The last Jedi

 "The greatest teacher, failure is"

                                    Yoda

Oy Vey, It's been a minute since I've written and the whirl wind of this spring isn't letting up much. I've been knee deep in a nursery expansion project, up to my neck in teaching horticulture at the community college and feeling a bit underwater in life in general. As we know from the last posts, when it rains it pours. On top of all that, I have an open house/plant sale for the local rock garden society chapter coming up that I have to get plants labeled for and just when I thought I was getting a minute to breathe after a productive weekend. My phone lights up at 8:00 am saying there is a bee swarm in a local park and could I come and get it. 

The Calochortus are starting into bloom well now. This C. superbus
Sandwiched itself  in between some Albuca spiralis blossoms for support. 

So I found myself 10' up a ladder, knees shaking slightly, a crowd of onlookers gathering, and myself scooping 1000 buzzing honey bees into a nuke box, balanced precariously at the top of a ladder. And I'm thinking to myself, you have to do whatever it takes to make it in this world. Just like the bees leaving the comfort of an established hive, I'm venturing out to find a better stake in life.

               The propagation is the fun part, its the selling that can be tricky. 

I've been propagating a lot of alpines and rock garden plants 
for the new nursery expansion project. 

So as I've seen a lot of great nurseries close down the last few years, I'm thinking if I don't do it now, when will I do it. It's like the old saying you never know when your last___________. Fill in the blank. Will be. 

A visit to Jane McGary's bulb house is always humbling.
This time the master showed the apprentice how to do Alstromerias as
her specimen of A. pulchra was stunning in full bloom. 

So as I'm strapping a box full of now very angry honeybees into the crotch of a Gary Oak tree, suspended over a playground, in full bee suit on the warmest morning of the year so far. I'm thinking, you got this man, you are on the right path.  I had a buddy pass away last week, that I had known since the first grade, and while we weren't close these past years as adulthood took us to far different places. I couldn't help but think of how close we all are to mortality that if given the opportunity to live a dream, you better take it. No matter what the risk involved. 

Believe me, my dream is not to hang precariously on a ladder collecting angry honey bees, with a crowd watching and filming, thinking certainly they have the next $10,000 winning video in America's funniest video's if it goes horribly wrong for me. But chasing dreams and the freedom to be my own boss has always been in my DNA and it's slowly and painstakingly becoming a reality. As I watch the last of the Jedi masters of alpine plant propagation slowly fade away to retirement. I think it's finally my turn to  do this and do it with all the passion I've been saving in case the chance ever came that I got to. Of course, as I moved pile after pile of rock and mulch in the wheelbarrow all weekend, I was thinking I wish I had just done this years ago when I had even more energy. But maybe it's the natural progression of things to have to wait until you've matured a bit and when the opportunity is right, you make a go of it and you give it your all. Failure is not an option here as I've pretty much gone all in at this point. 

Edrianthus just starting to  open in the rock garden. 

To that end, the website should be up soon. I'll be doing mailorder bulb sales as well as Alpines, Rock Garden plants and Choice Xeric species under the new moniker illahe Rare Plants. It's been a lifetime of lessons, some with the teaching's of failure written all over them to get me to this point. I'm thankful for all the jedi masters who came before and took the time to impart knowledge and skills so that this craft can be passed on. I hope that when my time comes, I've passed it on as well so that our gardens stay rich and diverse. 

The plan is to have the summer catalog out via PDF on the new website, I'll have to migrate this blog over to something new and that might be a different handle. I'll be sure to update everyone on the happenings as it unfolds. I may try to sneak a few more posts in to share the soon to be heavy Calochortus bloom but with all the piles of work I have to do to make dreams a reality the blog is at the lower end of the priority list. 

P.S. send me cuttings of those choice Alpine and Rock Garden plants you want to see live on, there is no reason to let them fade away as every year it gets harder and harder to get the choice things. 

