Some friends of ours invited us to participate in their plant sale at the end of the month and we happily accepted! We'll be selling a good selection of our awesome plants April 28-30 at Terra Sol Gardens, 6927 CR A, Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin 53085. We'll also be there May 6-7. We'll send out an event reminder a week before with further details regarding times for each day.
Terra Sol Gardens grows microgreens and will also be selling vegetable and herb transplants for gardens. Please check out their Facebook page here!
We're really excited to have added several martagon lilies to our catalog. They're great companion plants for hostas, ferns, grasses, and anything else that likes partial shade. Martagons are some of the most spectacular plants in the genus. A mature clump can have several hundred flowers on just a few stems. Most of them mature between 3 and 5 feet tall. Check out our clump picture of 'Claude Shride' below! While I don't find them difficult to grow, there are some challenges associated with them.
They often remain dormant for an entire year after planting and ones that do come up often don't bloom the first year. Be aware that what you might receive from us is a fully dormant lily bulb. Even if you get one that isn't dormant, don't be surprised if it doesn't come up next season. It's probably just sulking and will return the next year. It's happened to me a few times over the years and they have always come up. This is a good time to use whatever means you can to mark where it's planted so you don't dig it up on accident.
They are more prone to rot during dormancy than other types and therefore well-drained soils are important. They do appreciate good fertility and adequate moisture during active growth though. Use of compost is a good idea and peat is best avoided as it holds too much moisture. While a few gardeners in zones 8 and 9 report success with them, they seem to do best in areas with longer colder winters and are probably ideal in zones 3-6.
The above challenges are why martagon lilies remain in shorter supply than most other lilies, despite having pretty good demand. They're absolutely worth the frustration though.
We'll still be doing one more order for spring before we get ready for our in person sales dates, so expect a few more additions next month. We've also had a few backorders, so a couple of things will trickle in through the year.
