13 July 2008

The beauty yet to come is here.

And I don't just mean my new niece, either (though she is beautiful). I mean my asiatic lily garden hauled off and bloomed while I was chillin' at the hospital with the newest Johnson girl. So I took some pictures.


I swear V posed for this without prompting. She's just naturally corny, people!
The first, third, and fifth pictures of this post are all shots of my favorite lily in the garden, whose name I do not know. I bought clearanced Martha Stewart bulbs from K-Mart 6 years ago and planted them in the fall...when they didn't come up the next year, I ordered a mix of asiatic lilies from some mail-order catalog, and planted those. That year, I had a gazillion different lilies...dang latent Martha Stewart bulbs. So I don't remember which is which. I just like this one, because it's the closest thing I have to the famous Stargazer Lily. It's only famous to me because I once had an elaborate dream about my cousin Connie, about how she was climbing a wall covered in the most amazing pink lilies I'd ever seen. So amazing, in fact, that I was sure I just made them up. The next day, I went to work (at a college with a solid Horticultral Department) and they had THOSE VERY LILIES for sale. Creepy, huh? I brought one home for my cousin, and have been strangely drawn to them ever since. Drawn to them=freaked out by them, that is.
My mom has this belief that her flowers are changing color, particularly her columbines, because she swears she planted blue and white ones but now hers are all that "average" pink. My horticultural friend insists that that's impossible, and it's more likely that the pink one expand and the blue and white ones just died. The pink one is the original, afterall, and the others are variations.
At any rate, I'm sure I used to have yellow lilies, but they are nowhere to be seen this year. Hm. Maybe they just died. Or maybe Myra's columbine ate them. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Did you come to my backyard and steal my lilies? If so, can I have them back please? I'll trade you a pseudo-stargazer. Seriously.

1 comment:

Emily, Scott, and August said...

I realize I'm behind, so I don't know if you'll see this, but I have an echinacea that my mother bought which was supposed to be red. The first year it came it was a sickly, washed out pink. This year it is deep pink/purple. So I think it is entirely possible, despite what the "experts" may tell you.