"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Category: my garden

Stargazer Lilies, Stargazing (1 of 2)

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From “Stargazer Lily” in Anthology of Flowers by Jane Field-Lewis:

“It’s been dubbed a floral celebrity for its striking good looks and, in plant terms, its relative youth, having only been introduced in the 1970s. The stargazer is a hybrid lily of the Oriental group, specially adapted so its blooms face skywards but still retaining the perfume of its cousins.

“Part of its popularity with the flower-buying public is the stargazer’s ability to rise to almost any occasion. Need to say sorry? The stargazer can. Congratulations? Its associations with aspiration, wealth and prosperity should do the trick nicely.

“It can also call on the lily family’s wealth of cultural and religious symbolism over the centuries, from ancient Greece, where it was linked to sexuality, to early Christian paintings, where it represented chastity and purity. It crops up in folklore, too, especially in determining the sex of an unborn child.

“Nowadays the flower has made common parlance. We talk about ‘gilding the lily’ to refer to unnecessary ornamentation or over-embellishment because it is viewed as a benchmark for idealism and flawlessness.

“Nothing, William Blake once wrote, can ‘stain her beauty bright.'”

From “Stargazer Lilies” in All of You on the Good Earth: Poems  by Ernest Hilbert: 

The vase itself is a spent shell casing —
Lush petals pour out like surging steam,
Lacquered battle-bent cuirasses, photograph
Of fireworks in humid July skies, racing
Into an umbrella of spark and cream,
Falling as luxurious glittered ash.
The arrogant smudged stamens jet high
And proud like vapor trails, the whole bouquet
Unfastening like a vast nebula,
Long pour of poisonous gas; arms fly
Out and fade, and the soft leaves, in late day,
Aim down, oar blades in air above Formica,
Limp and breathing in a dry universe,
Wet pennants, green ghosts, long surrendered spears.

Hello!

Returning to my garden once again, here we have the first of two posts with photographs of Stargazer Lilies, whose official name — Lilium ‘Stargazer’ — is uniquely not-confusing. These lilies made a cameo appearance in a previous post along with my Witch’s Hand Daylilies, but here we leave the daylilies backstage and promote the Stargazers to a well-deserved starring role. The first image below will give you a sense of how the lilies — living in two pots in my back yard — produced this boisterous batch of blooms in June and July.

I bought the Stargazers in 2023, but it was too late in the season for them to produce more than the single blooms they sported at the garden center — so I never took their pictures. I was pretty excited (possibly even surprised, as gardeners often are) to see them return this year and give me something striking to zoom in and out on with my camera. The images in the galleries below progress through a few of their large unopened flower buds to studies of the fully opened petals from various angles and distances. In the second post, we’ll do more of the same, and we’ll also push our faces right into the centers of the flowers. Since the Stargazer was “specially adapted so its blooms face skywards” and mine actually do that — this will be very easy and fun to do!

I liked the poetry I included up-top because it’s one of those unusual poems about a flower that mentions the flower only in the title. You’re left to decide, instead, how and to what extent the poet has described the flower accurately, or metaphorically, or with flourishes of realism and metaphor. Words and phrases like lush, lacquered, fireworks, spark and cream, glittered ash, vapor trails, oar blades, and spears — among others — all produce a mental image that reflects the flowers’ colors, texture, structure, scattered pollen, leaves, and even aroma. You might also gather a contrasting war-and-peace metaphor as well as reflections on the Stargazer’s life cycle ending in a vase on a kitchen countertop, from the poem as a whole.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Canna Lily ‘Cannova Yellow’ (2 of 2)

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From “Awaiting the Last Blaze of Summer” in On Gardening by Henry Mitchell:

“The long hot days… are soon coming to an end. Already the signs of approaching fall may be seen — the first flowers on the wild white almond-scented clematis, a brilliant red leaf here and there on the dogwood, swamp maple, and sourgum trees.

“But early September may yet show us some of the hottest days of the year, all the more wonderful for being the last true burst of summer….

