September 2003

It's September 19th as I'm writing this and we have just had a couple of rainy days to serve as reminder of things to come for the winter. Today though is forecast to be a mostly sunny day again, with temperatures in the low 20's C, that's 70's for those stuck in Fahrenheit.

It's a little strange to see, particularly in view of the fact that it is much later than last year, but one of our two fragrant Hostas, 'So Sweet', is in full bloom. The fragrance is not overly strong, but it's very much there and rather reminds us of Gardenia. Last year it bloomed in early August and it's blooming period overlapped with the Oriental Lilies. As you can well imagine, the lilies totally overpowered the Hosta scent.

The blooms are a soft pinkish purple, rather delicately coloured.

It's been a fairly vigorous grower this year. Come spring it'll be divided and spread around. Brother Bill has indicated he'd like one and I'm sure there'll be enough to go around.

It's unusual to see lilies in bloom this time of year, but we still have some. I'd noticed sometime in July that we had new growth coming off 2 of the Trumpet Lilies we had planted early spring. The ones that flowered in July didn't show much in terms of bloom and to boot we had that rodent running around helping itself to chunks of the flower petals.

In addition to that there was a late blooming Oriental Lily, which we now believe to be a 'Stargazer'. It probably was one we had planted last year and it might well have gotten dug under too deep when we planted the cedars in early spring.

So, here it is September 28th, the weather has been just super, precious little rain, nice warm temperatures, almost un-seasonal but we ain't complainin'. And there are 5 blooms on the 'Pink Perfection' Trumpet Lily, 4 blooms on the 'Stargazer' and there are 2 buds on another 'Pink Perfection'. The latter however are rather small still and we may be best advised to use it as a cut flower and let the bloom open up indoors, I somehow don't think it will bloom outdoors, it'll get much colder at night real soon.