The Bulbs of Summer and Catalog Update

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

The Solstice is one of those great times of the year in Oregon, memories of those June days as a kid where it was warm and stayed light so long, and the school year was finished. Playing with friends down by the creek and my old yellow lab named skipper always bounding around with us on our adventures. Those are great memories. 

This is one of those peaceful moments as a gardener where I get the slightest little break. The bulbs, save for a few I'll show you below are mostly waiting patiently for the hectic time of  harvest to begin and need no water or care. It's subtle but the warmth and heat of summer make the weeds take a little pause it seems and I can catch my breath for a moment. The vegetable garden is planted and growing along, bringing fresh produce into the meal plan. The Cherries are ripe and ready for harvest and even the Josta berries are sweetening on the vine, which means the busy work of harvest is about to begin again, but for now I'm soaking in the warmth and the longest days of the year. 

The Border planting is filling in nicely.

This is the season of the late blooming, Brodaieae and Triteleia.
For some reason these have never been top sellers at the nursery, maybe it's because people don't often spend as much time thinking about progression planting. If they did, they would realize these fill a great niche in the garden, just after the Calochortus and before all the lilies and Glads. 

Triteleia peduncularis
I have this planted with Penstemons and Senecio's and it does a wonderful job of foiling those in the dry bed, to make a really good show, among the purples and silver.  

The Chilean expedition of several years ago gave me a new
appreciation for these beauties. I have been adding to the collection via seed accessions for quite a while now and am looking forward to the range it adds to the summer show. 

Eremurus stenophyllus ssp. bungei

The Foxtail lilies have been a fun genus to play with the last few years. I've found that they need a few years to settle in but once they do they put on such an outstanding show. It's a great filler in between the spring bulb show and the species of high summer like Glads, and Lilies. 

The Eremurus x issbellinus hybrids
These were developed in the late 1800's and early 1900's by both French and English breeders, sometimes called the Shelford hybrids for the Great Shelford garden in Cambridge where Sir Micheal Foster was crossing E. olgae with E. stenophyllus to develop these wonderful garden gems. 

The border along the driveway is making a show despite the heat
The big clump of E. 'Cleopatra' has been stunning this year. The secret
I think to making a good show with these is to give it a foil to hide the foliage which 
Tends to wither and brown as they come into full bloom. 

Catalog Update: I'm thinking with the way this spring turned out to be so warm and dry it will probably push the harvest up a bit this year. I'm thinking about starting sometime after the Fourth and seeing what it looks like at that point. I'll update as we get closer but I'm hoping to get the list out late July, shipping the first couple weeks of August and be done in time to get the kiddo off to university at the end of August. In the mean time I'll try to pack in what little summer I have. 

Heat waves in the forecast, It's been in the 90's for much of this week and the weekend is showing triple digits! 

Cheers, 

Mark