Pineapple Lily

By Ms Sherry

Published: August 14, 2009

The summer days have brought with them so many divine flowers and this is just one of them, the pineapple lily or eucomis. I think it is rather an unusual plant, but many of my gardener friends have one in their yards. As you can see, the flowers look like small pineapples. Eucomis can be started from bulbs in the fall or seeds in the spring. I am not sure I would ever have the patience to grow these beauties from seed. Like every other growing thing they like well-drained, well amended soil and I do keep them watered during the summer. Sometimes it is a challenge to figure out the best way to stake a flower. Mine grow in part sun but they will also take full sun.

This has been a wonderful growing season for us here in East Central Alabama. We have had good rain –  not too much to drown everything and not too little to let plants dry out. Most of the perennials have finished their show,  leaving the annuals to continue their job of providing color and interest. Unfortunately, some of them may be getting a little tired. Hopefully you pinched your impatiens and your begonias so they have not gotten too leggy. It is not too late to do some judicious pinching but they may not recover from a really hard pruning before the first frost. Annuals planted in pots will probably need water, either from mother nature or a hose, every day as their expanding root systems has filled up their pots. If your annuals are a bit weary, a shot of water based fertilizer may help. But if they are hopelessly leggy or chewed by any variety of local insects the big box stores seemed to continue replenishing their stock of annuals – so replace those that are really tired. We will have many months before it will be pansy time.

Along with the good of the garden there has be “the evil.” Right now my garden is under attack from what I refer to as the horde of locusts, lubber grasshoppers, who spend their lives chewing plants or reproducing themselves The other morning some of my mg friends were sharing their efforts to get rid of them One offered that she cut off their heads with a scissors because when she stepped on them they splattered on her leg. She wondered if there was a shellac like substance we could spray them with to suffocate them. I step on them or smash them with a shovel. And still they keep coming. When they were much smaller, I sprayed them with seven dust, to no avail. The Japanese beetles season came and went without too much damage. Although I have seen lots of deer, they are avoiding my yard perhaps because of the continuous spray of deer repellant made of putrefied eggs.

I love gardening, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I hate it when something dies as did a six year old Japanese maple the other day. But as a friend said, that is an opportunity to get something else.

I hope I never get too old or too senile to make the morning rounds, deadhead some flowers, pull weeds, prune a wayward branch, crank up the lawnmower, or any one of a hundred other tasks. Even doing battle with grasshoppers and the deer and other garden pests will keep me fit, (I hope) for life.