Brutal Summer

We’re now coming into the toughest part of the summer here in Washington. Days are a monotonous stretch of the triple H – “hazy, hot and humid”. August makes you understand why British embassy staff got hardship pay for being stationed here all the way up to the mid seventies. Longtime residents dread this month and do all they can to avoid it by fleeing to vacations at beaches and northern lakes. It’s the only time of the year that beltway traffic is bearable, because so many people are gone.

My garden is showing the stress. We’ve had a very dry summer, and after a certain point even faithful work with the sprinkler just doesn’t cut it anymore. I think I heard we’re down about 8 inches this year compared to average rainfall so far. My tomatoes have suffered from blossom-end rot, which is no surprise. Blossom-end rot is a very unsightly softening of the fruit that makes the tomatoes inedible. It comes from calcium deficiency brought on by uneven or inadequate water. Leaf feeding helps, and eggshells dug in near the plant roots help, but it’s tough to avoid with no rain at all. Even worse, the spider mites lo-o-ove this hot dry weather. They’ve managed to just about kill my beans and tomatoes, and even the zucchini are showing the telltale bronzing on the leaves that means mite trouble. Weekly sprays with insecticidal soap have failed to stave off disaster. I won’t show you photos because it just makes me ashamed. I’m a bad gardener to have tomato plants so sickly.

But we’re still getting enough tomatoes to keep us in insalata caprese, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Thank goodness for the cast iron plants at this time of year. My coneflowers and black-eyed susans still look surprisingly good, considering the conditions. And this morning I walked out to a lovely surprise. My Resurrection Lily popped up and bloomed, seemingly overnight. Two days ago there was no sign of it, or at least none that I noticed. Today, there it stands in all its glory.

Lycoris squamigera in catalogs nowadays is usually called Surprise Lily, but I prefer the old-fashioned name, Resurrection Lily. That’s what my grandmother called them, and mine came from her garden. It’s a good name for a plant with this kind of life cycle. The leaves that appear in spring die back and completely disappear by mid summer, so when the lily blooms in late summer it seems to rise up out of nowhere, coming back from the dead. I planted these early last summer, which is not a good time. Lycoris don’t like being disturbed at any time, but usually it’s best to transplant in the fall. Last summer the broad strap-like leaves seemed to take the move fairly well, but later when the plants should have bloomed, no dice. Nothing came up. I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. To be honest, by now I’d forgotten all about them. Still no sign of the other five, but I consider it a hopeful sign that this one seems to have taken to its new spot.