An Iowa Garden

One of the last of the large, fragrant Oriental lilies to bloom in our garden is named 'Dizzy'... not a bad way to end the season. It's a bit shorter than most, and therefore sturdier, and holds its blooms smartly. I think I'll stroll back out for a sniff, as it's the last flower that will be perfuming the whole garden on warm summer evenings. 

Summertime in Iowa: it is long, lazy days and then evenings filled with the sound of cicadas, and the sight of lightning bugs flying up to the sky, like so many green sparks rising in the gathering darkness... it is the sinking sun making towering thunderheads glow majestically against a deep indigo sky. Each day unfolds like a sun-filled chapter in a book without an end; yet there are subtle signs that summer is getting long in the tooth: young birds are everywhere, butterflies in ever-increasing numbers are floating through the heavy air, and the garden blooms are turning from pinks and blues to yellows and oranges. We are in the hottest part of summer right now, but all too soon, we will awaken to a morning where mist is rising off the pond in the cool air, and the sumac begins to don its blood red fall coat. I know I must be outside now as much as I can, and I feel like I want to hold my arms wide, and soak in the warmth, the sounds, and the smells of summer in Iowa. 

 

When I was in college, a friend once set me up on a date with one of the blonde cheerleaders; a young man's fantasy come true, she was indeed pretty and yet... in person not terribly interesting. The roscoeas are sort of like that for me... members of the tropical ginger family, and native to the Himalayas, with shiny foliage, and delicate flowers that are often described as orchid-like, they should be the centerpiece of our garden when blooming, and yet... usually only one bloom opens up at a time on each plant, and the flowers don't last terribly long here, as they bloom in our hottest part of the summer; the flowers soon crumple into limpness. Pictured is Roscoea purpurea; a lilac cheerleader.

This time of year, twilight seems to last for hours, gradually deepening, with the sun creeping down behind the ridge across the pond, wrapping itself in purple and peach clouds. It is then that white flowers begin to glow in the garden, as if lamps have been lit in the shadows, as dusk settles quietly into our little valley. Casa Blanca lilies, with their musky perfume, frame the grave marker for our sweet little cat Snickers; in my humble opinion, the best cat there ever was. 

The Orienpet parade continues, as one after another of these gentle giants of the lily world blooms in our garden; we've already had about three weeks of non-stop, delicious perfume greeting us as we open the garden gate, and now it's Aruba's turn, a lovely, quiet pink that almost melts into the shade along the back ravine. As you head down the trail, the aroma follows you like a soft cloud. 

We have scads of hostas in our garden... blue, green, yellow... some as large as four feet across, but of all of them, the one I most often stop and look at is this small hosta, 'Blue Mouse Ears', which I could hold in the palm of my hand. It is said to top out at a foot across, and that seems about right. It has very crisp, thick leaves, and is very symmetrical, with flowers that are large for the plant. Some hostas get kind of straggly looking after a hot summer, but this little hosta always looks like it just climbed out of the shower... it of course needs its own special little spot, lest it get lost in the shuffle.

This time of year, the peak of summer in Iowa, I start to think that I only really need two kinds of plants in my garden: lilies and daylilies. They are both (especially the latter) very popular in this part of the country, and it's easy to see why: lots of reliable, colorful flowers and very little asked in return. I guess I'd throw in some phlox for variety, and hostas for foliage, and I've got my summertime garden, with plenty of time to drink a cold lemonade while wandering about admiring all the flowers. 

Harbor Star 

Casa Blanca 

Suzuki 

Golden Elegance 

Eternal Flame 

Linda Daniels 

Hillbilly Heart 

Cranberry Breeze 

Enticing Elegance 

Gemini Jack 

Garden Phlox 

Garnet Dazzler 

Edge Of Frenzy 

Chicago Petticoats 

Rushing Delight 

Mr. Lucky 

Blastoff

Today was a day of stifling, ominous heat, with the temperature rising steadily all day. The humidity was so great, that as I worked clearing multiflora rose in the woods, my clothes soon became completely soaked and heavy with sweat, and still it became hotter. The afternoon sun became bleak, as if evening was upon us, with the air still and almost opaque, and then a steady rumbling from the northwest warned of an imminent storm. It continued to darken, and the clouds swirled down lower and lower, then the storm hit us broadside, and it was as if we were inside the anvil of the storm clouds themselves. The rain came down in wind-driven sheets, soaked up by the dry ground as fast as it fell, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in twenty minutes. Thankfully, this time no tornadoes displayed their ugly snouts, and the storm swept on to the south, dragging the heat and humidity with it, leaving us with a pleasant, cool evening, and green grass. The cats have emerged from their hiding places, and we've thrown open the French doors to let in the breeze.

In the storm.

The storm pulls to the south.

