Oklahombres

his may turn out to be an all-lily month for  my Friday Floral pics. I nearly waited too long for this weeks gem, but I knew I had a very narrow window on the Lycoris last week, and decided to push it back till this week. The Crinum lily, Crinum sp. is made up of a number of species that readily interbreed. This promiscuous behavior makes identifying parentage very difficult, often impossible. The one Crinum we have, C. ‘Ellen Bosanquet’, is no exception. It was hybridized in Florida in the 1920’s by a plant breeder, Louis Bosanquet, which he named in honor of his wife, Ellen. To this day nobody is sure of the parentage, and to date no one has been able to recreate this hybrid with any known combination of species and/or varieties. Wow! Mystery in the front yard!

And don’t you just love the way the buds in this first shot are lined up in the queue? Unfortunately, the down side is that the spent blooms don’t fall off by themselves, and increasingly take away from what was a beautiful beginning. A good gardener will go around and snip out the spent blooms every day. Yeah, right. Notice in the second shot the stubs below the main bloom. This cluster is nearly spent.

More closely related to amaryllis than lily, all in the genus Crinum are tough, pest-resistant plants. They are usually listed as hardy to zone 7, which makes them technically half a zone shy of the Tulsa area. We have never had a hint of trouble here, and these bulbs are planted well away from the house, so they are not benefiting from winter house heat. Back in the seventies the USDA realigned the hardiness zones and I think there is a bit of confusion in the nursery trade; some growers using the old charts, some the new. That’s how I explain it. The foliage is a rosette tropical-like floppiness, reaching about two foot high. The flower stalks stand almost a foot taller.

Rain is forecast for this weekend, so if you can get out in it, do so. See you in church on Sunday.

he surprise lily is just that; a surprise. The other day I was scratching around the front gate, trying to get a handle on some low-growing weeds near the Don Juan climbing roses. It was mostly spurge, Oxalis, and that low-growing—we hates it, Precious; nasty little…—well, whatever it’s called. Forgive me. I lost it for a bit there. I wouldn’t dignify the spurge with its Latin name except for the fact that it shares a genus with the Christmas poinsettia: Euphorbia. Where was I?

While scratching in the bit of bare ground—except for the afore-mentioned weeds—around the front gate, near the Don Juan climbing roses, it dawned on me just where I was scratching, and what time of year it was, and why that little spot was “bare.” Well, surprise, surprise, but what should I see the next day but a number of pale green bud-tipped shafts emerging from the very spot I was weeding the day before. You see, surprise lilies get their common name from the fact that the one-inch wide strap-like foliage appears in the spring, providing energy to the underground bulb, in order to enable it to produce some flowers. But no flower stalks emerge. After three or four weeks the foliage browns out and dies, and you say “Well, what a cheat.” A couple of months after you forget about it, Gomer Pyle comes around and says “Surprise, surprise.” The shafts emerge quickly and the buds open in just a couple of days to to gorgeous pale-pink trumpets that smell delightful. The scene is a bit surreal because the absence of foliage make the blooms look fake, like someone stabbed plastic flowers in the flower bed.

Surprise lily is officially known as Lycoris squamigera. How dull can that be? The Latin is necessary in order to accurately identify and categorize, but the common names add color and reflect on culture and human nature. Surprise lily is also known as magic lily, resurrection lily, and—I’ve saved the best/worst for last—nekkid ladies or naked lily, to tone it down a bit. In our front yard we have another representation of the genus Lycoris in the spider lily; L. radiata, which follows a totally different calendar for bloom and foliage periods, not to mention size shape and color. I’ll leave you hanging there in suspense, saving the details until spider lilies come into bloom and make their debut on Friday Floral later this year. I’ll bet you’re biting your nails all ready.

Surprise lily is easy to grow, with no cold hardiness issues here in Oklahoma. The bulbs are rather large, about the size of a baseball, and rarely need to be dug up and divided. Because they leave the ground bare a good bit of the year you might consider planting them near some other bulbs that bloom at a different time so they can have overlapping spaces. Most commonly, you will find these “pink flamingos” stabbed out in the suburban lawn, a practice I perfectly detest, but it is one solution. The bloom period is when you won’t be mowing much anyway, and when the show is over you can just mow it all down. No mess, no fuss. The only problem is in the spring when the mass of foliage emerges. You have to mow around it for weeks while it becomes a nest for all kinds of vermin. You choose; it’s your yard.

