September 12, 2016 - Spotlight on Liriope 

Liriope muscari variegata.

One of my favorite perennials is at its finest right now in bloom.

When I started this blog my gardening friends have been impatiently waiting for my gardening expertise.  Since I finally figured out how to include a picture in my blog, I guess I am ready to "Spotlight" some of my favorites.

I've been at my current home and garden for about 18 years.  All the variegated Liriopes I have in my garden derived from a dear friend. She enjoys gardening, but has an extremely busy work life and doesn't get much "dig-in-the-dirt time". So, when she visits my home and garden, she is one of my most ardent admirers.

I must tell you an amusing story about the above-captioned Liriope.  My husband and I were "camping" out in a rental house while one house was being sold and a new home was located. During that time, my dear friend said to me one day when I was visiting her.  "Do you want those, they have to go."  She pointed to an overgrown 3 or 4 plant clump of Liriope muscari variegata.  I thought they were beautiful right where they were, but for some reason her other half didn't think so.  I immediately answered, "Sure, I'll take them off your hands." and we arranged a time for me to come back and dig them up.

This was one of those fabulous instances where I got a chance to get something on my "garden wish list" for FREE which is the best way!

When I dug them up - more like took a pick-ax and hacked them out of their site - I crammed them into a few 3 gallon pots and trucked them home.  I must tell you these free plants got serious abuse that day and I can say - they can handle it. Back at the rental house I divided them up into very hefty chunks, potted them up in one quart nursery pots and ended up with about 14 specimens. 

Next, I nestled the pots into my raised "temporary" garden where I was collecting plant material for my new location.  For the next two years I pampered them to make them prosper.

When we finally got the new home, I planted them on the walkway from the driveway to the back patio where they have become the focal point of my walk and my patio gardens.  

The soil at my new home was [and still is] that awful red clay.  By that time I could divide a few of the 14 specimens, and I ran clumps down both sides of the walk every 24 inches or so.  We were on a tight budget so they didn't get any extra special soil amendments.  I simply dug them in, watered, fertilized, and mulched them.  We had a drought the first year and I made certain they had plenty of water.  In August they sent up the most beautiful pale lavender stems.

They flourished so well in only few years that I lifted them all, cut them into 4 pieces again and this time I enlarged the back patio garden using them as the outside meandering focal point.  They lend an incredible continuity, texture and counterbalance to my other plant material.

The cream stripes actually take on a more pale butter yellow at times.  Visitors are impressed that the patio garden "looks really nice" even when there is hardly a bloom to pick.

My yearly maintenance includes: 

In January or February I usually sit on an old Yoga mat and hand trim each plant. I grasp a handful of the long leaves and cut each handful back to about 3/4 inch from the ground. Usually by this time there is new growth showing about the length of your thumbnail and I make certain I don't snip these new leaf tips.  [I collect the cut leaves for "in situ" composting which melt down quickly. I promise I will tell you about "in situ" composting in a future post.]   I pull out any wire grass or other wayward nuance - creeping weeds, ivy, etc., out or away from the plants at least 5 inches.  Then, I scoot along from one to the next until they are done.

Next I sprinkle a teaspoon of Osmocote around each plant and I mulch them. I do NOT cover the crown as I keep the mulch neatly away about 1 inch all around.

The spring rains come and they grow beautiful fresh leaves.  Often people will comment how nice they look.  I always tell them, "I hand cut the old dead leaves in January or February", and many times they comment, "Oh, my husband has been using the weed trimmer or the lawn mower."  I have to suppress a gasp.

Come August, they send up the most beautiful lavender colored lowers that sometimes turn to berries that drop off.   The flower stems make excellent filler material for flower arranging.  To pick, you slide your fingers down into the foliage alongside the stems and slowly ease them out; they will release with an assured pull.

After flowering and when the berries have dropped, the plants look a little scruffy to me.  At this time I go around a third time - pulling all those dead flower stems out and attend to any weeds. Then they look fresh until about January or February when the leaves look limp and ratty from the winter wind and cold.

Liriope does well in half sun [morning better than afternoon] and can manage under trees in dry shade. I don't like the way they look when grown in full sun - they look parched and washed out here in the Isothermal area of North Carolina.

So, for the two or three times a year I lavish attention on them, I get incredible beauty.

To propagate - I feel early fall to be the best, [but I have done it in all seasons except winter].   Dig up an established clump and slice it with an old serrated steak knife into chunks the size of your wrist being sure you leave most of the roots intact.  Pot them up in gallon sized nursery pots with good potting soil. You can hold them a year or two to increase size or just hold them long enough to create a new garden.  They do not resent transplanting as long as you give them ample water to establish and keep them out of direct sun.

Back to my friend who gave me the Liriope.

The second spring in my current home, my friend happened to visit me.  Walking around to my patio she stopped and looked at the Liriope and exclaimed, "Oh these are beautiful, where did you get these?"  I gently reminded her that she had given them to me.

The moral of the story:  What might look like an eyesore is only a beautiful plant in the wrong place.  If you have something in your garden right now that is "driving you insane for whatever reason", maybe it needs to be dug up and moved to a more suitable location or simply tossed on the compost pile.

You can accomplish this in two ways. Dig the offending plant up and pot it up. Then test drive it temporarily where you think it might look better.  Or, study various gardening magazines for how the professionals use a specific plant.  Maybe your problem plant is one of those beautiful plants that is only in the wrong place.