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July 2004

JULY 1, CANADA DAY!

It was absolutely marvelous weather!

We welcomed some colourful additions to our yard and had some dear friends over for an afternoon in the sunshine -actually we spent most of it in the shade- and Nasi Goreng al fresco, that time honoured Canadian dish:), in the north side yard.

At this time, we don't know what this variety of lily to the left is called. Suffice it to say we're rather taken by it's beauty!. This particular variety appears to have 2 stems coming off one bulb and what you see here is one bloom in the smaller cluster of three. There's a larger one right behind this one and the blooms promise to be much larger on the second set, which we'll see hopefully in about another week, 10 days or so. Take a look at the buds to the left in the picture below, and you'll see how much bigger the next set will be. The other lilies in this picture are 'Midnight', an "OT", and the stem you see leaning into the right of the picture is about 5 foot tall. This stem has a ring of 5 buds you can just barely see at the top of the picture, and there's another 2 above those! It'll be quite the sight to see when they're all open!

The north side yard, where these 2 pictures are taken, has quite the variety of potential blooms. We have about 6 different varieties of lilies, violets, echinecea, 4 different hostas, columbine, 2 bleeding hearts, cyclamen, helleborus, as well as Dutch Iris and daffodils. That means we have blooms pretty much year 'round!

No doubt about it, July is a major lily month in our yard. From here on in they'll come fast and furious. It'll be a glorious month of scent and sight. Here is one of the later blooming Asiatics we have, it's an unnamed yellow we got from my brother Bill a few years ago and we thought we might have lost it, but it's doing just fine as you can see.

Remember the 5ft stem we mentioned above, it's now July 9th and all 7 buds on it have opened up. Their fragrance is so strong that you can smell it as soon as you round the corner into the side yard. When I came home tonight I thought there were lilies in the house, but I couldn't see any. Turns out the dining room window was half open and it is only about 8 ft away from this stand, the scent just wafted in from outdoors!

The other trumpet lily we have in the side yard is 'Lorina'. Both this and the pink one you see above, 'Midnight/Pink Perfection', have multiplied this year and they are making a great show, both in scent and sight.

These two are fairly tall, four to five foot. We have a much smaller white trumpet in an other part of the yard, it's barely 18 inches. We got it as an 'Easter Lily' from Roak a couple of years ago. While it has come back up two years in a row now, it has not multiplied the way these two have.

Virtually all you have seen hi-lited thus far have been lilies. Not that there aren't any other flowers in the yard, lilies are in such profusion though in July, it is easy to see where you might come to that conclusion. This stand of 'Lorina' for instance has some Echinecea behind it. It's barely visible in this shot.

LorinaFor a good part of the day this stand DOES make a great eye-catching display when you view it in backlight.

And it's wonderfully scented as well:)

Asiatic, Cordelia'Cordelia' is a new Asiatic for us this year. It got planted rather late, like when the other Asiatics were already breaking ground and then some, Plant late, bloom late, this was shot July 11th.

Next year we expect to see them flower in step with the other Asiatics and if they show offsets later in the season these will be interspersed with a harmonizing colour, such as 'Orange Beauty' perhaps.

Talking about offsets and stem bulbils, we now have of couple of the 'Polyanna' we mentioned last month that not only have stem bulbils but also show the start of an offset! It'll be interesting to see which, if any, of these offshoots will produce blooms next year, the stem bulbils or the offsets?!?

July is indeed Lily month in our yard, but the end of the month rolls around and you've had this month of sight and scent and all of a sudden you start to feel that first nip in the evening air, there are no more lilies and you wonder where all the flowers have gone. Yes, there are still plenty of things in bloom alright, but it's almost as if it's the end of summer since there are no more lilies! Of course we still have the annuals going gangbusters, and perennials such as Echinecea and Rudbeckia are doing just fine, you know though that fall is just around the corner. And it's time to think about next year's blooms and begin planning of what will go where and with what. It's also time to re-seed the grass patches in the backyard, the dogs have had their summer run on it and it's much worse for wear -actually much worse for pee- and it'll thicken up nicely before the fall and winter monsoon season are upon us again:)

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