That’s it for this week. Go out and plant something, or scratch up some weeds—the nasties, we hates ‘em. If you have a surplus in your garden, then share with neighbors. It makes a great ice breaker for sharing the gospel of Christ. That is, if you’re not trying to pawn off those overgrown baseball-bat zucchinis. See you in church on Sunday.

his summer has been anything but dry. Usually after the spring rains, summer showers in Oklahoma—even here in northeastern Oklahoma— are few and far between. This year has been different, with soaking rains about every ten days or so. Now I know that summer isn’t even half over, but the extended forecast looks good. Even if it turns off dry from this point, we’ve been blessed this summer. So, let’s talk about drought-tolerant plants.

The desertwillow,  Chilopsis linearis, is a much overlooked small flowering tree. The reason may be that it is only hardy through zone 6b, roughly the Kansas-Oklahoma border; while the various species of dogwood are hardy to zone 4 or 5. Unlike dogwoods, the desert willow can take poor soil and moisture conditions and never blink an eye.  Desertwillow blooms at a time when hardly any other small tree is blooming, unless you consider crapemyrtle a tree, which you certainly may. Beginning in June, desertwillow blooms in successive flushes till fall. This pic was taken the 11th of June, and the tree is still covered with blossoms. The texture and form is unique, and fits well in a small backyard patio setting, providing a light shade with a wispy effect on a breezy day. Desertwillow rarely reaches more than fifteen feet at maturity, and requires some selective pruning to achieve the desired effect of a strong yet interesting specimen. The only problem is that they are difficult to find in the retail nursery trade, so you will probably have to resort to mail-order.

It looks like it is going to be a beautiful weekend. Enjoy it, and I hope to see you in church this Sunday.

One meaning of crepe being defined as “a light, thin fabric with a wrinkled surface,” crape myrtle is aptly named. The petals of the blossom are anything but flat and/or thick, not that you can identify an individual petal of an individual blossom. The cumulative effect is what makes the beauty. The effect is akin to hundreds of colorful tissue papers stuffed through chicken wire holes—a parade float. Lagerstroemia indica is the main lineage of crape myrtles, although several other species have been bred into the commercial trade to produce a variety of desirable traits, dwarfing being one of them. The genus for this group of large shrubs/small trees honors a Swedish merchant Magnus von Lagerström, who first introduced specimens of this oriental beauty to the west.

The crape myrtle fills a work-horse role that cannot be replaced by any one plant material. Here in Oklahoma the bloom period lasts from July till frost. Nothing else can do that in the all too often moisture dearth of an Oklahoma summer. I like the tall ones, but pick any size; with modern breeding programs you can find the right size for your specific spot. Colors range from pure white to deep purple, and every shade in between. A couple of years ago we bought a red and white two-tone. The specimen pictured here has no certified pedigree. I snipped a few green slips at a local Sonic Drive-in of a plant growing in the outdoor eating area, so we dubbed it Sonic. Our specimen is about eighteen feet high, and is likely to eventually reach twenty-five or so.

You may remember back in the spring the creamy-white flower clusters of arrowwod viburnum. Well, here is honey bees and other insects will make of such blossoms. This display won’t last long as summer progresses toward fall. The birds will begin to pick this shrub clean as other sources of food dries up and becomes more scarce.

It looks like we will be having a break from triple-digit temperatures this week end, so get out and work in your yard. Enjoy all that God has made, and give thanks. See you Sunday.

o this is not a post about Barney Fife.

Magnolia ‘Jane’ is a lovely small tree, one that fits well in the residential landscape. Topping out at around twenty-five feet it will not dwarf a single-story dwelling. The leaves are large and leathery, creating a solid shade. The bare gray scaffolds in winter create an interesting contrast with whatever else is near in the landscape. The blossoms are quite striking, measuring four or five inches across. Not only does it bloom in spring, around the time of its cousin, the star magnolia, but it will often produce a light bloom period later in the summer. For some reason this year most of the blossoms of this second flush have had blemished petals once fully open, so I have chosen to show this tight bud for my Friday Floral. Enjoy. (Remember to click on the thumbnail if you would like to see the pic a bit larger.)

Have a blessed weekend, and give God the glory for it, and everything. See you in his house this Lord’s day.

he spring rains are past, and the later rains have failed to come. I haven’t watered the front yard border as I should have, leaving the floral show a bit puny here lately. I decided to focus in on a couple of drought-hearty troopers this week.

