Amaryllis

        I've been thinking about the many things that start out life in an unappealing fashion but eventually turn out to be a delight.  What could be more unattractive than a scrawny baby bird, unadorned with feathers? But soon it is transformed into an eye-catching cardinal or a bluebird.  How about the first scraping of the bow by a beginning violinist?  Maybe he will turn into another Yahudi Menuhin.   Even a wrinkled and bald newborn baby isn't very appealing - provided, of course, that it isn't your own -  but everyone loves a smiling little two-year-old. 
        One of the homeliest  newborns I can think of is the amaryllis. It's hard to believe that that naked phallic-looking stalk will ever turn into a beautiful plant.  I was given my first amaryllis one Christmas many years ago.  It was so ugly I hid it behind a spider plant and almost killed it by forgetting to give it any water.  What a shock to suddenly notice two  huge pink blooms poking up above the spider's graceful leaves.
        I still wasn't very enthusiastic about the amaryllis, however, and discarded it once it had finished blooming. Because I'm inclined to use a few white lies in my Christmas thank-you notes,  I enthused to my friend about her thoughtful gift, and as a result I received another amaryllis the following year. Because I had a nice Boston fern that needed repotting, I  transplanted both the fern and the amaryllis to a larger pot, the phallic stalk nicely hidden at the back.  It produced not two, but four giant white blossoms over the Christmas holiday.
        Since I'm a great believer in "Waste-not, want-not" and as  a beginning garden columnist needing subjects for my weekly columns, I got a few houseplant books off the shelf and began reading about how to care for that fat bulb so it would survive and bloom another year.  Following the directions, I cut the stalk off near its base when the blooms faded and continued to grow the plant in a sunny window.  In June I transplanted the bulb to a new pot and watered it freely through the summer, fertilizing it regularly.
        In September I stopped fertilizing, reduced my watering and brought the pot indoors, storing it  in a cool room.  I'm not sure how well I followed all those tedious directions, but I never saw any indication that the bulb was still alive.  No ugly stalk emerged, and as I recall, I finally threw out the bulb. What a waste of time.  Back then buying an  amaryllis already started and ready to bloom cost about $5.00.
        The amaryllis is a native of South Africa. Its lily-like blooms are probably the most  spectacular 
of all houseplants. They've beome an extremely popular Christmas gift. For the first time in many years I was given one this Christmas.  It had two phallic stalks rearing up from its pot, so I quickly put it behind a large
maidenhair fern.  When the blooms exploded from those stalks, they were absolutely beautiful and at last count there were six of them!
          Trying to get the bulb to bloom a second year is complcated.  I've tried only once and had no success.  If you received an amaryllis this year, and you're the sort of meticulous person who bothers to remove the skins from your tomatoes for your salad, dusts around your knickknacks once a week and always makes the beds every morning even when you have a headache, you can read the directions in any good garden book, and you'll probably have great success.  I've been told that some gardeners have amaryllis bulbs that are entering their third decade!

The Asian Lilies

                                                

        Happy Easter! Look what I got! Hank bought it, not for Easter but for our 50th wedding anniversary, a once-in-a-lifetime event. I read somewhere that you should remove the stamens before they shed their pollen so they won't stain those pristine white petals, but I think that removes the sweet perfume as well, so I've left them alone. 

        Back in 1989 (I do keep a garden diary sometimes) I bought my first lily.  We're not talking day lilies here, the large clumps of narrow leaves whose flowers bloom in succession, each one lasting only a day. These belong to the genus Hemerocallis.  Since they can be multiplied by division, daylilies are usually easy to obtain for free.

     No, I'm talking about the lilies like the Easter lily that rise from a bulb on a single stem clothed in narrow 3 to 5 inch leaves.  These lilies, which include dozens of species, belong to the genus Lilium. The most common and easiest to grow are the Asiatic hybrids.  Their blooms last for many weeks, and continue producing for many years.  Unlike dahlias and gladiolas, all but tender varieties survive the winter in the ground. 

     Usually only lily plants already started in containers can be found in local garden nurseries.  That's because the bulbs don't keep well on store shelves. Ordering bulbs from a catalog means they will be dug fresh, refrigerated to keep their roots alive, and then shipped at planting time. Because the first lily I purchased came in a pot I was paying for someone else's planting efforts.

