


My excitement for
Crinum 'Cecil' has been peaking for months. Tall spikes filled with light pink flowers have been a daily visual since early May. Just when I sense the end is near, a new stalk pops into view.
The
crinum is one of those plants, like cast iron plant, receiving no respect. Why is it gardeners can treat certain plants so badly? Is it the fact that they survive without any human hand fussing away as we do with so many other "garden worthy" selections? They remind me of the middle child, dropped in between. The excitement of the first will never be theirs and the newness of the last gets all the attention.
And why all the talking behind their backs? I hear gardeners in the south bad mouth them all the time. "The foliage is all over the place." "The flower stalks lay down in a bed during a heavy rain." "The old flowers look ugly hanging there."
Shame, shame, shame on all who could be drinking up the beauty before them but fail to open their eyes to get close enough.
These southern heirlooms are post cards for this place. Their robust habit says much about the resilience that defines home. The big fat flowers, remind me of Mrs.
Plyler, a robust woman of my past, her bouffant hairdo, and my initiation into backwoods South Carolina. "Is everything so big here," I'd whisper quietly in my "northern draw".
I like the way the stalks, nearly full and open, begin their descent making friends with others nearby.
Crinum season means my early morning walks continue, picking off the old flowers, making it new again. And to all who say the foliage alone is big and brash, overbearing and overwhelming, imagine the possibilities. A bed of low growing ornamental grass, berry clusters and a multicolored elephant ear transform. Varied textures, new shapes and unexpected color combinations give rise to something unexpected.
Mrs.
Plyler scuttled down our dirt road in her beat up Pinto, her tall, skinny daughter in the passenger seat and their one eared dog hanging it's head out the window. And like the
Crinum, she tells a story of where we are, one that will put a smile on my face for many seasons to come!