Surprise!

We had a good, soaking rain this week so yesterday was a great morning to get all the weeding caught up while the soil was soft.

While I enjoy a morning stroll around my gardens each summer morning, weeding means that I slow down and see the little details that I sometimes miss during a walk through.

I was delightfully surprised to see a tall flower stalk with these large, pastel pink lilies gracing my garden border.  Last fall I stuck a bunch of inexpensive bulbs that I purchased from a discount retailer in a bulb border planting without any great expectations and promptly forgot them.  I know now why the common name for this plant is "Surprise lily."

Later, while pulling weeds in my woodland garden, I pulled back the  low-hanging branch of a shrub to discover this cute little turtle.  I don't know which of us was more surprised.  He is just a little smaller than our tortoise.  After quietly posing for his photograph, the little guy wandered off through the leaf litter.  I would have never seen him if I hadn't been down on the ground with the weeds.

Move me, please

Rose campion is a short lived perennial that that reseeds generously.  It likes dry, rocky soil and will tolerate our hot southern sun with just some partial shade in the afternoon.  I love its magenta flowers that contrast with its soft, gray-green foliage. 

I situated my pass-along rose campions in partial sun, backed by a trellis and tucked behind a rock border; a perfect place to show off its foliage and blooms, or so I thought. 

The plants were scrawny, rarely bloomed and would drop the few seeds they produced into the lawn rather than back into the flower bed.  My wonderful plan was not developing the way I had envisioned it.

Last spring, in a fit of disgust, I dug up my sad little plants and moved them about three feet to the south, on the edge of a larger flower bed.  I figured I had nothing to lose. 

The rose campion, however, are thrilled with their new home.  The plants are large and healthy, they are blooming with abandon, and in just one season, they have doubled their numbers. 

I have no earthly idea why the first spot displeased them so much or why a shift of three feet made them so happy.  But, if the rose campion are happy, so am I.

Yearning for a cahaba lily?

Cahaba lily

There isn't an avid gardener in central Alabama that doesn't yearn to grow the stunningly beautiful but rare (and protected) native Cahaba lily.  They only grow in a few streams that contain their very specific requirements of fast flowing, shallow water over rocky shoals.  People regularly make challenging pilgrimages to these obscure locations every May when word goes out that the Cahaba lilies are in bloom.

My white spider lily

There is an alternative for the wishful gardener; another lily that is similar to the Cahaba in appearance but not nearly as fussy about where it is willing to grow and bloom.  A good friend shared some white spider lily bulbs with me three years ago.  I planted them in partial shade and waited.

This week, my long wait for flowers has been rewarded;  my spider lilies are blooming.  They are smaller than Cahaba lilies and look slightly different but I don't have to make a pilgrimage to the Cahaba River to enjoy them.  They are growing right in my Alabama backyard.