     I liked it so well that I turned into a spendthrift and purchased two more the next year, also pre-started in pots.  A few years later I saw an offer in the Park Seed catalog for a tempting collection of 40 lily bulbs, five each of eight different varieties for $45.00. 

     I was not quite ready to get quite that many, but having decided lilies were a great addition to the garden,  I called two friends and asked if they'd be interested in splitting the collection - $15.00 each for approximately 13 bulbs, a real bargain.  We could fight about the colors when the bulbs arrived. Both friends agreed.

     Unfortunately when the bulbs arrived, there were not eight packages of five, but fifty loose bulbs in a box  designated "landscaping lilies." I'd ordered the wrong collection by mistake. Both of my friends allowed as how they really didn't want their share of a bunch of lily bulbs in unknown colors, and who could blame them?

     It was too late to exchange them, since Jack Frost would undoubtedly have turned the earth rock-hard by the time the correct bulbs arrived, so I found myself with all 50 bulbs and a bill for $45.00. Having just planted dozens of crocus and daffodil bulbs the previous week, I was none too enthusiastic about planting fifty more bulbs.  And like my friends, I wasn't eager to cope with all those mixed colors.  I'd not envisioned a "landscape" of lilies.  I'd planned to space mine along the perennial border.

     Lilies require light porous soil and good drainage.  They prefer full sun on their blooms but shade at soil level so the ground will remain moist.  Bulbs should be planted to a depth three times their height, nine inches for a three-inch bulb! Since the plants do not show above ground until late spring, markers should be used so the bulbs won't be damaged by the forgetful gardener, happily planting other flowers in those spaces by mistake. 

     I planted a dozen of the largest bulbs in the perennial border, but I doubt if I managed to plant any deeper than six inches. I naturalized a bunch more beyond the dam of the pond. I gave away the rest to the first two people who drove in the yard - a deer hunter, who thought his wife might like them, and the UPS man, who happened to be a girl as well as a gardener.

        These lilies were really spectacular in bloom. The first year those I'd planted in the border all produced large flowers.  Naturally I'd managed to plant a brilliant red one right next to a tangerine, a deep purple  just in back of a red astilbe, and of course two white ones right in front of a white phlox. A few years later I remembered to mark them when they were in bloom and transplanted them in more harmonious locations that fall.

        Easter lilies are one of the tender varieties and rarely survive the fridgid temperatures of our New England winters.  I plan to try planting  mine anyway, as soon as spring warms up the earth.  Who knows, maybe it will prove to be a once-in-a-lifetime success.

         

Those Notorious Calf Hutches

Here in New England lots of little boxes known as calf hutches are a familiar sight, but few people know the first thing about them. All too many think they're used to raise calves for veal. This is NOT the case, so I would like to set the record straight.

Before calf hutches were invented, newborn stock was kept in the barn, usually tethered in a dark corner with little ventilation. Bacterial diseases spread fast in such close quarters, so if one calf got sick, so did all her friends. Drafts and sudden fluctuations in temperature caused respiratory infections. Despite plenty of disinfectant and antibiotics, the calf mortality rate was high.

No one worried about the problem, however, except the farmers. People driving by a dairy farm couldn't see calves that were tethered in the barn so they assumed they were romping around in some pretty meadow, happily nurtured by their own mothers, a practice that vanished years ago. Now that calf boxes are lined up conspicuously along the roadside, everyone's upset about "inhuman conditions."

A calf hutch may look small as seen from a passing car, but it is no little box. A mouse living in an ice chest would feel more crowded. A calf enclosure in over seven feet long and more than three feet wide. It is deep enough to protect the calf from summer sun and winter wind and is kept as clean as a doghouse. It has a large open doorway facing south, a window facing north and a ridge vent in the roof.

As soon as a newborn calf has received that first vital nursing of colostrums from its mother, it is given ear tags and taken to its new home, usually a hutch with a large fence around its entrance. The hutch has been steam-cleaned since its last occupant, lined with fresh straw and moved to a new position. If I were a calf I'd find my box pure bliss compared to being tethered in the fetid darkness of a barn.

