In fall, a gardener bows to the end of blooming season. Well, some of us bow. The rest of us scurry around like mad trying to start the whole process all over again in a last glorious gasp before winter. For years, we’ve had chrysanthemum, aster and sedum to provide big blowsy blotches of autumn color like a brass band finale. But autumn, a season of winding down and drawing in, calls for something subtler than brass bands, something a little more contemplative. That’s where Tricyrtis aka Toad Lily comes in.
“They’re not something that catches your eye from a distance,” says Cindy King, horticulturist at Kingstown Farm Home and Garden. “But if you find them, they’re gorgeous.”
Named for the blossom, which has spatter-painted spots on cream petals, a color scheme that echoes the skin of a speckled toad, Tricyrtis is an autumn gift to gardeners. It not only flowers in late August through September, but is happiest, unlike most end-of-summer perennials, in partial shade.
“Getting color in the shade in the fall is a hard thing to do,” says garden designer Marcy Brown, proprietor of Outside Insights in Worton. “Typically shade bloomers open in the spring before the leaves come out. But Toad Lily blooms in shade in the fall with a wonderful orchid-like flower.”
Originally from Japan where their flowers are grown for the florist trade, Tricyrtis also have lovely cascading foliage that rises from the ground like a small fountain. But because they are relatively short in height (18- 24 inches) and like most woodland flowers, delicate, they can easily be eclipsed when planted in a broad-swathe border of mounded perennials. Instead, they work best where they will stand out. So it’s better to plant them in pots, along walkways, or on the edge of a woodland garden with something like low-growing Asarum, [wild ginger] around their feet.
Ken Druse, author of a number of garden books and host of RealDirt, suggests planting them in woodland gardens coupled with dwarf Hostas. The Hosta’s foliage will look spectacular with the arched Tricyrtis blooms but will hide the Tricyrtis foliage, which by fall will just be beginning to dry.
“Unfortunately, the Tricyrtis’s foliage often is starting to go when the blooms arrive,” he says.
Druse has several varieties in one woodland garden at his New Jersey home, and he grows Tricyrtis ‘Macropoda’ in a hanging planter so the blooms are easily visible.
“The flowers are very fleshy, and are so heavy that the plant lays down,” he says. “I grow it on a wall so I can look up to the flowers.”
Location, Brown agrees, is critical to appreciation of Tricyrtis. Since her own gardens are designed to be walked into, she plants Tricyrtis hirta beside strategically positioned chairs so guests can sit down and examine it very closely.
“That way, you can really appreciate the form and colors,” she explains.
A TOAD LILY FOR EVERY TASTE
There is a surprising variety of forms and colors available. Tricyrtis hirta ‘Variegata’ has wine-colored splotched blooms that shoot out of furred, yellow-bordered leaves. (‘Hirta’ means‘hairy.’). Tricyrtis hirta ‘Miyazaki’ has pale purple flowers with dark purple spots,
‘Samurai’ is purple with dark purple spots and a yellow throat and ‘Sinonome’ has white flowers w ruby speckling. T. formosana ‘Blue Wonder’ is powder blue with blue-purple speckles and T. formosana ‘Gilt Edge’ is dark rose with soft white spots and has yellow-edged leaves.
“It’s the only variegated one I’m aware of,” says King.
Although most Tricyrtis varieties have the telltale toad spots, White Flower Farm’s newest toad lily, tricyrtis ‘Shirohotogishu,’ (an English approximation of the Japanese pictograms used to designate this variety) – is pure white. Stunning.
“They make great cut flowers, too,” says King, which is another way to highlight them.
CULTIVATION
They look exotic, but toad lilies are surprisingly low-maintenance perennials. Give them partial shade and slightly acidic, moist (but not soggy) soil and they’ll grow well. They’re rated for hardiness zones 4-8.
“I find mine to be very permanent,” says King, “It’s not one that I’ve lost with recent droughts or heat. The leaves will burn in the heat but it doesn’t seem to hurt the bloom.”
They are rhizomatous, which means they have tuberous roots like the fresh ginger you see in the grocer and like iris rhizomes. They have wide but not deep feeder roots, which can jeopardize them in drought, especially in the first few years of growth.
“Every year I put a 4-6-inch layer of shredded oak leaves, which are slightly acidic, on them,” says Druse. “Once they become established they can stand a little dryness – since the trees under which they are planted sometimes rob the soil of moisture, but they need water especially in early days so they need to be mulched.”
And the sometimes offer and unexpected bonus: hummingbirds.
“This time of year, they will attract some hummingbirds if they’re in a mass,” says King.
SOURCES:
There are two left at Garden Treasures in Easton.
Garden Treasures
29350 Matthewstown Rd.
Easton, MD 21601
410-822-1604
There are some potted Tricyrtis in pots at Kingstown Farm Home and Garden.
Kingstown Farm Home and Garden
Rte. 213 Chestertown
410-778- 1551
Van Bourgondien
P.O. Box 2000
Virginia Beach VA 23450-2000
Orders:1-800-622-9997
Customer Service:1-800-622-9959
Plant Delights Nursery, Inc.
9241 Saul’s Rd.
Raleigh, NC 27603
919-772-4794
Fax: 919-662-0370
Munchkin Nursery
323 Woodside Dr. NW
Depauw, IN 47115-9039
812-633-4858
Eidelweiss Perennials
https://www.edelweissperennials.com
Email is preferred; they will respond within a few days. Phone 503-263-4680. We are often out of the office; please leave a message and when you can be reached. Please note that it may take longer to get back to you in the spring, especially in February, when we are at the NW Flower Show.
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