“My enthusiastic admiration today centers on a quite tender canna, C. iridiflora, the iris-flowered canna of Peru. It is said to tolerate far less cold than ordinary garden cannas, which is probably why you never see it in gardens here. A quite small plant with two leaves arrived in late May, and I suspected it would take two or three years to raise it to flowering size. On the contrary, it has grown to shoulder height and is now flowering.

“An established plant reaches ten feet or so, with leaves three feet long and a foot wide. Flowers are borne on curving drooping stems at the top, and the rich coral-rose flowers, smaller than those of garden cannas, hang down. They resemble individual florets of a gladiolus, except for seeming to hang upside down.

“Three friends from England saw the plant and were only routinely polite. No fits. I have often thought the most intense pleasures of a garden are reserved for rather odd people.”

From “The Men in the Family” by Jack Ridl in Southern Poetry Review, edited by Robert Grey:

Quietly, next to the old toy drum, my grandfather
tired from rehearsing his bitter life in the mill,
sits and draws stick figures, then staples them
to the edges of the window where he watched
himself walk away two weeks after his 46th year
on the line. His son learned basketball and that took him
into a new language, one that took him
farther from home than any work. In my
grandfather’s yard, the tea roses, the necklaces
of allysum, the cornflower, and the canna lilies wait
in the sun, well-weeded….

And in another time, a ruddy
young Bohemian, a rose in his lapel, cursed his team of horses
as they pulled him and his wagon of beer barrels
across the brick streets of Mt. Pleasant,
Irwin, Wilkinsburg, Aspinwall, and Pittsburgh….

I am the last son. I write this.

Howdy!

This is the second of two posts featuring Canna Lilies from my garden, photos of three plants I bought in the spring called “Cannova Yellow.”

As I mentioned in the previous post — Canna Lily ‘Cannova Yellow’ (1 of 2) — these Cannas had two distinct blooming cycles, one in May and one in June, betwixt which flowers from the first batch disappeared but were then replaced by fresh ones in slightly smaller forms. Still they maintained the same “canna style” for which the plant’s flowers are well-known, and, perhaps, produced even more swatches of orange throughout their yellow petals than the first batch.

Thanks for taking a look!

Canna Lily ‘Cannova Yellow’ (1 of 2)

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From “Over the Horizon” in The Origin of Plants by Maggie-Campbell Culver:

“Rather like the African Marigold, which was seen growing wild along the coast of north Africa, so Indian Shot eventually naturalised itself in Spain and Portugal. This was found to be Canna indica and was an early introduction from the West Indies towards the end of the 1560s. It may have attracted attention when Spain was earlier castanetting itself through Central America between 1511 and about 1530. The genus has about 50 species in the family of Cannaceae and is spread over tropical South and Central America and also Asia….

“When it was introduced into Britain it was considered a great rarity and it was some time before anyone understood how to cultivate it. The plant feels most comfortable growing on forest margins in moist open forest areas, but seems to be domestically quite adaptable. The word Canna comes from the Greek for ‘reed’, and indica is because of its connection with the West Indies. All the species, and now the hybrids, carry the most spectacularly coloured flowers and give a zing to any garden….

“A number of the Canna species were introduced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but they were always considered specialist plants, until the idea was developed in France of using subtropical and tropical plants for summer splendour. This was pounced upon by gardeners in Britain and is a style of summer bedding still used in much municipal planting today. A mass of them blooming together looks rather like a flock of exotic parrots, and their exuberance at least cheers up what may be an otherwise dull summer.”

From “Houston Heights” by Janet Lowery in Texas in Poetry 2, edited by Billy Bob Hill:

I have decided not to forget these little houses,
these tiny cottages, these small frames of brick
and clapboard and stone, these roofs of silvery
shingle and green tile. I have decided not to forget
the pastel colors of the jaunty homes: mauve
and peach, sage and lavender, pale pink
and bleached periwinkle blue. Nor the smooth
scallops of gingerbread peaks, the fresh white
trim of picket fences, nor the spiked tips
of black iron gates, the neatly groomed lawns
and beds of bright flowers: pink candy impatiens
and frothy azaleas, velvet-mouthed pansies, lace
periwinkle, crepe canna lilies, the ragged lips
of scarlet hibiscus, pots of pink begonias, pots
of marigolds, pots of geraniums and portulaca….

