Zanthan Gardens
Category: Plant Highlights

The scent of paperwhites ushers in the New Year. I can’t stand the scent of the modern paperwhites, ‘Ziva’ and ‘Galilee’, but I’ve love the scent of their tazetta relative, Narcissus tazetta v. italicus. It is the scent of the first flower of the New Year.

I had always thought that N. italicus had a lovely, citrus-y scent. But over Christmas, when JQS was working at my desk, he said, “Mom, do you smell airplane glue or something?” I came over concerned and then laughed. “It’s just the flowers.”

If you don’t like the scent of paperwhites, try growing Narcissus tazetta v orientalis (the Chinese Sacred Lily) instead. It is scented with orange essence. I always buy bulbs to force and plant them out in the garden afterward where they come back year after year.

In this photo, the N. italicus are on the left and the Chinese Sacred Lily on the right. In my garden the N. italicus grow on stalks 20 to 24 inches tall, the Chinese Sacred Lily on stalks 12 to 14 inches tall.

The foliage of N. italicus is a much deeper green than the gray-green paperwhites, the strappy leaves are almost an inch wide. They grow straight and tall in the fall and finally flop over. Although they are my first narcissus to bloom, the leaves are the last to disappear in the spring. Sometimes it is May before I can divide them.

I always plant them where I can see them through a window from inside the house. Then even on a miserably cold day like today, I can enjoy the garden.

In Other People’s Gardens

I don’t really know if my bulbs really are Grand Primo as they were in the garden when I arrived. Mine don’t look anything like the photo at Old House Gardens.

However, mine do look like the Grand Primo pictured in this photo from the Stephen F. Austin State University. Notice how the cup is much smaller and a paler lemon yellow. Also the petals are slimmer and more pointed, often twisting back.

Although the same photo is enlarged here and these flowers do not have as narrow tapering petals as mine.

Update: February 25, 2004
I’ve corrected this post because I determined that I had two different Narcissus tazetta growing in my garden. For more information, see A Tale of Two Narcissus

technorati: ChineseSacredLily bulbs garden

The drumstick onions take forever to unfurl. I’m always disappointed in the beginning and then end up being won over by their odd charms.

From the catalog description: Deep pink-reddish flowers. Height 32 inches. Late spring flowering. Plant 6 inches deep and 3 inches apart.

Zanthan Gardens History

1998-11-24
Planted the ornamental drumstick onions that I purchased from Dutch Gardens.

1998-12-01
Sprouted. (About 1 week).

1998-12-13
Rapidly attained a height of 10 to 12 inches with dark, straight, narrow leaves. They have a much neater habit than the A. neapolitanum and for that reason, I prefer them in the meadow. However, they weren’t supposed to bloom until late summer or fall. I was hoping they would replace the larkspur, But they are up before the larkspur and I might have to pull any larkspur I planted there so that it doesn’t compete and overshadow them.

1999-05-05
First flowers. On stems 30 to 36 inches tall. They tease for a long time in bud, then lose a papery case around the flowers and turn a lovely reddish-purple from the top down. They are very strange-looking and I like them.

2002-06-13
This year the first flowers began well after all the spring annuals had faded. Supplemental watering has lengthened the bloom period and resulted in larger flower heads.

2002-10-29
Dig up one clump that was weedy and divide and replant it. The leaves are about 8 inches long and the roots are well-established, but they didn’t seem to mind the transplanting very much.

Photo Gallery Rainlilies

Sadly, ‘Sneezy’ bloomed in my garden only once and then disappeared. Experiences like this persuade me that I’d be better off just forgetting the garden and buying cut flowers instead.

Dateline: 2002
The bearded irises have really begun blooming this week, beginning with ‘Altruist’ on April 8th, then ‘Champagne Elegance’ on April 9th, and ‘Incantation’ today.

Whenever an iris opens, I fall in love with it, forsaking all others.

Zanthan Gardens History

Monday March 19, 2000
Among my Schreiner’s order this year, one ‘Altruist’ ($7.50).

2001-04-11. Second to bloom in this row. It is not very blue, but more lavender. It is more flouncy and more open than “Mystic’s Muse’, matching the description from Schreiner’s quoted above. I brought them both to work today and their colors complement.

2002
2002-04-08.
First flower of 2002 on ‘Altruist’ and first flower this year of all the bought irises.

2002-04-22.
Altruist has produced some spectacular stalks, each with many flowers. As for the note above, it only seemed less heavy because it was not fully open.

2002-06-02
One of the Altruist rhizomes had rot. Dug up five rhizomes and soaked them in a mild bleach solution, then replanted them in the front square. The one that had rot was one that already bloomed, so it should probably be thrown out. It was small and didn’t have any babies. One other was very small and three were good sized and will probably bloom next year.

Thursday April 10, 2003
First flower of 2003.

Monday April 5, 2004
First Flower. Iris ‘Atruist’ is also the first flower of all the bought irises.

Tuesday August 28, 2018
Schreiner’s no longer carries this iris.

