It’s important to consider the underground lives of plants you are thinking of adding to your garden. For unless the roots of a plant are comfortable in the new home you give them, not much of satisfaction will happen on top. There are plants with roots that live jarring lives with those of other plants, while some carry on peacefully root-in-root, even benefiting each other.
Dwarf cyclamen roots are among those which enjoy the companionship of most other plants. They nestle in endearing clusters between surface tree roots and form enhancing clumps that increase in size and beauty.
Gloriosa Rothschildiana A Blooming
The red and yellow glory lily, Gloriosa rothschildiana, a South African native in bloom now, is usually listed as a climbing lily. Actually, it doesn’t have to climb but it likes to lean. In some gardens this gloriosa is treated as an erect 2-foot lily and it looks the part, although at the end of each very green leaf is a would-be tendril which clings if there is something to cling to. If you intend to grow gloriosa next year place your order now for winter delivery.
For those in the California Fog Belt constant fog does not seem to affect fuchsias, and tuberous begonias are gorgeous.
In the Pacific Northwest if you are one of those fortunate gardeners whose Calypso bulbosa corms still thrive, play safe for they are becoming scarce. If they are planted where summer watering reaches them, dig them up now and store in a dark place where there is no moisture. In nature these delightful baby orchids grow in the filtered light of woods; sometimes they are found in bogs. Calypsos delight in conifer forests where the corms send coral-like roots into rough leafmold.
by R Lester
