Occasionally we buy plants wrongly labelled and usually realise the mistake the nursery has made but this is impossible to do when bulbs are wrongly named. It is a long wait for the error to reveal itself. Early in the year we bought a batch of Asiatic Lily bulbs to boost the range we currently grow in containers throughout our garden. We chose varieties of deep reds with some almost black. Most performed just as expected and we loved them. They added depth to the colour range.
But one pot of bulbs was late throwing up its flowering stems and when we saw how it grew with thin dark stems it made us realise we had something rather unexpected. When it started to produce flower buds in large groups atop each stem we realised it definitely wasn’t what the label said. This Lily was supposed to be Lilium Landini with very dark red almost black flowers.
Just look at what our mystery Lily turned out to be!
And just look how each beautiful golden flower opens up for us to enjoy!
What a wonderful mystery! A golden Turks Cap Lily!
But what would have grown in our pot if the label was correct – an equally beautiful but oh so different so dark bloom. Almost black velvet! Luckily we had three pots full of these too.
greenbenchramblings 