My sticks on fire (Euphorbia tirucalli) is blooming! The flowers are so wee, I almost missed them. They’re not much to write home about (or on a website for that matter), but it was such a monumental occasion, I felt it warranted pulling out the camera and posting about it anyway.
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First there is the name, which gives me a chuckle every time I say it as it sounds like the site of an epic Trolls versus Elves battle in The Lord of the Rings.
“And there was great despair in the land, for the blood of many fearless warriors was spilled in the great battle at Hahms Gelbe…”
It feels like “vanquished” should be used in there somewhere. Or perhaps Hahms Gelbe is a badlands where people are sent to exile. “He was doomed to live out his final days as a lost soul wandering wearily through the blackened and barren desert of Hahms Gelbe.”
Needless to say, I’d better not quit my day job as a garden writer. Doesn’t look like I’ll be making my millions ghost writing fantasy fiction for World of Warcraft fans.
Anyways…..
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I was supposed to post a follow up to my journey above the tree line today; however, we are experiencing a heatwave that has made my office uninhabitable. Instead, to give myself a reprieve from this heat, I am posting a few shots of this gorgeous lily that I took in my garden just before dark yesterday evening.
Lilium auratum ‘Leichtlinii’ is a wild and very cold hardy native of Japan. I bought a small pot containing two bulbs back in early May at the Parkdale Horticultural Society sale. Apparently, this is not an easy plant to find, and I am glad that my friend David managed to talk me into spending $10 on it. At the time I had over-indulged in plant purchases and was hesitant to spend that much on another pretty flower, especially since I didn’t yet have a garden to put it in.
The original inspiration for a smaller, wilder lily came from last summer’s visit to Brian Bixley’s gardens at Lilactree Farm. There I saw two woodland lilies, one white and the other pink, that grow on tall stalks lined with the smallest lily blooms I have ever seen. My blooms are not nearly as tiny, but they are a bit smaller than the typical Asiatic lilies that are popular in this neighbourhood’s front gardens.
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This is it. This is when it begins. It’s there now, but you have to look for it.
Be a detective. Turn your attention way down to the ground. Can you see it?
Today you might have to crouch down low or look up high to get a glimpse, but within just a few weeks it will all be happening so fast all around you, you will wish for it to slow down just a bit so you can catch your breath.
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Last fall we bought $80 in bulbs and planted them literally days before the first snowfall.
I set some of the smaller bulbs aside to plant in pots, as I worried that they would be lost in a yard that is still so blank. Together, Davin and I planted the pots and placed them in our very cold, but covered, south-facing, unheated porch (what we optimistically refer to as “the greenhouse“) and watered them on occasion.
Today the first of those bulbs bloomed!
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