When weeding or digging about in the garden, there is ample (or over-ample) time to ponder things. Unfortunately, my mind doesn't turn to things like the meaning of life or a proposal for world peace... today I was thinking about worms. I was trenching along a flower bed with my trowel, and worms were coming to the surface in droves right ahead of where I was digging, and wiggling away on the surface of the ground. While I admit, worms may not be the brightest of God's creatures, this bit of behavior has always puzzled me; when somebody is mucking about in their vicinity, why wouldn't they head deeper in the ground, rather than flying to the surface and wiggling about, attracting the beam of the fat robin's eye? I then realized that it's all about moles. The mole is a voracious consumer of worms, so when the worms detect something digging in their vicinity, they flee to the surface. Maybe they are brighter than I think.

For somebody who fancies himself to be pretty well organized, I have an embarassingly large number of plants in my garden, which have no labels; especially, for some reason, daylilies. Some of them were presents that came with no name, some were un-named bonus plants, sent with mailorder purchases... the rest I'm not completely sure about... they're just here. It is true that the last time we moved, it was very abruptly (we weren't fleeing the cops or anything), and it was in October, and at the last moment we found out the new owner of our last house had no interest at all in flowers, so tons of things were dug up and thrown in bushel baskets to be brought to our present house. Keeping labels on everything was a luxury that time wouldn't permit. So, I often can't tell you what this or that is named in our garden... for example, these are all nameless daylilies, but have sweet faces anyway. 

 

 

 

Summertime, and the gardening is easy... it's that time of the year when everything's done that's going to get done in the garden; from here on out, it's on its own until fall. Now let me get a cold Bud out of the refrigerator, and take a garden walk in the cool of the evening.

 

 

It's time for my second annual rave about Orienpet lilies (Orienpets, of course, being crosses between Oriental and trumpet lilies). I started a few years ago with just a handful of these new bulbs, and they have multiplied into dozens of huge plants, covered with the most incredible flowers; Sweetheart is shown above. The sweet smell is intoxicating... last night was humid, and the bouquet from all these lilies floated up through our second story bedroom window. These tall lilies are like giant flower beacons, floating over a sea of multicolored daylilies. 

Conca D' Or' has just absolutely the most massive flower I've ever seen on a lily, in terms of size, and thickness of the petals together... it is just a hunk! I've been around long enough, that it takes something pretty startling to amaze me, but when this flower opened for the first time, I said "WOW!'

Sweetheart in close-up. 

Scheherezade is, I think one of the earlier Orienpets, with more Oriental blood; it looks rather like a Black Beauty on steroids. In my shady garden, it suffers slightly from getting too tall and gangly (8 feet tall), to hold up its massive number of flowers (up to twenty per stalk), and has no perfume to speak of. 

Red Hot is really more of a cool, pastel pink for me. It's another very sturdy Orienpet.

Mystique is new to our garden this year. 

This is Orania... over seven feet tall, with fourteen huge blossoms; it just dominates the back of the flower bed. 

Triumphator is breathtaking. 

Alchemy is butter yellow with a red center. 

Liz and I still think of ourselves as being pretty cool and with it... my young nephew once called us "beyond cool", which I'm sure must be a compliment. I will admit we are probably the last people in the country to buy an iPod Nano... but that's just 'cause I was waiting for the technology to get better! Well, anyway we finally took the plunge today, and after spending $350 at Best Buy, came home with our purchases in a sack that would be a little cramped holding a piece of bread. We were feeling quite trendy and very pleased with ourselves until we started registering our iPod on-line, and it asked for the eleven figure serial number on the back of the iPod. Liz looked at the back and said, "Is there a number there, I can't see anything; I don't have my glasses." I looked at the back, and could just tell that there was some incredibly tiny lettering there. Finally, by holding it up in the light from the window, squinting, and turning it several directions, I could just make out the number, to read off to her. I had a headache from squinting, and so felt slightly less cool.

If Birds had proper shoulders, the catbird in the picture would be shrugging them...
Our little black and white cat, P.J., is the sweetest and most inoffensive of cats, but to the catbirds, she's just another cat. Now I'm not saying P.J. is a vegan cat or anything like that; if a bird flew in her mouth, she'd probably eat it, but then again, she might just jump and run the other direction. The only thing I've ever seen her catch was a June bug; we have a double set of cat doors, one going from the house to the attached greenhouse, then another from the greenhouse to the outside. One night we heard the Whap-Whap of the two cat doors, and here came P.J., head held high, with a June bug in her mouth, which she dropped on the floor. I grabbed it, and walked over to the back door and threw it outside... her eyes got big, with an expression of shock on her face, and Whap-Whap, she flew outside, and five minutes later Whap-Whap, back in she trotted with the bug in her mouth. I threw it out again, and she ran back outside, and this time it took ten minutes for her to find the June bug and bring it back... so then I threw it out the front door. Her one effort at hunting animals consists of laying down right next to the hole of the pocket gopher that lives in the lawn under our birdfeeder. P.J. will camp out there by the hour, with her nose basically stuck in the gopher's tunnel opening, but somehow the gopher never obliges by sticking his head up while she's there. Birds she doesn't bother at all. When I'm working out in the garden, she likes to tag along, and snooze in a shady spot next to me while I'm weeding or whatever. Today the catbird started raising a hissy fit, trying all of his usual itinerary, but to no effect... first he tried mewing like a cat, then acting like he had a broken wing, then finally flying down and landing no more than three feet above P.J.'s head and scolding her... nothing. The catbird was incredulous. He then pulled out his last provocation, which was an odd one; he scolded her while holding a piece of dead leaf in his mouth... I guess in the catbird world that must be the ultimate insult, but P.J. just snoozed. I finally took sympathy on the nonplussed catbird, and walked P.J. back to the house, where she hopped up on the counter for a snack of Whiskas shrimp flavored treats, after which she laid down for a nap under the ceiling fan... the sleep of the innocent. I went back out to the garden to finish weeding, and the catbird was still sitting there with his mouth open.

