Crinum Lilies

Crinum Scabrum bud

A garden staple of mine for the last few years has been the crinum lily.  It has been crinum time in the garden lately.  Blooms have been popping up in the corner garden.

 The crinum ("cry-num" I only just realized had been mispronouncing this for years) is related to the amaryllis, but is rarely seen in your typical garden center.  It is the quintessential pass along plant.  You almost have to be chummy with an old gardener in order to get some.  I received mine from a friend of my mother who cleans them out of her beds from time to time. The huge bulbs sat in the corner for months until they started to sprout leaves.  I planted them not having a clue what they might be and soon they bloomed.  Since then I've been pretty enamored with the crinum lily. 

The Crinum Scabrum bloom always reminds me of peppermint.

Crinums in the Corner Garden

The crinum scabrum comes first, their red striped white blooms opening up around mid to late May.  I got these from a master gardening sale with only "White crinum with red stripe" on the tag.  I had to figure out the rest on my own.  The next to bloom are the original crinums I got from my Mother's friend:

I still don't know the type, but they seem to be very common in older neighborhoods around town.  They do very well with our sometimes drought/sometimes flood weather, and have been known to outline long gone homesteads, far out lasting the homes they were meant to adorn.  

Crinums by the shed this morning.

A cluster of crinum blooms.

Most crinum originated in Africa and it is thought that many were brought over during the slave trade.  While I don't know if this is true, I kind of like the humble origin story of families passing these plants down from generation to generation in the South. 

The crinum lily seems to be the Miracle Whip of the plant world:  you either love them or hate them.  While not in bloom the plants can be ungainly and their huge bulbs can be difficult to transplant.  But I like them, and I hope this post gave you something to like as well.  If you are interested in learning more, here are some sites I recommend:

The Pacific Bulb Society

Crinums in East Texas

Amaryllids in Cultivation

How to Recycle a Driveway

Have you priced landscaping stones lately?  I wanted to make a raised bed for the circle of the corner garden and liked the look of natural stone.  I priced limestone rocks at the local big box store and they were $5 - $10 a piece!  That didn't even include the delivery charge.  So this is what I lived with for the last year:

Black plastic edging that was only marginally better than nothing at all.  (And you wonder why I haven't wanted to share lately.)  Recently I was visiting my parents who were replacing their driveway.  I noticed some rocks stacked in neat piles and I swear I thought "Hmmm, I thought they were pouring a new driveway, not replacing it with rock. . . "  Ok, so I can be dense sometimes.  My Dad informed me that no, this was the cracked up parts of the driveway that they were getting ready to haul off to the dump in the morning.  One big guy and a sledge hammer broke up the entire driveway, a fact that impressed my nerdy little family to no end.  Well, I wasn't going to let this go to waste.  I immediately filled up the back of my station wagon and went home to build this: 

This is the prototype that took about 10 minutes to dry stack.  I kept what I was doing from my husband.  If I had told him what I was bringing home a bunch of broken up concrete for the garden, he would have been on the phone with the local mental health facility.  But in the end, he liked the look and ok'd me going back to get more for the circle:

Not too bad, huh?  Certainly an improvement.  In the prototype picture the flat side of the stone, the top when it was a driveway, was on top.  I later decided I like the bottom better because it looked more like real stone, and was more stable with the flat part on the bottom. 

This project was complete and I was very happy with myself when my Husband came up with an idea.  We had another problem we were trying to solve. The sand pit adjacent to the pool garden:

When we first moved into this house with a one-year-old, this was a great thing.  Our daughter could play in the sand while we watched from the house or pool.  But she eventually outgrew it and since it was difficult to put chairs in the sand, it was a huge waste of space.  Add to it that the neighborhood cats had made it a community litter box and the wall surrounding it was starting to rot, it all had to go.  Of course the same old problem came up.  We wanted to use white pavers to make it a patio area, but at $2 to $3 a piece it would have cost us several hundred dollars we didn't have, and I really wanted something more natural looking.  Fortunately the cement guys were still breaking up another part of the driveway and had pieces left.  This time the guys took pity on me and my little car and dropped off the load at my house:  

I sorted them into piles based on size, which I highly recommend for this project.

The cement has its own character.  Most of it looks like rock, but in certain spots you see the tire tracks and footprints left from the mud when they first poured the driveway 20 plus years ago.

First there was demolition.  This is always the part were you freak out and think "What have we done??"  That wheelbarrow in the foreground took a major beating.

Halfway done.

Three-quarters done.

