226 years ago, the British captured Charles Town, South Carolina and the streets became lined with red coated British soldiers. 10 days ago as I walked the streets of Charleston (name changed in 1783) I noticed the streets were lined with short and tank-top wearing British citizens. Yes, they are tourists now, and with the exchange rate at 2 to 1, why shouldn’t they be over here? I walked into the hotel to check in and the lady couldn’t call home to the UK on her cell phone. I offered mine but she managed to make hers work. She was very nice and I was glad I might help. Amazing how things change over 200 years.

While in Charleston I visited with a wonderful gentleman by the name of Jenks Farmer. He is Mr. Crinum in the Carolinas and a delight to visit with. He was recently featured in a Dallas Morning New article about crinum bulbs. One of the most famous bulbs he is known for in the crinum world is Regina’s Disco Lounge, a crinum named after the place he discovered it. Some say it is really Crinum x gowenii, but those that have grown it recognize is to be unique and worthy of its special name.

Jenks was managing an 1890’s home in Charleston when I met up with him. The date is special because in the 1890’s, not many homes were being built with the area still reeling from the Civil War. The original owner is not known, but they suspect he had a personality as the home takes several forms, such as the deco chimney, ridged roof, and circular patterned balcony. The garden of course looked spectacular and featured several crinums, including a cold hardy maroon colored crinum called ‘Sangria.’ Another maroon colored foliage crinum beauty in the garden was the small tree sized ‘Queen Emma.’ Jenks is pictured next to it. While I was waiting to visit with him later in the day, he suggested I head out to Boone Hall Plantation, close to Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Ruth Knopf, an authority on old roses gave me a wonderful tour of the gardens at Boone Hall Plantation—located just outside of Charleston and known for it’s long allée (double
row of trees or shrubs lining an avenue resulting in a tunnel-like effect at maturity) of oak trees. Ruth has some favorite classes of old roses which the Tea, Chinas, and Noisettes classes. The Noisettes actually originated on a rice plantation near Charleston shortly after 1800. The rice planter’s name was John Champney, who crossed Rosa chinensis ‘Old Blush’ with Rosa moschata (musk rose) of Europe to come up with the first American class of old roses (the Noisette roses). The first was named for him, ‘Champney’s Pink Cluster’. A local nurserymen named Noisette sent the roses to France for further breeding. Many of the later hybrids such as ‘Reve d’ Or’ and ‘Maréchal Niel’ from these crosses retained the fragrance from the musk rose and frequent blooming of ‘Old Blush’.

I was going to post this last night, but when I came in from the field, I sat down on the sofa and fell asleep with dirt and all. Killed 4 black widows yesterday and they all popped out a little too close to my hand for me.



I wrapped up my trip to the Carolinas in Charleston, South Carolina, visiting a garden and another Crinum grower last Wednesday. I decided to sleep in Charleston which meant I had to leave at 3AM to drive back to New Bern, North Carolina for my flight. In this blog, I would like to do a quick spotlight on the Crinum grower I visited in Raleigh.

Jay Yourch (pronounced York) is a major crinum aficionado, so much that he snagged the above pictured license plate for his car. The morning I went to visit Jay, a deer had managed to seperate itself from the pack and meander into his fenced in garden. Part of the deer fence had been torn down the night before when a limb fell on it. When Jay saw the deer, he tried to usher it out the back gate. The deer spooked and headed to the side yard. There was another gate over there, so Jay went around the house to open that gate. Before he could get there, he heard a large crash. When he finally made it around the house, the deer had plowed right through the gate, splitting the bars and escaping from the apparent danger. I arrived just as Jay finished fixing the fence.

Jay's online screen name is crinumaniac if that tells you anything. I admired the collection for several reasons, the foremost that every plant was nicely labeled with aluminum tags that were nicely hidden but easily accessible. The tags didn’t rust and were written in such a way that we didn’t spend all of our time hunting the name down. I think I’m going to try to adopt his system.



