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

Category: my garden

Witch’s Hand Daylily

 , , , , , , , 2

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!

Clematis Reincarnated

 , , , , , 2

From “Tangled Garden” by Janet Clarke in Oblique Strokes: Poems, edited by Barbara Myers:

Two angels reside in the garden.
One dark,
hands tucked, wings folded behind her head,
she crouches, brooding into a murky pool.
One light,
wings unfurled, serene among the ferns,
she holds a baby bird.

Messy untamed greenery reaches
for space and sun,
perennial flowers and ferns checked only
by the wooden fence
vined over by clematis, honeysuckle, ivy….

I am comfortable here
with my coffee and my solitude
and my messy untamed soul.

From “The Garden of Eros” by Oscar Wilde in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Volume 1, edited by Bobby Fong and Karl Beckon:

Yon curving spray of purple clematis
     Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
And fox-gloves with their nodding chalices,
     But that one narciss which the startled Spring
Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of
          summer’s bird,

Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
     Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
When April laughed between her tears to see
     The early primrose with shy footsteps run
From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with
          shimmering gold….

Hello!

Here we have a couple dozen photos of a clematis plant and its flowers, currently growing in a tall pot in my back yard along with its friend, a Concord Grapevine. Both have been featured here more than once before (see, for example, Bernadine Clematis, 2022 Version; One Clematis, Two Clematis; Plant Entanglements (1 of 2); and Plant Entanglements (2 of 2)) — but the clematis flowers haven’t been seen for a couple of years, until a few weeks ago.

Back in the olden days of 2021 and 2022, I had several clematis in pots on my back deck, which is where I photographed them for the previous posts. I’ve written before about the two big deep freezes of winter 2022-2023, which destroyed all sorts of plants throughout much of Georgia, including my clematis. When spring 2023 rolled around, several of the plants produced a feeble batch of leaves, so I replanted them in the Concord Grapevine’s pot — where they pushed out a few stringy vines, then shriveled up and disappeared. Gone forever, or so I thought.

Between thunderstorms in March and April this year, I noticed some new vines — quite a few new vines followed by flower buds (like those in the first five photos below), then with some petals that show a lot of very soft purple in morning light that dissipates as the sun rises. Of course as soon they opened, I got them to pose for a couple of photoshoots — then realized the flowers have become something quite different from those they produced before. This led me to learn about some new botanical terms — plant reversion and back mutation — where a plant’s flowers return to an earlier color and form after it’s been stressed by transplanting, and is described in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany as “a reverse mutation in which a gene reverts to the original standard [or wild-type] form.” How cool is that!

To my way of thinking: my clematis have been reincarnated, to what they used to be before someone changed them into what I had. Whatever these have become, they’re no longer recognizable by their original names, so I’ve decided to name them after my dog — and call them Clematis Lobo Lila — since his name is Lobo and the flowers are light purple or lilac in color. As you can probably imagine, he’s thrilled….

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

Canna Lily ‘Cannova Orange Shades’

 , , , , , , 7

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!

Lantana camara ‘Mary Ann’ (3 of 3)

 , , , , , , 4

From The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture (Vol. 4) by Liberty Hyde Bailey:

“[Lantana] is not particular as to soil, provided the exposure is sunny, and also that the soil is well supplied with moisture at least until a fair growth has been made. When well established the plants do not seem to mind drought, and continue bright and attractive in the hottest weather. They should not be transplanted out in the open before danger of frost is over. If the old plants are wanted for propagation, cut them back and transfer to pots early in September, and when they start into new growth the soft wood will furnish cuttings that root easily. Keep young stock in a warm position through the winter months, and repot in April….

“Save the old plants, after frost has nipped their freshness late in autumn, prune severely back, remove them indoors, giving them a temperature anywhere above 40 degrees, and with a little attention and fresh soil, every plant will be a perfect specimen, covered with blooms in May.…

“Gardeners train them into fine standards, as prim and shapely as need be.”