Finished product!  I took the sand from the pit and swept it into the cracks.  Finally, the space is usable again and we've enjoyed several nights watching the fire in the pool.  (Yes, it is already very hot here, but the fire keeps the mosquitoes away . . .)  Not too bad considering it was all free.  Which is a good thing because I clearly need to save up for new lawn furniture!

Getting Cheap and Dirty

Wow!  January 31 was my last post?? (And a kinda lame one at that.)  Time flies.  I can't say I didn't post because I haven't been in the garden.  Due to being laid-off, I've had the chance to spend a LOT of time in the garden, although the budget is a bit more restricted.  Since I've been able give it more attention, the garden is flourishing.  It is also the third year I've gardened organically, and it seems like the system has finally caught up with itself.  Thought I'd do a quick post on some of the blooms and a quick teaser for some upcoming posts I'm working on.

The irises in the front garden have gone gang-busters this year.  One day my daughter counted 27 blooms.  This may well be my favorite.  (If you are interested in how I "acquired" these irises, click here and here.)

I've been loving the daylilies this year, and a few days ago my favorite purple one came out.  I think it might be called Purple Grape but I don't know for sure, and, ( forgive me, Hemerocallis Society) I don't really care.  It is pretty.

My rainlily would not be out done.

As I've mentioned, money is tight, and since propogation is probably my favorite part of gardening, I've bought nothing that I couldn't make twenty more of in a week a or two.  The coleous above is included.  Yummm, those colors make me drool a little.

I have an abundance of some plants that for whatever reason I've not been able to reproduce, and this year I cracked the code on two, including the Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' above.  I tried everything on this one.  I rooted some in water, some in soil with root hormone, and some I dug up.  Turns out this plant spreads via an underground tuber, and I dug up and planted some of them tuber and all.  I had about a 50% success rate, which was much better than previous years.  There's a ton of small plants in pots now and have been giving them away.  Digging the tuber up and potting it worked best of all (go figure.)

The other plant I've tried to propagate without success is the confederate jasmine.  It grows wildly on my daughter's playhouse, but up until now, I haven't been able to get it to to grow any where else.  The cuttings even have tiny dry roots at the base when I cut them, making it all the more frusterating. In early January I trimmed the plant back and tried to get some of the cuttings to take in soil, which didn't work.  I left the rest in a bucket that I forgot about until just a few weeks ago.  Rain had filled the bucket and new green leaves were coming out of it.  Duh!  Why hadn't I thought of rooting them in water?  Maybe the woody stems through me off.  Now that I know, I'll be doing more!

Finally, a peek at one of the projects I 've been working on:

You: Oh my!  Is that the Corner Garden?  With a stone border? 
Me: Why, yes it is!
You: But what happened to the tacky plastic border?
Me: I adiosed it. See-ya!
You: Wait a minute, didn't you say you were on a budget??
Me: Well, that is another post, my friend.

Happy gardening!!

WWPD?

Oy - Before Pictures. Whether it is a chubbie chick or an underdeveloped spring garden, they are never pretty. I hate showing them, but I know in a few months it will be fun to look back. Above is the circle in the middle of the corner garden. It was a happier spot once, but the frosts hit the palms and the squirrels decimated the gingers, and frankly, last year I kinda gave up on it. I'm now trying to revitalize it, and, as almost always, with no budget. The biggest problem is lack of definition. Ideally, I'd like to add a limestone border around it, in a more natural shape than the tight circle I originally created. That was a great plan until I priced out limestone. $10, per stone! For a girl that has a garden budget of right around $10 per week, more or less, that seems out of my price range. I could feel the spirits of my ancestors waiting to kick me if I even thought of spending $10 for a rock.

At times like these, I sit down and think: "What would Pearl do?"


Some of you know exactly who I am talking about. For those of you who don't, stop reading this and immediately get yourself a copy of the movie, A Man Named Pearl. It is a documentary about gardener and topiary artist Pearl Fryar. He is practically the patron saint of frugality and creativity in the garden. One of the reasons he took up topiary was that he could take a cheap discarded nursery plant and shape it into something totally unique and special. He is such an inspiration for me. So when I look at the area above, the thought comes in to my mind, "What would Pearl do?" How can I use the resources I have to make something really special? Unfortunately, I don't have Pearl's brain, so I still don't know what I am going to do with this area. I have filled it with with red canna I picked up from the Master Gardener's sale last year and some grass divided from the front yard. But I still have no idea how I'll define the bed. Suggestions, especially for cheap rock sources, are welcome.

The cannas are pretty though.

