Garden Notes: Camassia are filling in the gap
Two tall blue camassia made a surprise visit to my garden this week.
I’d forgotten I planted them.
It’s likely not politically correct to say this about a native plant, but I’m not sure I like the look of them.
Although they’re often called wild hyacinth, they look a little sparse when compared to the full-bodied hyacinths that bloomed around Easter.
But the tall blue strangers are a welcome sight in this blank season between the exuberance of the spring bulbs and blazing color of the summer annuals and perennials. Christopher Lloyd allowed camassia and pheasant’s eye narcissus to naturalize in his garden.
I might try that.
Through the years, camassia has been bounced from one plant family to another. Camassia was first considered a member of the Liliaceae family, and then it joined the Hyacinthaceae family. Now, having been armed with the power of DNA, botanists have decided it belongs to the family Asparagaceae, as does its cousin, the grape hyacinth.
There exists any number of camassia quamash hybrids with flowers ranging from a velvet blue to a creamy white. One variety called Blue Melody, has variegated leaves.
Mine have bright green strappy leaves and soft blue flowers blooming from a stem about 24 inches tall. The six-petaled, star-shaped flowers start at the base of the spike, and the flowers take their own sweet time working their way up the stem.
It can take them almost three weeks to make their way to the top.
By that time, the bottom flowers have died and need to be pinched off.
Even so, if you catch it at the right time, it’s a good cut flower and an even better ornamental when the seed pods are dried.
Unlike other bulbs, camassia will naturalize in damp soil in winter and spring, but can be drought-tolerant in summer.
Camassia grows wild along the tree-line and in the open woods of Blair County. Deer and rodents don’t bother it, and its slight fragrance attracts nectar-loving bees and butterflies.
It will spread if it finds a good home, developing bulbils or bulb offsets. The bulbs can and should be separated regularly.
If you decide to welcome a few tall blue strangers into your garden, the use of bulbs or seeds from local nurseries or greenhouses is strongly recommended by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. In some cases, it’s against the law to dig wild camassia bulbs.
Your purchased bulbs will bloom next spring between April and June. After the flowers have dried up and turned brown, stop watering camassia so seed pods form and the bulbils can develop.
If you’re a forager, don’t be tempted to dig and dine on camassia bulbs. You might instead find yourself eating the deadly camus lily doppelganger. It likes the same soil conditions and will grow within an innocent looking patch of camassia.
If you’re that into dangerous living, buy some Romaine lettuce.
Contact Teresa Futrick at esroyllek@hotmail.com
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