A native of China, Indian hawthorn Rhaphiolepis Indica is ubiquitous in traditional suburban landscapes and commercial landscapes here in Austin. Why? Because it is a tough, evergreen shrub that can be used in a hedge. It doesn’t wilt in the summer; its glossy leaves always seem fresh and cool. In late spring, it is covered with small, pale pink flowers. After a frost, some leaves turn a bright orange or red, but like live oaks, the old leaves remain until the new leaves push them out.
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Maybe God heard my lament about the too blue garden. Today when I went to look at the bluebonnets there were three white ones (two are a rather muddy white and one tends more toward the palest pink).This is an interesting development as I tend to select seeds from the darkest blue plants each year. Still, their are lots of plants out from seeds that sow themselves.
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Last fall, I impulsively bought two packages of Dutch iris from Home Depot. The grower listed is Van Zyverden. This is the first year I’ve tried to grow bulbous irises. But my Mom, in Las Vegas, has great luck with hers. The packages did not provide much information, so I gleaned the following from the net.

Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’
Dwarf or miniature irises (to 4 inches tall) with proportionally large flowers. ‘Harmony’ is cornflower blue with yellow accents. Should bloom in February. Suited for pots or rock gardens.

Iris xiphium hybrid ‘Van Vliet’
(I assume this is ‘H C van Vliet’)
A group of hybrid irises, commonly known as Dutch irises, developed by the Dutch firm Tubergen from the Spanish iris, Iris xiphium, and Iris tingitana. Requires rich, well-drained soil and grows well in zones 8 and 9. Blooms in June or July. Height to 24 inches. Makes a good cut flower.

“…a bitoned blue with midblue standards and lighter blue falls with a small orange signal. Mid season bloom.” Graeme Grosvenor. Iris: Flower of the Rainbow. p. 208.

References

* World Online: Dutch Iris
* American Iris Society

Unable to find any specific growing guidelines on the net, I turned to Graeme Grosvenor’s Iris: Flower of the Rainbow and came across these encouraging passages.

I. xiphium “bulbs grow naturally in hot, dry summer conditions and unless you can provide soil that is hot and dry in summer and not overly cold in winter, the bulbs should be lifted…” Well if that doesn’t describe Austin weather exactly. The next paragraph is equally encouraging.

“I. xiphium will grow best in a heavy soil with good drainage…They enjoy an alkaline soil.”

Garden History

2002-01-09.
According to the package instruction, in the South (zones 7, 8, or 9) Dutch Irises need to be chilled six to eight weeks before planting. So, dutifully, I put the ones I bought last fall in the fridge and didn’t get around to planting them until today. The ‘Harmony’ bulbs were already drying out, so it’s obvious that I waited too long.

2002-03-19.
‘H C van Vliet’ blooms. It’s the first and, probably, only flower for 2002. The hard freeze in late February froze the buds just as they were emerging from the ground.

2002-11-08.
The Dutch iris bulbs, ‘H C van Vliet’; are sprouting. I dug them up separated and replanted them in the same spot by the ‘Heritage’ rose. There are 11 rooted bulbs sprouting and 7 bulbets.

2003-04-11.
Although the plants grew well this year, they didn’t bloom. (The Iris reticulata didn’t come back at all.) Apparently to flower Iris xiphium need a longer cold period than we get here in Austin. I dig them up and will chill them this fall before replanting them. Given how cheap they are, it’s probably not worth the trouble. Especially since I only had one flower in two years.

2016-02-27.
I thought I had lost these over the years but this year they bloomed again, and better than ever.

2016-05-28
Dug these up.

2017.
Moved them to the front yard, east square ahead of construction in May of 2016. They really liked being lifted and moved, and they bloomed very well in the spring of 2017.

2018-05-23
Dug these up again because they didn’t bloom at all in the spring of 2018…a huge disappointment after their great show in the spring of 2017. Will chill them before replanting them this fall.

Here is an unexpected success. I bought a lavender plant in a 4-inch pot last year and planted it. It produced a small bushy plant but did not flower. Sometime in the fall, it was looking straggly so I cut it back. I decided to try to root the cuttings (although I’ve never had any luck doing this with any other plant I’ve tried) and stuck them in the vegetable garden. In January they began putting out new growth. The other day, I was about to pinch them back (to make them bushier) when I recognized little flower buds. Not only did my cuttings root, they are flowering!

Notes

L. ‘Goodwin Creek Gray’.
Discovered at Goodwin Creek Gardens in Oregon.
Possibly a intersectional hybrid: Lavandula x heterophylla. A hybrid supposedly of L. dentata and L. augustifolia.
Hardy to 10 degrees (F).

Garden History

2002-02-25
First flowers.

2002-03-12
The mother plant looks a bit scraggly, so I trim her back and plant the trimmings hoping that I will have luck rooting them a second time.

2002-05-25
The mother plant is in full bloom and looks great. The cuttings I took in March are blooming. The cuttings I took last fall are blooming and the plants are getting bushy.

First flowers of the year opened on the Tommie crocuses today. These are the tiny crocuses with the huge name. They are tiny, even smaller than the Crocus chrysanthus ‘Blue Pearl’. I think that you must have to have a thousand of them before you’d even notice them.
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