{"id":57,"date":"2007-08-06T13:19:22","date_gmt":"2007-08-06T21:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=57"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"mid-century-modern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/mid-century-modern\/","title":{"rendered":"Mid Century Modern"},"content":{"rendered":"

MID CENTURY MODERN<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you study shelter magazines, read the home and garden section of major newspapers or watch Antiques Roadshow<\/em> on television, you already know that “mid century modern”\u009d furniture, architecture and accessories are riding the biggest wave of popularity since the original one washed across the United States in the nineteen fifties and sixties.\u00a0 Right now, if you have a lot of money, you can buy yourself one of the original curvy, molded plywood chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and put it in the living room of your Richard Neutra-designed house.\u00a0 If Eames and Neutra are a little out of your price range,, you might consider purchasing a few dozen Black Beauty lilies.\u00a0 These statuesque summer-blooming plants are mid century modern too–introduced in 1957, the same year that fabled Beat scrivener Jack Kerouac published his best known work, On the Road.<\/em> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Black Beauty lilies are hard to miss.\u00a0 The mature stalks can grow as high as seven feet, producing scores of raspberry-colored blooms.\u00a0 Each Black Beauty petal is edged in white and recurved or curled backwards, giving the flowers the look of old fashioned “Turk’s cap”\u009d lilies.\u00a0 Black Beauty does not have the pervasive fragrance of some Oriental lilies, like the popular white Casablanca, but the scent is sweet and enticing.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At fifty years old, Black Beauty isn’t a true antique, but it has certainly stood the test of time.\u00a0 It is also not a species lily, but an American-bred hybrid.\u00a0 One of its parents is Lilium henryi, or Henry’s lily, a Chinese species that also grows tall, producing burnished orange flowers with recurved petals.\u00a0 Its other parent is the Japanese Lilium speciosum Rubrum, a fragrant rose-colored lily with just a hint of a white edge and the same recurved petals as L. henryi and Black Beauty.\u00a0 It’s no surprise that the union of two such strong growers would produce a tough, beautiful offspring.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Black Beauty owes its existence to Leslie Woodriff (1910-1987), an Oregon-based plant breeder who later lived and worked in California.\u00a0 Woodriff was celebrated for his lilies and rhizomatous begonias, and bred many that are still in commerce.\u00a0 While Black Beauty has enjoyed enduring popularity, Woodriff’s best known creation is undoubtedly Stargazer, the extremely fragrant, pink and white lily that is ubiquitous in the florists’ trade and common in home gardens as well.\u00a0 The story of the breeding, selling and patenting of Stargazer is detailed in author Amy Stewart’s expos\u00c3\u00a9 of the cut flower trade, Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers<\/em> (Algonquin 2006).
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like many of its lily counterparts, Black Beauty likes sunshine.\u00a0 Soggy soil will rot the bulbs, so make sure to place them in a location with good drainage.\u00a0 It may help to amend clay soil, though my Black Dragon lilies are growing in clay and don’t seem to mind.\u00a0
\n<\/font><\/font>Merchants who are trying to sell Black Beauty bulbs may assert that the plants don’t need staking–which may be true if you live in a location that never gets even the slightest breeze.\u00a0 However, if your garden doesn’t fit that description, it’s a good idea to stake the tall stalks, either singly, which is tedious if you have a lot of lilies; or by putting stakes and green plant tape or string around the entire clump.\u00a0 Green bamboo stakes are best for this purpose, as they are less noticeable.\u00a0 You can avoid the staking problem by growing your Black Beauties where they can lean against a fence, building or even neighboring tall shrubs.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I tell everyone that I meet to mulch everything in their gardens, and Black Beauties love a nice helping of mulch.\u00a0 Like clematis they prefer to have their heads in the sun and their feet in the shade.\u00a0 Since they are on the gangly side, it’s helpful to underplant with something lower growing, like nepeta, also known as catmint.\u00a0 The Walker’s Low variety is just right for such an application.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Black Beauty is so lovely, hardy and reliable that it is a favorite among lily aficionados.\u00a0 The North American Lily Society conducts a lily popularity poll each year. When the members place a particular lily atop the popularity poll for three years, it is removed to the NALS Hall of Fame.\u00a0 Black Beauty was the first Hall of Fame selection, and was later joined there by another Lilium henryi offspring, White Henryi, in addition to a lily bred by and named after Leslie Woodriff.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Baby boomer gardeners are mid century modern creations themselves and should feel a natural affinity for Black Beauty.\u00a0 Everyone else can simply appreciate its timeless good looks.\u00a0 Of all the things introduced in 1957–including the Edsel automobile–few have held up as well as the Black Beauty lily.
\n<\/font><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Many catalog and Internet vendors sell Black Beauty.\u00a0 You can find it, along with its parents, Lilium speciosum Rubrum and Lilium henryi, at Old House Gardens, 536 Third St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103, (734) 995-1486, www.oldhousegardens.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Catalog $2.00.\u00a0 Find Black Beauty, Lilium Henryi and Lilium Stargazer at Brent & Becky’s Bulbs, 7900 Daffodil Lane, Gloucester, VA 23061, (804) 693-3966.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MID CENTURY MODERN \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you study shelter magazines, read the home and garden section of major newspapers or watch Antiques Roadshow on television, you already know that “mid century modern”\u009d furniture, architecture and accessories are riding the biggest wave of popularity since the original one washed across the United States in the nineteen fifties … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1721,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/1721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}