Categories
garden photography gardening Shropshire Uncategorized

Gardening in Lockdown – Lilies

Mid-June in lock down is a good time to admire lilies flowering throughout our borders and even the first flower of Hemerocalis, the Day Lily. Enjoy my photos of some of our lilies.

 

Categories
colours garden design garden photography garden ponds gardening gardens gardens open to the public hardy perennials ornamental trees and shrubs poppies Shropshire Staffordshire trees

The Dorothy Clive Garden in June

It is half way through the year and also through our monthly visits to the Dorothy Clive Gardens. When we arrived at the gardens for our July visit we noticed signs for a vintage tea party and vintage fair. So we had a little extra to enjoy.

dot-1 dot-2

The Dingle Garden which was so colourful on earlier visits had waned but still had a few points of interest. We were surprised to see several plants in flower but extra amazed by the beauty of the selection of Lilium martigon and Hydrangeas.

dot-05 dot-06 dot-07 dot-08 dot-09 dot-12 dot-19dot-15 dot-17 dot-16 dot-14 dot-13dot-18 dot-20

I think the best way to share our June visit to the Dorothy Clive Gardens will be to present a gallery so that you can share our wanderings. As usual just click on the first image and navigate using the arrows.

So there we have it, the Dorothy Clive Gardens in June.

Categories
colours flowering bulbs garden photography

A Mystery Lily – a case of mistaken identity

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!

2015 07 28_4323 2015 07 28_4315

And just look how each beautiful golden flower opens up for us to enjoy!

2015 07 28_4313 2015 07 28_4314  2015 07 28_4316 2015 07 28_4317 2015 07 28_4318 2015 07 28_4319 2015 07 28_4320 2015 07 28_4321

What a wonderful mystery! A golden Turks Cap Lily!

2015 07 28_4322

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.

2015 07 20_3816 2015 07 20_3815