Each year, in July when the garden is at its peak, one day the wood thrush takes a bow and begins his elegant song; a true lullaby of summer. This year, today was that day, and I always marvel that the singing of this brown thrush (which has the sweetest call of all our birds in the upper midwest), seems each year to be as fresh, and as thrilling to me as it was the first time I heard it as a boy on a warm Iowa summer evening long ago. The thrush today was obviously setting up his territory, as he made a continual counterclockwise rotation, flitting from tree to tree, in a large circle, encompassing most of our woods. From each perch he broadcast his message: Lee-Oh-Lay... Oh Day Is Done... Lee-Oh-Lay. It is a bittersweet call, like the finest woodwind; seeming to both celebrate the beauty of the day, and lament its ending... a reminder that even as we are in the ultimacy of summer, with all it's rapturous loveliness, that summers, and years are, after all, transient. As the sun westerns in the sky, and long shafts of light filter through the woods, the wood thrush sings more persistently, and as twilight spreads across our valley, and brings a time of utter peace to our woods, the other birds become quiet, as if they too, are listening. It is in this last fading of the day then, that the wood thrush truly takes center stage, continuing to sing his haunting song in the fading light, so that you bend closer to hear it better... Lee-Oh-Lay... Oh Day Is Done... Lee-Oh Lay.

I've always been overtly contemptuous, but covertly jealous, of those gardeners who complain that various plants that are rare and difficult for others, keep seeding all over THEIR garden. However... there are four plants in the picture above; the only one I planted was the hepatica on the right. In a jumble next to it are volunteers: a small seedling that looks like a Japanese jack in the pulpit, possibly a twisted stalk on the left (Streptopus), and the plant with flower stalks in the middle is Epipactis helleborine, a European orchid, pictured in close-up below. To be truthful, this particular orchid is a seed-about (but a very nice weed). I'm quite full of myself right now... I think I'll have to wait until some other day to figure how the heck to separate all these plants. 

 

With the summer sun high in the sky, the orange daylilies radiate color like hot coals. Here are three good ones, with Furnaces of Babylon above. 

Daylily Blaze Away 

Daylily Spacecoast Blastoff 

Lilium majoense is a relatively recently introduced Chinese species. Our plant is seven foot tall, with numerous dangling bells, that are cream with purple spots, and the stalk is most unusual, in that the lower two feet of stalk is almost devoid of leaves, and shiny black in color. Very unusual! 

Sometimes it takes daylilies a couple of years to settle down and bloom right. I don't know where I got this one or what it is, but I've been patiently waiting for several years, and a princess better kiss this frog pretty soon! 

Edge Of Darkness 

Eye On America 

Custard Candy 

Fancy Face 

Exotic Treasure 

Velvet Eyes 

Spacecoast Starburst 

Hidden Riches 

When we first moved into our present house, there was a small colony of Loessel's twayblade orchids growing in a grassy clearing, but our woods is a succession woodland, regenerating from being logged previously, and therefore it's getting much shadier, and as the twayblades like a sunnier location, they died out before I knew what was happening. I'd not seen one for several years, and sadly thought they were gone forever. The other day, though, I noticed a little plant popping up in one of my flower beds which looked strangely familiar, and I realized it's a single plant of Loessel's twayblade, that has grown from seed. 

Today it was so moist, that as you walked the pathways of the garden, you could feel your face parting the air, like swimming slowly through warm water. Adding to this languorous air was the musky perfume from a hundred trumpet and Orienpet lily flowers, with the huge, waxy blooms opening around every turn, and with the plants reaching up to seven feet high, letting their heavy perfume flow down to the ground, then running downhill like a sweet river, collecting in the low spots in palpable pools, so that as you sit on a bench savoring this complex richness, it evokes images of a mysterious enclosed garden in Persia or Istanbul on a soft evening. Of all the trumpets and Orienpets, I love Vice Versa, shown above, best. It's enormous, open, dark pink flowers last a very long time, with a perfume that is lovely without being cloying. It is a flower to savor deeply.