Lilium 'Casa Blanca' is a pure white Oriental lily hybrid. Last weekend I bought three stems at Urban Flowers, and today there are six beautiful white flowers filling the apartment with their intense sweet fragrance. It's one of my very favorite smells.
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| Lilium 'Casa Blanca' |
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| Lilium 'Casa Blanca' |
I picked the deep brownish-red anthers off each flower as it opened. I don't know if this prolongs the vase life or not, but it does keep the wet, powdery pollen from staining the flowers, and anything underneath them on the table.
When I was growing up in Washington, each year I would plant Lilium 'Stargazer' Oriental lilies, which are pink, white and yellow, with a similar scent. Because we had no fence to exclude deer and many slugs, only about half of them ever bloomed, but they were some of my favorite bulbs in the garden.
Dutch hyacinths are another type of sweetly-scented bulb that I planted around my mom's house when I was younger. Though the original house burned down, the dense cylinders of deep blue Hyacinthus orientalis flowers still emerge around its outline each spring. Deer find hyacinths unappetizing and they survive the cold wet winters well, so this fall I planted 40 more in the yard - some beneath each new tree tree.
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| Hyacinthus orientalis |
In my own apartment in San Francisco, I force hyacinths in victorian style hyacinth vases that cradle the purple, papery bulbs above a constant supply of water. The first of the winter's forced flowers are just beginning to open.
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| Detail of the first hyacinth flower opening |
When I was about 12 or so first heard a famous rhyme written by an ancient persian poet. The English translation reads:
"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
and from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole,
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."
I don't know about souls, but I think of this line almost every time I see hyacinths.
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