From “Verbenaceae” in Flowers of the Veld by Kay Linley:

“This family consists mainly of shrubs and trees, and many herbaceous members of the family are slightly shrubby in growth. Most of them have square stems and leaves in opposite pairs, and most of them are distinctly aromatic, having a strong smell when handled or crushed, sometimes a pleasant scent, and in some cases a disagreeable odour. One of the best known species in this country is Lantana camara, a straggling, very prickly bush, originally introduced from America; this has spread widely over large areas of the country and is now declared a noxious weed. It has quite pretty, circular heads of orange and red flowers followed by black berries, but it is held responsible for a number of cases of cattle poisoning. It is also encroaching rapidly onto grazing lands, and an effort is being made to eradicate it entirely.

”Lantana angolensis is an erect, unbranched plant of up to fifty centimetres in height, flowering early in the year, and common in woodland clearings and on waste land. The stems are square, hairy, and woody towards the base, and the leaves grow on short stalks, either in pairs or in whorls of three around the stem. They are narrowly oval with a slight point, evenly toothed around the edges and hairy on both surfaces. The tiny, bright mauve flowers are borne in axillary and terminal clusters, half a dozen or so in a cluster surrounded by a ring of green bracts, the whole on a short, hairy stalk. More noticeable than the flowers and more attractive are the juicy, bright purple berries which follow them; these are much enjoyed by many kinds of birds.”

Hello!

This is the last of three posts featuring lantana from my garden; the first post is Lantana camara ‘Mary Ann’ (1 of 3) and the second post is Lantana camara ‘Mary Ann’ (2 of 3). Here I adjusted cropping and recast some of the previous photos on black backgrounds. They always look like colorful pieces of candy to me when rendered this way; and, as it turns out, there are lantana varieties with “candy” in the name — including cotton candy, candy crush, and candy-candy!

Thanks for taking a look!

Lantana camara ‘Mary Ann’ (2 of 3)

 , , , , , , 0

From “Invaders of the Plant World” in The Plant Hunters by Carolyn Fry:

“One unwelcome side effect of the myriad transfers of plants and seeds around the world is the translocation of ‘invasive’ species. Plants arriving on foreign shores with an agreeable environment and a lack of predators have often quickly become naturalized. Those also encountering a ready pollinator or suitable means for dispersing seeds have been able to spread rapidly. In some cases, the new conditions have made the plant much more successful in its new locale than in its indigenous habitat. When a plant becomes disruptive to native flora in a particular location, it is deemed invasive….

“The brightly colored flowers of Lantana camara made it a popular garden flower in Europe when it arrived there from Central and South America. As the colonial powers expanded into the tropics it, too, became widely dispersed. Today, it is considered a problem in at least 50 countries. Since it was introduced to South Africa in 1880, it has invaded natural forests, plantations, overgrazed or burnt veld (grassland), orchards, rocky hillsides, and fields….

“It arrived on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Islands in 1938 as an ornamental. Since 1970, it has replaced Scalesia pedunculata forest and dry vegetation of Croton, Macraea, and Darwiniothamnus. Two of the three populations of Lecocarpus pinnatifidus and one of Scalesia villosa, both endemic to Floreana, the smallest island in the Galapagos, face elimination if the invader continues to advance. If Lantana reaches the crater area of Cerro Pajas, it will endanger the last remaining nesting colony of dark-rumped petrels on the Galapagos Islands. Thorny thickets of Lantana are so dense they would prevent the birds from making their nesting burrows at the breeding site.”

Hello!

This is the second of three posts featuring lantana from my garden; the first post is Lantana camara ‘Mary Ann’ (1 of 3).

If you spend any time researching lantana, you’ll quickly find that in various parts of the world, it’s considered a seriously invasive species — owing in part to its rapid growth, entangling brush, and how its brush becomes woody and hard to cut as seasons progress and it spreads. The quotation above from Carolyn Fry’s The Plant Hunters above is one example, where she describes how it has impacted the Galapagos Islands flora, and it was my first encounter with a description of the plant’s potential impact on a avian species, the seabirds known as petrels.

As I’ve photographed and written about lantana each year, I’ve tried to learn a bit more about it with every post. If you’d like to peruse my other coverage of its invasiveness, its appearance in literature and film, and different ways I’ve photographed it, this tag — lantana — will take you to all my prior posts.

Thanks for taking a look!