Who’s your tiger? Tigridia, of course – if only briefly.

This plant seems like an appropriate subject for a post on Labor Day here in the United States? Here is a flower which can only be seen open between the hours of 8:00 am and 4:00 PM – basically, seem only by those with night jobs, or by those who don’t work. Tigridia pavonia, or Mexican Shell Flower is one of those bulbs seen more often in catalogs, than in actual gardens, and if you do plant some bulbs in the spring, they most likely will open for a single day, and close shut well before you arrive home from work. Tigridia is rarely seen grown well, for it requires a thick planting with hundreds of bulbs in a border to ever look like anything, and few people have the means to dedicate an entire bed or border to a Mexican bulb that only blooms for a couple of weeks in late August during vacation time. Still, I dream of such a border, planted thickly with Tigridia, if only for the wow effect.