Black and white flowers

White Casablanca lilies
I avoided growing this cultivar, since firstly, I prefer species forms of plants, yet if I was truly honest, I like all plants, even the most gaudy of cultivars. So this year, instead of secretly admiring the neighbors ‘Casablanca’ lily’s, I decided to plant a dozen. The bulbs are small, so it will take a few years for them to reach full size, but oh, the fragrance, and of course, the size. Besides all of that, they are filling a gap in both the lily world in our garden, and in the flower world. August can be quite flowerless, especially in perennial gardens. So here, in the front rock garden, where the lilies thrive in the raised soil, I planted masses of bulbs. Or, more accurately, a dozen of some cultivars. Ideally, I would like to plant 30 or more to get a good, awesome impression, so maybe this year, I will plant a dozen more.

Dahlia ‘ Black Satin’
OK, now that I admitted my sins on gaudy plants, I ordered 60 Dahlia tubers this year. The first to bloom are the reddish form, for whatever reason, and I thought I would show this very blak-burgundy one since dark flowers are usually lost in the garden, but these I am growing for flower arrangements not garden color. So they are bedded out in rows in the vegetable garden. I limited my palette on dahlias, more on that in a later post this fall.

This giant form of Agapanthusm, the Blue Lily of the Nile, is a white cultivate, of which, we have never found the lablel for. Regardless, it is stunning, huge and always puts on a great show in August. This year, our two resident Ruby Throated Hummingbirds visit the blossoms in the evening, apparently when the nectar flows.

Any guesses what this white flower is? II found this in the vegetable garden, and it at first, excited me until I realized what it was. It is simply a blossom from a packet of Ornamental Gourds that I planted for nostalgias sake. The last time I grew gourds was when I was about 7 years old, in fact, that was the first thing I ever planted outside, when my parents let me have a corner of the vegetable garden to play in, horticulturally. In fact, this is growing in just about exactly the same spot too. This time, let’s hope that I don’t end up with a bushel of white, egg shaped gourds! Since, one tends to weed out all but a couple of vines!

These white pickling cukes are different. Cornell University has been breeding some new, white forms, and to be honest, I do not know where I received these seeds, but they are the only cukes that have survived, and I am loaded with delicious, white, pickling cukes!