Downfacing Asiatics are something that I cannot resist, although they are not that easy to find, at least at retail garden centers. One must order them through the mail from lily growers ( like B&D Lilies, or the Lily Nook). July is their peak season, but also, the time when the lily catalogs arrive in the mail. I noticed that this year, there are more cultivars available that are down facing, so maybe there is a turn around here.
Asiatics are divided by how thier flowers sit on the stem. There are up facing, out facing, and down facing, or pendant ones. Down facing are look very much like wild Lilium canadense, which grows around our woodlands, so maybe that’s why I am attracted to them, but even to non gardeners, the tall stems with dangling blossoms look very much like chandelier’s in the garden, and are very pretty when planted in large drifts, which is what all the gardening books say, but what we even experienced gardeners rarely do. Still, a half dozen bulbs is a worthy investment.
We even picked some and arranged them with illuminated white Japanese paper lanterns for our spread at a Fourth of July Concert at Seiji Ozawa Hall in Tanglewood, in the Berkshires. Complete with blue canning jars with candles, whiteish cheese and reddish wine. The best we could do last minute for some good friends from Los Angeles who visited with us.
Good friend, Wendi Engle, on the right visiting from Los Angeles, and I indulging in a little culture after two weeks of hiking in the mountains.
OK…..maybe I was over-influenced by Sargent’s painitng’ Lily, Lily Rose’.
