Aesculus parviflora seed update!

On July 27th, I posted about Elizabeth Lawrence's experience with Buckeye seed from June of 1962.  Her luck almost 50 years ago did not produce much by way of seed, thanks to little critters, but this year luck has been on our side!  I've been watching the few remaining pods and this week they have split, some even falling to the ground.  I collected a handful and planted them right away.  A few more remain on the tree and my hope is to collect them too.  They are really just spectacular! 

Stop by and visit the Aster tartaricus that is just opening and soon, the Helianthus angustifolius will be too!

Yours in the garden,

Katie Mullen

Lycoris sp.

"In midsummer, when heat and drought have drained all color from leaf and blossom - in spite of all of the city water that is poured on them - the surprise lily rises mysteriously from the ground. One day there is nothing, and the next there is a tall, pale stem that grows to about three feet and then produces, at the top, a circle of flowers of the most luminous and delicate pink. The surprise lily is not really a lily. It is a lycoris, as lovely as the nymph it was named for, and belongs to the amaryllis family."

Elizabeth Lawrence
August 18, 1957

Fifty three years later, almost to the day, the lycoris are here again. The garden has been showing different species the last two weeks, and the one pictured above is the latest to emerge. Truly a surprise in such hot, dry weather we are having right now.

See you soon in the garden,
Katie Mullen