Garden phlox, or tall phlox has been in home flower borders since before there were picket fences around them. I wonder why they are such an old standard, since they are quite prone to powdery mildew. Since they are two-foot-ish in stature, they fit nicely toward the back of a flower border. If that happens to be just in front of a fence, wall, or shrubbery, then you can bet they won’t be happy. We have only one little clump in the corner of our yard, up against a wire fence with nothing else around, and they seem to do just fine. I believe the trick to preventing powdery mildew on any plant material is to provide plenty of ventilation all around it. Garden phlox thrive in full sun, but ours is positioned just under a Chittamwood tree where it gets light shade most of the day. There are some varieties bred specifically for powdery mildew resistance, but I don’t think this is one. I do not even recall where I got this start, but I bet it was given to me by a friend or relative.

Liatris is commonly called Blazing Star, or Gayfeather. There are about fourty species in this genus, so nailing this one down is going to be guess work. We grew ours from seed quite a few years ago, and I guess I could dig into my books and records and find the species name. You probably don’t care anyway, so it doesn’t matter, and isn’t worth the bother. I think it is L. spicata, but don’t hold me to that. This isn’t a real good specimen shot, but there it is.

The interesting feature concerning all in this genus is that, contrary to the nature of most other spiked flowers, the individual blossoms of a Liatris spike open from top to bottom.

Have a safe 4th-of-July weekend. If you don’t hand crank it this week end, it isn’t real ice cream. Remember to be thankful for your freedom, and I hope to see you in the house of the Lord on Sunday.

he golden hour, sometimes referred to as the magic hour, is the first and last hours of sunlight of the day. In it you have a more narrow light range, one that your camera can cope with much better. Here is a series of shots my wife took around the house last Tuesday, just before sunset. Click on the thumbnails to see a larger image. I am not going to comment on the shots. Just enjoy the golden hour, and give glory to our God and Father, maker of heaven and earth, and the Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. See you Sunday.

ell, it isn’t the summer solstice yet, but it might as well be here in northeastern Oklahoma. The days are hot and muggy, and the grass has to be cut at least every ten days. So it’s summer whether the calendar says so or not. One of the bright welcome mats of summer around these parts is the nearly-wild daylily, Hemerocallis. You know the one I am talking about; that bright sea of  poke-your-eye-out orange trumpets atop three-foot stalks, with floppy sword-like foliage two foot below. These tall sentinels of summer have been back-yard favorites since your grandma was a little girl. They basically came in one color: road-crew-vest orange, and one size: up-to-your-belly tall. Oh, I take that back. You occasionally saw the same size in road-crew-vest yellow. The other thing dependable with the old daylilies was that they bloomed their hearts out, and in a couple of weeks at most it was all over for another season.

That has all changed with modern plant breeding programs. I guess the first great break through was ‘Stella d’Oro’ which, was only about a foot tall and creamy yellow. It was ugly. “U G L Y, you ain’t got no alibi.” It was too short and too not-yellow, and it still only had one bloom period.

Some years ago my wife and I stumbled upon the gem you see to the right. It is called ‘Happy Returns,’ the name intimating that it is a return bloomer. That’s a big bonus. It will bust a gut blooming for a couple of weeks, and then later when it has had a chance to rest up, it will do a few more blooms later in the summer. It is compact—but not short—at about eighteen inches, and the bloom is truly yellow. It’s not almost-yellow, or mustard-yellow, or creamy-yellow, or that other yellow I’m not allowed to describe. It is yellow, and in our house that translates into beautiful.

The genus Hemerocallis comes from two Greek words: hemera, meaning “day,” and kallos, meaning “beauty.” Daylilies are very beautiful indeed, but each bloom holds that beauty for only one day.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy your yards and gardens. We’ve begun to dig a few new potatoes, and our smaller tomato varieties are very close. Don’t forget to give thanks to God… for everything. See you Sunday.

f that grouping of plants known as monoecious, there is a further division into two sub-groups: complete and  incomplete, which refers to the nature of a plant’s reproductive parts; what we commonly call flowers. One each of these two sub-group is represented in this weeks floral pics. A botanical term invented in the 18th century, the word “monoecious” means, literally (from the Greek) “one house.” In other words, the plant’s reproductive parts, both male and female, are present on a single plant. The other grouping is known by the term dioecious, which of course means “two houses.” Plants in this grouping have male and female plants. Ginkgo and green ash fall into this grouping, and you are well advised to heed the warning to purchase only male trees of such plants. Stinking fruit in the case of the first, and pesky seed in the case of the second make this need-to-know info.

Complete: First our representation of a complete flower, what most readily recognize as a blossom.
The joy of spring in the landscape for my wife and I peaks at the blooming of our Korean stewartia, Stewartia koreana. Grace and delicacy in the landscape is measured by this genus of small to medium trees. We had originally sought the Japanese stewartia, Stewartia pseudocamellia, but came up empty handed. We finally found the Korean stewartia and settled on it. The only noticeable difference is that the Korean species only grows to about twenty feet, while the Japanese species might reach almost twice that height, given optimum growing conditions.

