The prize for the fastest growing plants in my garden this week goes to Camassia leichtlinii Caerulea', which emerged from the ground just a couple of weeks ago.
The foliage is suddenly 18 inches tall, topped by flower spikes that will open within the next week or so.
Such rapid growth isn't uncommon in bulbous plants, which have a great deal of their energy stored in the bulb just waiting for the right conditions before exploding into growth.
We grow three varieties of camassia here in Cockermouth. Camassia leichtlinii Caerulea' grows in the front garden, in deep but rather sandy soil. It has racemes of purple-blue flowers held on tall spikes above the foliage.
In the damp soil of the back garden we grow Camassia leichtlinii ssp leichtlinii, which has creamy white flowers, and Camassia esculenta, or quamash, which has blue flowers and is smaller than the other two, at around a foot or so in height.
Last autumn we planted bulbs of a fourth variety, Camassia cusickii, which has yet to flower.
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They're great garden plants, having a rare combination of reliability, sturdiness and beauty. One word of caution - my RHS Encyclopedia indicates that they may not be hardy below minus 5C, though ours must have withstood worse last winter (2006/07).
Being natural meadow plants, from the damp, fertile grasslands of North America, camassias have been widely used in modern style prairie planting', together with perennial grasses, Echinacea, Rudeckia and so on. They're supposed to be ideal for naturalising in grass, so I'm going to split up some of our clumps of quamash and plant them in the verge outside the garden.
A cunning plan to...
control grasses
Regular readers will know that I've been slowly planting up the edge of this grass verge, at the foot of the hedge that borders our garden. Snowdrops, tulips, bluebells, Solomon's seal, bistort, wild garlic and aquilegia are slowly becoming established among the pre-existing daffodils and ladies smock, but they're rather overpowered by the grass into which I planted them; I should perhaps have sprayed it with weed killer before I began to plant into it, to give the new plants more of a chance.
Too late for that now, so I have come up with a cunning plan!
Many old meadows contain a plant called hay rattle, which is semi-parasitic on the roots of the grass, restricting its growth and allowing more space for broadleaved wildflowers. I collected some seed of hay rattle last summer and I'm going to try to grow some to parasitise the roots of my long grass.
Rather than try to germinate it in situ, which I'm told is quite difficult, I've sown it in a tray of compost along with some grass seed. With a bit of luck they will germinate and grow together and I can transplant the resultant small plants into the verge. I'll let you know how I get on
Jobs for the gardener this week...
Sharpen the edges of lawns with a half-moon cutter. This will speed up the chore of edge trimming for the rest of the summer.
Plant water lilies and aquatic plants.
Mulch around fruit trees and bushes with well-rotted compost, manure or composted bark chippings.
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