The second reason I liked his collection was the numerous locations of Crinum ‘Mrs. James Hendry’ (pictured above)he had around the yard. He valued it for the same reason we value many bulbs at Southern Bulb: it was widely adapted to most soils, suitable from the coast to more northern parts of the South, cleaner foliage than most, multiple bloomer, and nice fragrance. But he also had some exceptional collector’s items.

This year we offered the Crinum jagus, a vanilla scented tulip shaped blooming Crinum mostly valued for its attractive foliage in the landscape. Jay had this by his house, but he also had another narrow leaf form (different than the one we offered this year) called Crinum jagus vanillodorum. It is pictured to the left on Jay's patio--notice the board above covering the screen where just that morning a squirrel had clawed through in an attempt at the bird seed inside. Another one of my favorite in his collection was Crinum 'Carnival' (Jay recently posted about this bulbs on his blog), which was blooming while I was there. The flowers are normally pink with darker pink stripes. I have not grown it in my collection, but I understand its blooms stay in form for about a week and sends up several stalks generally in quick succession about this time of year.

After a couple hours of Crinum talk, Jay and I went to the back of his property that follows a major creek called Upper Barton’s Creek which feeds a major Raleigh reservoir called Falls Lake--I love to walk up and down creeks, normally slipping on the rocks and falling in. I always find it amazing that even in water rich areas, major cities still face many of the same water problems and needs as their “arid” counterparts. This creek was definitely moving and of course I asked about the fish (bass and catfish). The waterfall was nicely displayed by light filtering in from the trees. In the boggy areas, we found some fun natives such as the clumping large leaved arrow arum (Peltandra virginica) and a running plant with smaller arrow leaves called the broadleaf arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia). Also enjoyed a very large leaved magnolia tree called an umbrella magnolia (Magnolia tripetala) to which my pictures did not do justice.

Still in my suit pants that I haven’t dry cleaned in 3 weeks but worn for two of those weeks straight, we waded through the boggy areas and back up the house and Crinum collection. I enjoyed the bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, on the way up. Once at the house we looked at some more of the collection, which included some nice rain lilies. One that had clumped up nice and was in bloom was Zephyranthes ‘El Cielo’ and another was Habranthus martinezii. Also enjoyed the nicely compact and colored foliage of a pineapple lily selection called Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’.

A last little bit about Crinum bulbs and the old ‘Milk and Wine’ name that everyone calls us about. Generally two types of bulbs go under this name. The first type is the offspring of Crinum bulbispermum with Crinum scabrum (hybrids called Crinum x herbertii and dates back to the early 1800’s). They produce striped flowers with the coloration of the dark stripes starting off strong and thick in the throats of the flowers and tapering to a point at the end of the petal. The other type of ‘Milk and Wine’ also comes from a C. bulbipsermum but breeds with a C. zeylanicum (produces bulbs such as C. x gowenii). Here the color starts off darker at the tip of the petal and fades towards the throat. Also, many C. zeylanicum hybrids have a pronounced mid rib on the back of their foliage and clawlike petals. Below is one of our Crinum x herbertii bulbs we have had blooming.

MANY thanks to Jay Yourch as I pass on (or regurgitate) much of this information you gave me and thank you for the time you spent to give me a tour on your beautiful yard and home. Also thank you to Greg Grant for the phone call and help on some Crinum issues yesterday—I WILL blog more…promise.

Now, I have to find a way to get my suit clean. I have had two Weimeraners with me and my suit is no longer clean. I took it by the cleaners and the soonest they could get it to me was Monday, but I leave Monday at 3AM. So, I think I will pull out the wash cloth and start to spot clean it as I prepare to wear it for a week straight once again. When you travel with only carry-on luggage, you have to be creative.

Last note, be sure to check out this bulb on the Pacific Bulb Society wiki. It was in Jay's garden and I wish I could see it when it is in bloom. You can see how it dwarfs the Crinum 'Carnival' in the background. The bloom is similar to the regular C. 'Ellen Bosanquet' pictured below. Brad and I are back out in the field today to face the black widows!