The fully open blossom is beautiful enough, but the anticipatory bud, swelling to the size of a grape before bursting open, also creates a marvelous tease. All of the Stewartias require moist, well-drained soil. Our soil is well drained, but moisture is supplied by a water hose after the spring rains cease. A thick mulch of some sort helps as well. Smooth, tan bark that exfoliates in irregular patches along the main trunk and larger branches, and those lovely camellia-like blossoms are what make the Korean stewartia a favorite this time of year. The genus Stewartia is in fact closely related to the genus Camellia, which the blossoms readily betray. The tea plant is of the genus  Camellia as well.

Incomplete: This is not your typical blossom, but blossoms they are; male and female separate on the same tree.
The chestnuts in the back yard are going to produce a bumper crop this year, God willing. This is one of three, a Chinese chestnut, Castanea mollissima. Of the various nut trees, chestnut makes the best show at blossom. Oaks and pecans catkins droop down and soon fall off, while those of the chestnuts are presented more upright and seem to last longer. There is a good deal of history surrounding the chestnut and the eastern U. S. Everyone is familiar with the various paintings of barns and blacksmiths plying their trade under the spreading chestnut tree. There is also the issue of chestnut blight a century ago, which wiped out the American chestnut, and nearly wiped out the lumber trade in that reigon, but that is a post for someone else to write. We also have two American chestnut hybrids, which are some combination of Castanea dentata,  and the Oriental and European species.

I thought I would show a couple of pics of their blossoms close up. The male blossom, called a catkin, are the long fuzzy parts in this photo. They produce the pollen which pollinates the female embryo—there are two of them, much less conspicuous farther down and to the right along the branch. The photo below is a close-up of the nut-to-be. It almost looks like a pineapple. In a few weeks the spines will begin to emerge all around the growing nuts. There will develope two half-sphered nuts flat against one another, growing inside a spike-o-rama deluxe. When they fall to the ground in the autumn, you better hope the spiny shell splits open to release the seeds inside, because they are sharp.

Have a great week end and a blessed Lord’s day.

(Click on each of the thumbnails to get a larger picture.)

That’s what the species name means: Magnolia grandiflora has one big bloom. Well, it has more than one. The “one” was used for emphasis. Southern magnolia, or bull bay, has the biggest blossoms of any tree I can think of. I haven’t been everywhere, so I better not say “biggest” just yet, because there could be something out there I am not aware of. Let’s just say BIG, and leave it at that. Whether it is the biggest blossom sported by any species of tree is not important. What is important is that Southern magnolia says The South. A Southern Magnolia makes you think of Gone with the Wind, Colonel Sanders, and mint juleps.

Native along the eastern coastal plains from South Carolina to the tip of east Texas, this giant gem has adapted well farther north; much farther. The blossoms aren’t the only thing that is big. The leaves, dark glossy-green, with fuzzy brown undersides, are as big as your hand. Slow growing, a Southern magnolia will eventually reach sixty or more feet tall, with a spread of fifty or more feet wide. Oh, and did I mention, southern magnolia is evergreen, even though the leaves burn and tatter a bit here in northeastern Oklahoma. Spring fixes that with a fresh set to replace the old ones. Southern magnolia provides a dense shade, and its lower limbs can be left to grow all the way to the ground, or trimmed up so you can sit under them on a hot summer day. It looks good either way, although my wife prefers the to-the-ground look, which is fine with me.

The blooms, as you can see, are pure velvety-white, and as big as a dinner plate. What you can’t see is the sweet fragrance. It is not overpowering, just pleasant. My wife took these shots. I couldn’t decide on just one, as there wasn’t a bloom “just right.” The third shot, although pretty enough from a distance, lacks many of the stamen, the male reproductive parts that hold the pollen. In a day the petals too will fall, and the little seed “grenade” will begin to form. The second blossom, although nearly fully open, conceals the center parts. The last shot I guess I took, as those are my wife’s pretty fingers on the right helping mine on the left to peek behind the curtain.

Southern magnolia does not boast a spectacular display of blossoms, lasting for only a couple of weeks. They come instead a few at a time each day, each lasting a few days, for several weeks in late spring and early summer. The “grenades” persist for the rest of summer, with the slick, red seeds peeking from its crevices toward the middle of summer. If you have the space for it in your landscape, Southern magnolia will make you feel like a southern gentlemen (or a southern belle).

Have a good weekend. See you in the Lord’s house on Sunday.