Yellow or Pink?

reamy-white clouds of Autumn clematis have emerged atop many road-side trees in the last few days. They look nice out there, but I wouldn’t want them climbing my trees. They don’t do any real damage, but they look best from a distance, in somebody else’s trees.

In keeping with the lily motif, here are a couple more of our rain lily varieties. I couldn’t decide which one to pick for this week’s photo, so I decided to show you both. First pink, with Zephyranthes ‘Grandjax’, a hybrid between the heirloom standard Z. grandiflora, and another hybrid Z. ‘Ajax’. Starting with one bulb a dozen years ago, this pink beauty is now a solid bed two feet deep and fifteen feet long. It primarily multiplies by way of bulb offsets, but a few seedlings show up in odd places. I have dug them up only a few times to re-space the bulbs. The foliage is flat and thick, and the three-inch diameter flowers rise only slightly higher. And yes, they are like all rain lilies, in that they bloom like gangbusters just after a summer shower. I was only able to find these two blooms in the border on Tuesday since it hasn’t rained in almost a week.

This next little darling is one of my favorites, Zephyranthes reginae, Valles yellow rain lily. Purchased about the same time as ‘Grandjax’, this yellow rain lily has been much slower to multiply. This is mostly due to the fact that it multiplies from seed, not bulb divisions. Any time I see the seed capsules about to burst open atop the old flower stalk, I break them open and scatter the seed in open ground and scratch the dirt a bit. After the same passage of time, I have a clump about one foot by two. The foliage is tubular and far more sparse than ‘Grandjax’. The mass effect of this clump is not quite as appealing as the other, but I just love the dainty light-yellow blossom which are only slightly smaller than their pink cousin. The bulbs need to be planted beneath a carpet of some kind of low-growing ground cover to improve the appearance, but we haven’t found anything suitable. Any suggestions?

Have a good weekend. Get out and enjoy the last month of summer. As the days slowly begin to cool down, it becomes a bit more fun to be out in the yard, and there are plenty of projects out there. Don’t forget to be thankful to God. See you in Church on Sunday.