LOOKING AHEAD

A colorful, fruitful summer follows winter's well-used days

I ENJOY TAKING A BREAK from yard maintenance over a New England winter. It gives me time to enjoy other pursuits, travel and reflect on what I would like to do with my yard in the future.

While getting revitalized last year in the land of palms and papayas, I decided that it would be nice to kick off summer with a bang, having an absolute blaze of floral color to greet guests that I entertain around the Fourth of July.

To that end I decided to expand my use of two very reliable varieties of lilies that I already had here and there in the yard. Neither has ever been prone to any disease or insect damage and both prolifically provide plenty of stock for expansion or to give away. The two varieties' blooming seasons perfectly overlap, so that from about the middle of June to nearly the end of July we will enjoy a cheerful display of first pumpkin orange, then rust orange color. The common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva), often called tiger lily in these parts, blossoms first, to be succeeded by the Turk's cap or turban lily (Lilium superbum).

Upon my return to still damp, muddy and cool Rhode Island in late March, I began to harvest both, which were just emerging from the ground. Tiger lilies have tuberous roots that can easily be separated from one another as individual fast-growing plants. Turk's cap lilies have small, somewhat fragile white bulbs. I transplanted the former into an existing 100-foot row that had gaps I wanted to fill. I worked the latter into a smaller row, also with gaps. After a spring rain I dusted the newbies with a 10-10-10 fertilizer to help them catch up with their more established predecessors a bit more quickly. The display from the transplants was decent last summer, but this year it will be spectacular, I am sure!