I have decided not to forget these tiny side streets
tunneling toward the tracks, the wide boulevards,
the neat avenues and cracked sidewalks. Here,
on the notebook page, I will remember everything….

Hello!

This is the first of two posts featuring Canna Lilies from my garden, photos of three giant-leafed beauties called “Cannova Yellow.” These Cannas are in large pots in my courtyard, where they’re happy to be the center of attention and get just the right amount of sunlight and shade. I usually swap them out for new varieties each year, though I did recently learn that you can dig them up, store them indoors, and repot them after winter’s end. Here in the Southeast, those in the ground tend to return on their own; but those in pots — like mine — often get frozen out, so maybe I’ll try this over-wintering trick just to see what happens.

I went looking for Cannas with red or orange flowers early in the spring, but came across these yellow ones, whose colors I really liked. They bloomed in two distinct cycles — one around the middle of May and one around the middle of June — each bloom lasting a couple of weeks. July’s growth seemed to hint at a third set of blooms; but as is often the case with Cannas, what looked like emerging flower shoots turned out to be new leaves. Leaves are cool though too!

This post shows the blooms from May, and the photos progress from first buds through larger blossoms, followed by tall columns of overlapping flowers at the end. I especially like the swatches of orange you can see on some of the biggest flower petals, that look like someone took a brush and dabbed them with orange paint to create some alternating color and texture.

The Canna’s flower structure tends to be very complex, usually asymmetrical — and that combined with their large size can make them challenging to photograph well. These yellows, though, seemed to present more compact, balanced proportions than varieties I’ve previously owned. See, for example, my post from last year — Canna Lily ‘Cannova Orange Shades’ — which shows how even at the earliest blooming state, those Orange Shades were more asymmetrical than these, with large flowers popping at the end of longer stems, stems that then curved and randomly folded away from the flower’s center as they aged. The individual petals on these yellow ones remained mostly upright, by contrast, until they lost their grips and flew away.

Thanks for taking a look!

Witch’s Hand Daylily

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From “Flower Forms” in The Illustrated Guide to Daylilies by Oliver Billingslea:

“Modern daylilies exhibit a wide array of forms. The circular flower form appears round. Segments generally overlap, giving a full appearance. In the triangular form, sepals typically recurve to make three flat sides while long petals extend into modified points. In the star form, petals and sepals tend to be long and pointed, separated by spaces. Segments radiate to six points. Many older daylilies, those produced before the era of wide petals, fall into this category. Some flowers may be referred to as being flat, that is, completely open and spread out except for the concave throat; others may be referred to as recurved, that is, having segments which flare, the ends of which are rolled or tucked under. The trumpet form has segments which rise from the throat in an upward pattern with little flare. These are sometimes referred to as representative of a chalice or cup form. Many of the species are trumpet forms….

“A fifth form is that of the spider, the petals of which have a length to width ratio of at least 4:1, as measured with segments fully extended.”

From The Learned Arts of Witches and Wizards by Anton Adams:

“It was not until the 1640s that the American colonies experienced any hysteria concerning witchcraft, possibly influenced by the English situation at the same time. The first witch was hanged in Connecticut in 1647 and there were scattered accounts of witches tried in other colonies. However, the most important witch trial was that of the Salem ‘witches’ in Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693. Unrest in Massachusetts after the loss of its colonial charter in 1684, compounded by a number of social problems and repressions, led to a society ripe for accusations of witchcraft.

“Over 200 people were arrested and accused of witchcraft. Nineteen were actually hanged, all on the testimony of a group of eight girls, ranging in age from 12 to 20, who claimed to see spectral emanations from those they accused of witchcraft. The girls, including Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam, were alleged to fall into frenzied convulsions if a ‘witch’ came anywhere near them….

“Their convulsions would stop upon the touch of the witch’s hand….”

Hello!

Around the middle of May, I went hunting at a local garden center for some new flowers for my garden, to replace a few potted annuals from the previous year with perennials. That garden center had quite a few daylily varieties, any of which would have been nice additions, and (as one does) I spent a lot of time trying to decide which kind to buy. I had no specific criteria in mind, so I defaulted to the method I use to buy wine (which I know little about): I pick out something with a cool name — in this case a Witch’s Hand Daylily, or, officially, Hemerocallis x ‘Witch’s Hand.’

