fall orchids
Every year I wait for this princess, the orchid of the northern garden, a plant whose flowers are as exquisite as its name is revolting. I’m talking about the toad lily.
For those who have long searched for late fall perennials, look no further: toad lilies start blooming mid-September and keep going until the beginning of November. They keep blooming until everything else has retired for the season, to keep good company to the fall equinox, the harvest and the Halloween pumpkins.
Toad lilies are fall bulbs, yes, there is such a thing, which means they bring to the garden all the advantages of their spring blooming siblings: they require virtually no maintenance, they are very resilient and in time they spread to form larger clumps, which makes them great for naturalizing. They grow about three foot tall and are not scented.
Sometimes mid-October they start to look unreal, because the garden is already knee deep in fallen leaves and all the other perennials have died down, and their slender stems topped by purple dotted flowers seem to be the only things left standing on nature’s battle field at the end of the ultimate fight.
Their unusual blooms only used to come in purple. The newer hybrids have created blue and pink variations on the purple cultivar, but in my gardening experience those are not as resilient as the original plant.
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