingbird once in my yard, and at first I thought it was a big bee or some other huge insect. They're so tiny, but when it hovered near a flower I realized it was a bird.
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