Sunny and highs in the 70's. Finally!

Mark

Some Rain lilies and the Reference Catalog

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall" 

                                                                        F. Scott Fitzgerald

In my mind I know it's way too early to even think about saying fall, but after the summer we have had I feel like the highs in the 70's and the lows in the bottom of the 50's have felt like heaven and the emergence of some of the fall bloomers has made it really feel like we are almost there. 

Zephyrathes labbufarosa

I've been collecting all the rain lilies I can find lately, they seem to be hardier than I thought and doing just fine here at illahe. The sporadic summer flowering does really add some interest and I'm excited to see if they have a big flush this fall when the rains hit. 

Amaryllis belladonna

Belladonna means beautiful woman, and apparently ventian women used to drop the poison of Atropa belladonna in their eyes to make the pupils dilate, a form which was apparently much more attractive then no posion in your eyeballs.  I think the specific epithet on the naked ladies is fitting. This is the one that came from my late grandmas house. They seem to take the occasional year off from blooming but this year they are shooting up everywhere. 

The autumn crocus are starting in to bloom now

The season definitely does feel like the summer is waning a bit now, the cooler weather was so nice and maybe that is the trigger for the colchicums to start emerging?

Zephyranthes grandiflora

Another of the spectacular rain lilies that just keep throwing up flowers every couple weeks through the summer. 

As mentioned the cooler fall weather has been soooo nice! Actually could get out and get some work done in the nursery and greenhouse this weekend without risking heat stroke!

Here is a link to  the Full catalog for anyone looking for a reference. Shipping is done for the season so don't order from it. Next year I'll probably have a website setup so this may have been the last of the old school blog catalogs. I'm also exploring shipping more potted plants and bulbs in growth, so stay tuned for that. 

Click below for the catalog:

2021 Illahe Rare Bulbs Catalog

Cheers, 

Mark

"Fawn Lilies Sir from over the bridge "

Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.  
Rossiter Worthington Raymond

Erythronium 'Pacific Sunset Strain'
From the amazing Plantswoman Diana Reeck, these are insanely beautiful little gems, you really should see her raised beds chocked full of them with hundreds of flowers.

I was thinking about those T. kurabayashii that seem to spreading now, just a thought, but someone that gets to do science should do some genetic work on those, my guess is T. kurabayashii is actually a spontaneous genetic sport of T. albidum that could perhaps be induced by some environmental factor like a changing climate. That would explain it showing up well outside of it's range all of a sudden and the population I found is intermixed with T. albidum. Let the plant mutations begin!

Rainy in the valley, but temperatures seem to have moderated to spring like, at least it's in the upper 50's. 

Cheers, 

Mark

The summer bulbs

Calochortus clavatus ssp.clavatus

Not an easy one to photograph. Just a little catalog update here. I hope to start harvest sometime around the first of August. It's a busy summer for me so it may be a bit shorter list then usual but hopefully we will dig up some treasures that everyone seeks.

Summer is here with highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s....the berries are coming on strong now!

Cheers,
Mark

Last minute orders

I'll be wrapping up bulb sales this weekend. So get any last minute orders in now. The fall bloomers are ready to go!

Sunny and warm after some spotty weekend showers.

Cheers,
Mark

Harvest is done

A good harvest of some choice minature narcissus this year will really help you fill the gaps on bloom time. Illahe offers species that are ultra early (December) flowering, middle and late bloomers as well.

The pots are all harvested and im going through the bins now, so the catalog will be any day. Expect the usual excellent selection of Fritillaria, a variety of fall blooming colchicum and crocus from the sativus group as well as a selection of wild collected western bulb seed.

Any day now

Started in on harvest full bore. Keep your eyes peeled for updates and the catalog should be within the week or next.

Lots of bulbs to go through and it looks like the really zeric species have just loved our new Arizona like weather this summer.

93 degrees...way too hot for me.
Cheers,
Mark