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I’ll have to replace my Oriental Lilies

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Our Oriental lilies didn’t come up this year. Well, there might have been a tiny sprout or two but they didn’t grow. Of course we didn’t winterize our garden last fall. We are in zone 5b and it was a mild winter so I would have thought that the lily bulbs would have been ok, but something happened.

We had our Oriental Lilies for about five years and this was the first year that they didn’t bloom or grow. Does anyone know if oriental lilies only live for a certain length of time?

Do you grow Oriental Lilies? Their scent is heavenly and as you can see from this photo they are absolutely gorgeous.

Well if I’m going to replace them and perhaps purchase other spring and early summer bulbs for the garden now is the time. Home stores and nurseries should be selling bulbs now. Of course, I could always wait and order them from one of the many nursery catalogs that I get through the late autumn and early winter months.

Have you purchased tulip, daffodil, lilies or any other type of bulb for your garden yet?

Green Thumb Sunday News:

I just wanted to add a little shout out here for MsGreen “Thumb” Jean. Jean was kind enough to help out by going through our long list of GTS bloggers. She made a list for me of all the blogs that either hadn’t posted anything at all for months or hadn’t made a Green Thumb post for two+ months. I just finished going through that list and it was correct so those blogs have been removed and the bloggers notified.

If you notice that a listed blog hasn’t posted a GTS post for at least two months I’d love it if you’d let me know.

The preference, of course, is that everyone make a GTS post every week, but I know life gets in the way sometimes. Therefore I’d like to say that GTS members should be making GTS posts at least once every two weeks, once a month at the bare minimum (that’s iffy). Stretches of longer than a month are not good and those bloggers will risk being removed from the list for non participation.

Thanks!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.






Is this a jasmine or not?

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Wordless Wednesday

Burning question. I bought this plant a few years ago. You know how some nurseries and garden centers don’t always have specific labels on their plants? Well this was marked as being a jasmine and as best as I can tell after looking at several varieties I think it’s Jasmine Sambac. Still I’ve never been fully sure.

Is this even a jasmine? It blooms day or night and the flowers last at least 24 hours unlike many of the other jasmines that I’ve owned in the past which have only bloomed at night time. The flowers are fragrant, but the scent doesn’t waft. You must get up close to smell it’s beautiful scent.

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Here’s what the flowers look like on the plant:

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Can you help me figure it out?

Do you put mulch on your garden beds?

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If you’ve been reading my garden stories you know I was a very very bad gardener this year. I didn’t complete my summer gardening tasks until last week! Those tasks included adding a three inch or so layer of shredded red cedar mulch to my garden beds.

Time and time again I’m amazed at what a difference mulching the garden came make. If you use an attractive mulch it makes your garden beds look nicer. I find it also makes your garden look tidier.

Other benefits of mulching include:

  1. It cuts down on weeds and the task of weeding since weed seeds can’t penetrate the thick mulch easily.
  2. Mulching helps hold the moisture in the soil so you don’t have to water as often.
  3. Mulch helps keep your plants roots cool.
  4. I find fewer animals digging in my garden beds when they have a good layer of mulch.
  5. Plants look healthier.
  6. It’s been said that red mulch placed around Tomato plants reflect certain light rays back at the plant and actually help make tomatoes grow better.
  7. The mulch eventually breaks down in the soil and adds nutrients for your plants.

Since putting mulch down we’ve only watered the garden twice and the plants look great. I did rain on Sunday though so you could say the gardens had three waterings. Prior to adding the mulch the plants were wilting in the hot summer heat within two days. The soil was just drying out too fast.

Now my plants were fairly healthy despite the lack of care I’ve given them this summer, but still, I can see an improvement in how they are withstanding the summer heat in the short time that the mulch has been down on the garden beds.

I’m not new to mulch. Ever since I put my garden beds in six years ago I’ve been putting mulch down on the garden beds by the end of each June. This is the first year that I did it so late and I won’t ever be late again. It really helps!

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