Plants like daylilies that require a lot of sun sometimes don’t work well in my courtyard, because it’s surrounded by towering pines and there’s a large Japanese Maple that shades about a third of it. But I don’t mind experimenting a little, having found that many flowering plants will do just fine with scattered sunlight and spans of full sun a few times a day. Unsurprisingly, my Witch’s Hand didn’t do much for a couple of weeks, then (I swear this is true!) overnight one night it produced a series of stems (or scapes and bracts) with a few tiny flower buds along their lengths. Within a few days, those stems grew three feet, showing off shapely forms that were quite compelling on their own. Some examples are featured in the first nine photos below, followed by the first bloom that appeared (in the next three photos) at just about the same time a Stargazer Lily opened up in another large pot nearby.

The rest of the photos show off the Witch’s Hand in full bloom, as it produced at least two new flowers every day until late June. As described in the first quotation above, the flower is a daylily spider form (how appropriate!) — with colors exhibiting dark red and burgundy variations, often with threads of purple or blue through their centers or along each petal’s edge. The only thing that would make it better is if it bloomed on Halloween!

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Canna Lily ‘Cannova Orange Shades’

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From “An Introduction to Cannas” in The Gardener’s Guide to Growing Cannas by Ian Cooke:

“Big, brash, bright and gaudy, cannas could be described as the clowns of the plant world. Most are not discreet; they flaunt their big floppy leaves in the breeze, and their huge flashy flowers stand proud and bold at the top of giant ramrod stems….

“If we could take a time-machine back a hundred years, we would find that cannas were highly fashionable and widely grown in both large and small gardens. Times and fashions changed and they lost their appeal but once again they have regained their popularity and are now talked about and grown by keen gardeners in many countries. Their exotic foliage and multi-coloured flowers have awarded them a new and well-deserved status as easy garden plants with instant appeal.

“The name is derived from the Greek kanna, meaning a reed-like plant. Cannas are sometimes referred to as ‘canna lilies’, although they have no relationship to the lily family: the word is merely used here to suggest a large, exotic-looking flower….

“Cannas are tropical plants, essentially natives of the West Indies and subtropical areas such as South America, where they are found in both mountainous and lowland areas. However, as ornamentals, they have been developed mainly in the temperate climate of Europe. As such, they have, over the years, been selected to be tolerant of a wide range of conditions and, provided a few basic requirements are understood, they are easy and rewarding to grow.”

Hello!

Last year, I posted a few photographs of Canna blooms from Canna Lily ‘Cannova Bronze Scarlet’ — plants named that way, I imagine, because of the bronze/gold stripes in their leaves and deep scarlet/red flower petals (see Scarlet Red Canna Lilies). They grew and bloomed well into December 2022, but then mostly melted away during our winter deep freeze. I had four of them at the time, two in large pots in my courtyard and two in my pond. One of those in the pond survived — surprise! — and is still growing though did not produce any flowers this year. That Cannas will grow in ponds is perhaps not as well-known; but one of my nearby garden centers was selling some as pond plants, and they seem to do well in plastic pots filled with aquatic planting media, submerged just below the surface of the pond’s water.

I tried to find the same variety again (because I really liked the bronze-striped leaves), but wasn’t successful so bought these orange-flowered ones instead. They’re called Canna Lily ‘Cannova Orange Shades’ and feature dark green leaves with yellow highlights, and various shades of orange and yellow throughout their flower petals. Even the blooming youngsters — as they start to emerge in the shape of some alien’s claw — show the bright mix of orange and yellow that will eventually fill out their flowers.

As a photographic subject, Cannas can be challenging. The blossoms are large, complex, top-heavy structures that tend to flop around in the slightest breeze and will bend the entire plant nearly to the ground after a rainstorm. To represent them at various blooming stages, I’ve included photos of unopened flowers below, along with some that are (mostly) fully opened, and a couple of photos at the end where unopened petals are revealed from a lower angle below a partially opened flower.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!