In case any of you are wondering how the war on squirrels is going, I'm trying a new tactic: physical barriers! On some of my more prized ginger shoots, I've cut out the bottoms of garden pots and put them over the shoots. In other areas, I've surrounded the gingers with branches. Anything to make them harder to reach and get to. I'll let you know how it goes.

And the Winners of my Undying Respect and Admiration are . . .

Congrats to Garden Lily and Susan for correctly identifying the mystery plant as an Amaryllis! I'd tell you the variety, but since it looks nothing like what was on the package, there is no telling.
Whatever. I'm just happy to have something blooming in the garden!

UPDATE: Corner Garden and Shed Garden

The tropicals in the corner garden are just loving the wet weather. The gingers are starting to recover from the squirrel attacks and the crinums look great under the palm. A canna I thought I moved to the pool area is blooming in the corner. Moonflower vines are crawling quickly up the trellis. The spiral ginger is struggling in the circle, but I've found ginger tends to struggle a bit its first year. The shed garden is having a tougher time. The Persian shield is doing well, as always. Maybe I'll change things up. Plant the P. shields along the front, with a line of gingers behind it. The banana on the left and the palm on the right have been slow to recover from being frozen over the winter.

The Good Thing About 3 Days of Rain

After three solid days of rain, the sun finally came out today. I had been noticing some crinum bulbs blooming about town, especially around the older neighborhood my daughter's school is in. They are growing in huge clumps, even in gutters. I keep thinking, "If these guys knew how much these plants are going for on Ebay, there wouldn't a single one here!" Well, I went out and checked my plants this morning and look what I found:A bloom! When they are blooming, I want a thousand. The rest of the year I'm wondering why I planted so many crinums.

The salvia has perked up too! Maybe I'll keep at this gardening thing. . .

(*^&*&^% Squirrels!!!!!

So I was planning on showing you some nice pics of how the garden is coming along. The butterfly and Disney gingers were finally coming up. Above is a picture from last week when they were just peaking over the Ti plants. This week they were a good foot taller. Emphasis on "were."
This is what they looked like when I got home this evening. Chewed down. The Disney gingers, on the far sides of first picture were totally gone, not a leaf left. We weren't sure what was getting them until my husband saw a little squirrel shake one of the Ti plants. Then it took half a plant in its mouth and headed up the fence. His little buddy stood on top, a very tiny little squirrely middle finger held up just for us.

Hope you like Mexican food! I gotta spicy surprise waiting for you tonight, you bastards!

Great Garden Day - Finally!

Above is my front garden today. I'm just loving having a bed with established plants at this time of year! I'm quite proud of myself for planning ahead. Next year I'll plant the snap dragons near the back and skip the pansies, which were disappointing. The petunias are doing well and are almost blindingly white. I might just add a bit of color, but I'm liking the all white too. I've got some vinca that intended to under-plant today. This seems to be the secret with the seasonal annuals. Didn't get to it today because I was preoccupied with other things. Today, at least in my yard, was the official start of spring. It was the first day I've had to enjoy the weather and get all dirty. I kept quite busy!

Finally, after planning for it for years, I've got a bamboo trellis! Okay, it is a bit "rustic," but it was free, collected from Freecycle member who had it growing in her yard. I replanted the shell ginger under it and added some pink impatiens. On the trellis I'll plant some passion vine and moonflowers.

In the corner, I took out the crinums, which I planted them in the sunnier bed by the shed. In the corner I put my butterfly gingers, ti plants I managed to over winter, and some lime green coleus. All of these should do well in the deep shade of this garden and is a huge pop of color. Most of my planting today was just moving one dead looking root from one hole to another, but in a few weeks the the effect should be very cool. I needed a great planting day.

TO DO: The Corner Garden

TO DO LIST FOR THE CORNER GARDEN:

1. Move the crinum bulbs from the corner to the side of the shed. Replace them with some of the butterfly ginger and ti plants.

2. Mow (Ok, ok . . . That should really be on the honey-do list. I don't mow.)

3. Plant the circle with annuals.

4. Work on a border for the circle.

5. Finish a bamboo trellis for the back fence and plant it.

UPDATE: The Corner Garden

The corner garden still has some work to do. I need something with height along the back of the fence. You see the beginnings of a trellis, which I may, or may not get finished before spring. Regardless, it looks much better than it did back in March:

To follow the entire evolution of this garden, go here.

Perdy Pictures

Finally! The season is almost over and I finally have a bloom on my passion flower vine. Just in time too because the caterpillars are on their way.

My butterfly ginger is putting on a nice second showing.

Thought I'd share the plant love.