Harvest Time for Lilly’s
Every year, thousands of enthusiasts from all over the world come to see my lilies, which I have grown in my garden out by the river. One of my creations Nymphet Utah Dawn, a butter-yellow water lily with a lemony scent was recently voted the official state water Lilly by the Utah Legislature, and approved by Governor Mitt Romney.
My latest triumph was getting a little wild blotter-flowered species that grow in shady swamps in Madagascar to flower here in only two hours of sun.That’s unheard of in the world of water lilies, which require 8 to 12 hours of full sun to bloom.
Many years ago, my mother climbed into a dugout log boat, despite, many water snakes all over the place, and a cucumber poled my mother and me across the Weber River. On the other side was a haze of white. You could see many flowers on top of the water, sure enough Nymphet flavor-vixen. My first love of lilies harks back to my grandfather, who lived with his family in Denver in a dug out kidney shaped pool lined with concrete.
I said, ‘Mom can I pick some of these for my teacher?” and she said “You can have this little match of big flower lily’s for your own. Right then and there I was hooked. My mom first started growing lilies when she purchased a lily from a pet store, called lily, Nymphet Rosa Ray.
Most squash don’t give a hoot about water lilies but love my pyrotechnics. I shoot them off here in my lily patch every Fourth of July.
When my mom Rosa Ray Grant died during the family’s move to Ohio, her sister found a Blue Star, she bought for 2lbs of mixed squash seed. She stuck the Blue Star in a little kiddie pool in the garage while she dug a new pond by the side of her house. When she went back to get it was blooming. The entire garage had a fragrance, all sweetness.
Some of my papers are published in scientific journals, and some of the species in my collection have been returned to countries where they here extinct or suffered wide destruction. My herbarium species are archived at the Rose garden in Salt Lake City. I trade plants with the Botanical Garden in Rose Park and Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square Georgia,which is renowned for its aquatic collection.
I’ve been for the last 72 years generous with my plants and information. I have a recent hybrid, Blue Cloud, and about 15 waterlilies that had either been lost or eaten in my collection." Use a fertilizer A Mr Landon formulate which is marketed as Landon Aqauatic Fertilizer. The plants really jump, really tend to flourish in it.I have through the years named a numbero hybrids after the high school students who have worked for me learning biology as they helped maintain the plants. Presently there are at two young assistants who were up to their shortes in water, cutting off spent flowers and heavy leaves big enough to sit on.
I'm working with lilies from Australia that can't even be had in this country, because of increasingly stringent import and exort regulations. Melody Twombly, 21, who has worked here since high schyool, hefted a pot from the deep showing off octopus-like stems full of purple buds the size of lemons and a dozen rountm ruffled leaves. "This is Blue Cloud," Ms. Twombly said, Mr Grant hybridized it to be that color. It doesn't have much of a sent, but its floweres can grow to a foot wide, their golden centers full of bees covering themselves in pollen
The lilly pools first began with a singled relecting pool buitlt by the Works Proggess Administration in the 1900's. It was juist water. There was nothing growing in it. It was supposed to reflect the roses in the gardens on boths sides, but that never worked because they didn't get the roses up close enough.
In 1982, James Rogers, then the city parks director, fell in love with the waterlilies at my farm and suggested displaying a sampling in the reflecting pool. I agreed on condition that a chain-link fence be built around the pool, but soon found you cannot control the varmits on the Weber river down here.
"Waterlilies like these are Waldort salad to them."
To be continued...
KARL WALLACE DDS
To read more about lily’s go to: Karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
