Dear Friends,

     Yes, another summer is just about over, and we now have a chance to enjoy some more normalcy in our schedules. Speaking of schedules, we have several classes coming up this month.   For those of you growing fescue lawns, we have a clinic scheduled on the 15th, which will repeat again in early October. If you are interested in growing a fall vegetable garden, we will also have a class on that topic the 15th. We have two classes scheduled for the 22nd, one on propagation and one on controlling garden pests. Are you looking to give your garden a makeover? If so, join us on the 29th for a basic landscaping class. Look below to our Events Calendar for details and a registration link.

     And speaking of makeovers, Rhonda and her crew have spent all summer giving the inside of our garden center a new look. You would be surprised what a few coats of paint and a little rearranging can accomplish, at least we were surprised. We would love to show you what's been done and would like to invite you to our Makeover Reveal on Saturday, September 8th. We will be serving refreshments, offering door prizes, plus we will be having a really great sale that day, too.  All items inside our garden center will be 20% off that day only (excludes plants, landscaping, bulk materials and any item already on sale). Rowena's of Norfolk will be here with samples of their cakes and other goodies, including a few new items.  In her article below, Rhonda goes into more detail about some of the changes and why we made them. Hopefully we will stop by on the 8th to see for yourself.

     If you read our newsletter last month you may have noticed a 40th birthday party scheduled for September. Well, you would not believe how hard it has been for us to find a decent birthday cake. There must be a butter cream shortage, or it might even be the dreaded candle blight. Anyway, we have rescheduled our party for Saturday, November 3rd, certainly we can find someone to bake a cake for us by then.

Happy Gardening!

Your Friends at Smithfield Gardens

Tricyrtis: One Toad You Won't Mind Touching

     Whenever I teach the shade gardening class in the spring, I bring wagons of shade-tolerant perennials into the classroom. Many of the attendees are familiar with these plants, either because they grow them or have heard of them, but toad lilies, in the genus Tricyrtis, can be the exception. Laughter is often the response to this plant's common name, and some customers even wonder whether these perennials will attract toads to your yard (no more so than any other plant).

Toad lilies love a partially shaded location and are very easy to grow.

     Garden center employees know a major selling point for these reliably hardy perennials is the fact that toad lilies extend the season of interest in your garden by beginning their bloom period in late summer and early fall. Natives of the eastern Himalayas of Nepal and China, toad lilies also extended their range to include Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan (where the greatest number and diversity exists). Many of the species names you'll encounter when you shop are T. formosana, T. hirta and crosses of the two. Toad lilies are quite easy to grow as long as a few rules are followed. They like partial shade, and soil that is enriched with organic matter and kept on the moist side. Tricyrtis can be drought-tolerant once established, however the edges of the foliage will turn brown if it is too dry for too long. Then, at the end of the summer, you'll have cute flowers next to ratty foliage. Plan to baby them a little to have them look their best when it's time to bloom.

Though the flowers may be considered small, there are usually several blooming at one time, and the plants blooms for weeks.

     Toad lily foliage can be solid green, variegated with either creamy yellow or white, or goldy-green as in the cultivar 'Gilty Pleasure'. Hybridizers know that variegated cultivars make a shaded site more interesting even before the plants bloom, plus wonderful combinations can be made with perennials like ferns, Solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum'), variegated hostas and hellebores. Heights of the foliage can vary from 10"-24". But what about the flowers, you say? They look like tiny orchids and deserve a location where they can be observed up close. They cry out for your digital camera. They were charmingly described on one site as "no bigger than shirt buttons"; however you can see from the photograph with the gardener's hand they are a little larger than that. From the other photographs you'll notice these dainty blooms are often heavily spotted with blue or purple.

Toad lily's unique structure begs to be enjoyed up close, where you might think they look like miniature orchids.

     Making shaded areas more interesting by varying foliage textures is a trick landscape designers are very adept at. Toad lilies provide some upright foliage contrast with many of your shade staples like hostas, Vinca minor and English ivy. One site's cultural information also said that because of the zone 5-9 hardiness you could grow Tricyrtis in containers. My in-ground garden space is already crowded, but next spring I'm going to try a few of these perennials in lightly-shaded container combinations. I water my many containers faithfully during the summer months so when it's "toad time", I'll be ready.    

Ann Weber