The color of summer

Orange is the color of my summer garden. It seems that almost everything that is blooming in the garden right now is a variation of that flame hot hue. Everywhere I look I see orange cannas, orange sunflowers, orange zinnias and marigolds, the red-orange of jatropha, Mexican flame vine - well, you get the idea. Orange is the dominant color of my summer blossoms.

Like most things in my garden, that wasn't planned. It just sort of happened. I like hot colors and I guess I just gravitated to all those orange flowers, but maybe people see the orange in me, too, because several of my orange-blooming plants were passalongs.

Last year, in late winter, my neighbor Virginia came over with a plastic bag full of bulbs. She called them "hurricane lilies." Well, they didn't actually resemble what I think of as hurricane lilies, but then that label has been applied to several different plants. Virginia's stand of the "lilies" had grown too thick and she was thinning them out and asked if I wanted some. Never one to turn down a free plant, I happily took the proffered bag.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with them so I ended up planting them way in the back of the yard next to the garden shed until I could come up with a better idea. A couple of the plants bloomed last summer. Pretty little things, I thought, and in the intervening months the bulbs multiplied and just about took over the bed where I had planted them. And this summer, my goodness, what a nice display they are making!


I've decided that they are some variety of crocosmia, but I'm not sure which one.


Do you know these blossoms?


Here's a close-up of one of the mature flowers.

Whatever its real name, the plant fits right in with the orange theme of my summer garden. It seems right at home here.