My Fave Flower – Eremurus

Declaring that you have a favourite flower in your garden just may be a bit like admitting you have a favourite child. If said out loud there may just be silence in the room, perhaps a muted gasp or two, averted eyes, a nervous giggle, curious looks…. I mean, out of the dozens or perhaps hundreds of beautiful blooms, how is it possible to declare just one the winner?

When flowers are so short-lived, with mostly all but annuals only flowering, in succession, for just a few weeks, or even a few days, and within that progression each is more unusual, or vibrant, or large, or small, or fragrant, or welcomed after winter, or pollinator friendly, or, or, or, than the one before it… How can you possibly say that you have a favourite?

Generally, I don’t.  Today, I’ll make an exception.

I planted two Foxtail Lily bulbs – Eremurus robustus – in 2022, at the end of October. It cost $5.50 plus tax for the pair; a good investment, I thought. I’d seen pictures over the years and had it on my ‘List of Plants to Buy’ ever since I created that ever-growing list, and low and behold one of our local nurseries was actually selling them. The following spring, two rosettes of daffodil-like leaves appeared.

I was thrilled to see a flower spike appear in the middle of each rosette; they eventually grew to about five feet tall – 1.5-ish metres, with flowers opening from the bottom up for about two weeks.

In 2024, I was hopeful.  Four rosettes appeared.  But then, nothing. Oh well, I thought. Nice for a year, just as spectacular as I had hoped. The leaves died back mid-summer, as they are supposed to, and a large clump of goldenrod grew and flowered just behind where the lilies would have been. Goldenrod is nice, and, to be honest, more attractive to pollinators than Foxtail Lily.

This past spring I was happy (really, really, really happy!), and surprised, to see six rosettes of leaves appear. I held my breath for a month or so, peering into the centre of the rosettes…and lo and behold three flower spikes started to shoot up!

There’s a lot of (sometimes conflicting) information about Eremurus  on the net. What’s pertinent to me is they’re native to the Himalayas, and they like it to be dry in the summer as long as there’s enough moisture in the soil in the spring. This isn’t much different from daffodils, which do really well here. Also pertinent is that the roots/bulb will get larger, the clump will get larger and it may be necessary at some point to lift and divide.  (I’m not too sure about this advice when I read it, for any bulb/perennial. No one is lifting the wild ones…no one is separating and replanting on the slopes of the Himalayas…) I might have to lift and separate myself though, in a few years, as a fir tree, planted close by when it was about a metre/three feet tall, in just a few years has expanded in both height and girth to the point where branches are in the verge of covering the lily location.

Anyway. Here’s the plant that I consider my favourite.

At least this week.