Newborns are bottle fed twice a day with whole milk for about ten days. They are then tethered to a hutch without a fence and fed grain and milk supplement for the next three months. Next they're sent to school, put with other youngsters in big airy pens so they can learn about sharing, competition and getting along with others.

Talk to any farmer and you soon realize that calves are "the babies" of the family, treated not only with care but with affection. Hutches usually are lined up somewhere between the farmhouse and the barn so anyone passing by can stop and say "Hi." The calves, provided with fresh air, sunlight and a little green grass to nibble, stay clean and dry and above all, healthy.

The calf hutch idea was dreamed up by Wisconsin farmers and proved to be such a success in reducing calf mortality that it quickly was taken up by New England dairy farmers. Unfortunately rumors that the "poor little fellows" in the hutches were being fattened for veal became so common that even our local residents believed them.

THE CALVES LIVING IN HUTCHES ARE NOT BEING RAISED FOR VEAL! These calves are all baby girls. They will grow up to be heifers, and once bred, will become milk cows. All boy calves are taken to auction before they're a week old. Most are bought by farmers who raise vealmost located in Pennsylvania.

Boy calves raised for veal are kept indoors in a controlled temperature of 60-65 degrees. They're fed no herbaceous food, only milk and special grain, which results in the pale, iron-deficient meat. They are kept on this diet for about a year before going to slaughter. You are entitled to feel sorry for them only if you never buy veal or order Veal Marsala or Veal Piccata when dining out in a restaurant.

Next time you pass a dairy farm, stop and let your children pet some of the babies. These future milk cows will even eagerly suck your fingers. Don't feel sorry for them. They are both happy and healthy.

Edging a Flower Bed

         A flower garden  is so enhanced by a good edging, but garden books don't tell you much about this subject or the difficulties encountered in producing and maintaining a good looking edge.  I learned the hard way and hopefully this column will help you avoid my mistakes.

        My 100-foor long border was started many years ago with hand-me-down iris, phlox and peonies, iris and feverfew, all given to me by garden friends. It was about 20 feet long, but got longer each year until it extended the entire length of the split-rail fence of the upper sheep pasture. I edged it with bricks. Being a skinflint, I used old, second-hand bricks and within a few years frost had cracked them, weed seeds had found resting places in their cracks and grown up to split the bricks into a useless ugly edging. Frost will even ruin new bricks here in New England.

        I lived with those broken bricks for too many years, right up until 1980 when I redid the border for the first Taylor wedding.  Trum, the bride-to-be, wanted to be married in the garden and she not only gave me this information a year in advance, she let me choose the date.  I had an entire year in which to plan and plant the perennials that would look best for a June wedding.

        Because the ceremony would take place right in front of the border, I decided I should finally get rid of the bricks and turn the characterless straight edge into a scalloped one, using no edging material at all.  I think it was Hank who had the smarts to suggest laying out the hose in measured scallops  so my edge wouldn't wobble all over the place.  I marked a stake two feet out from the first post of the fence,  another stake five feet out from the second, back to 2 for the third, etc. and looped the hose in a gentle curve from one to the next.

        Then came the hard part.  The original border was 3 feet wide.  I removed sections of lawn to make the 5-foot scallops and used them to fill in where the new border narrowed down to 2 feet.  It was an exhausting  job, but the result had until the following June to settle. On the wedding day the iris, lupines, peonies, feverfew and a few brave annuals decorated the border.  In the background 5 curious ewes and their lambs came to the fence to watch the ceremony. 

        Unfortunately it wasn't until several years later that I finally learned how to make a good edge for that border.  The first lesson I learned was that professionals, unlike yours truly, do not scrimp.  They prepare the soil so that it  slopes up from a two inch depth at the  front of the bed so the lawn mower's wheel rides in the bed.  This allows the blades to cut the grass very close. As a result, the grass has little chance to creep into the bed.   At least a foot or more from the edge is free of plants so they remain undamaged by the mower.

        My border had followed none of these requirements.  Plants soon lost their heads as I mowed too close to them.  Grass found the bed's soil  soft and comfortable and happily moved in.  My crisp tidy edge had totally vanished  by the time I learned how to produce a proper edge , and many hours to repair it.  I hope none of you are prone to scrimping  and have a good edge for your garden. It enhances a flower bed almost as much as the flowers do.