BULB AND RHIZOME HUNGER

BULB AND RHIZOME HUNGER

Gardeners need incentives from time to time. It is a given that as the temperature and humid climb, energy flags to the point that some of us need to fix our hopes on future rewards. Mid-June is one of the stages of intense work in my garden. Basically, I am trying to tame a jungle that wants to revert to its original state. Consequently, it requires constant vigilance as an increase in rainfall infuses new crops of weeds and invasive trees with astonishing vigor.

This is the time plant nurseries choose for hard to resist sales. My mailbox overflows with tantalising offers from some of my favorite purveyors of glorious plants--Whiteflower Farms, Bluestone Perennials, Jung Seeds and Logee's, among others. Being a plant lover rather than I designer, I succumb. That is how I find myself in possession of twenty four peonies--the white Baroness Schroder, pink Sarah Bernhardt and red Kansas, and assortment of yellow and blue German irises. This only awakens my appetite for more, more and more bulbs and rhizomes whose flowers I will enjoy at a cooler and less hectic time.

Ideally, I would plant a huge drift of white peonies--the beginnings, perhaps of a moon garden. would choose Nick Shailor, Duchesse de Nemours and Bowl of Cream. To those I would I would add Bridal Icing, Camellia Heart, Crystal Cream, Elsa Sass and Moonstone, all available at Klehm's Song Sparrow, home of some of the most delectable peonies. Those should do nicely with the white Fialla's Remembrance, Krasavitsa Moscow and Edith Cavell lilacs I bought from Bluestone Perennials, Jung's seeds and miller's Nurseries, respectively. The white peonies I got from Freecycle last summer bloomed so beautifully with my Sombreuil rose I can envision an enormous border filled with peonies and roses. My budget is the catch. In order to execute such a plan I need to hire a couple of sturdy helpers, come up with amendments for the impoverish soil that lies beneath the lawn, as well as pay for the plants I will no doubt decide I must add to the border.

I will probably order a few more peonies though June seems a strange time in which to plant them. Those I added to the garden last year did well and that convinced me to take advantage of summer sale. My purchases will be modest, all the same. In theory, I will get truckloads of roots and rhizomes. In practice, I will pare my list to suit my means. That is OK. I am hard pressed to keep up with the garden as it is.

BULB LUST

Who dreams of daffodils in June? Passionate gardeners, among whom I include myself do. Soon after rose season begins, I go to the revelry inducing White Flower Farm and John Scheepers catalogues to look at Grant Mitsch creations and the new offerings of the season. Mitsch daffodils have been a weakness of mine since my days as a novice gardener. At the time, I belonged to a garden club of the sort where women painstakingly arranged flowers whose stems they measured as if the fate of the world depended on it.
My only arrangement, appropriately named Beirut and looking as if it had been designed by Hezbollah, did not meet with much enthusiasm. I did not last looking as a club member, but among the things I learnt from the garden club ladies was that there was such a thing as daffodils worthy of poems by Woodsworth. They were grown in Oregon, by American hybridiser Grant Mitsch. That was some thirty years ago and I continue to long for drifts of Seafoam, so delicately luminous it seems to have been carved out of the finest white jade.

Alas, my lust for narcissi goes beyond Rapture, Quail, Petrel, Pacific Rim and all the outstanding Mitsch creations. This fall, G'd willing and the creek don't rise, I hope to get a few more pure white, green eyed Misty Glenn, the minimum order of the shaggy headed Rip van Winkle, bicoloured Avalon, pink Apricot Whirl, double Flyer and Art Nouveau.

Note: Daffodil photos by White Flower Farm.