The last of the lilies

Casa Blanca

Fragrance is one of the main reasons I devote so much time and energy to gardening. You can’t buy it; you have to grow it. The florists shops are filled with flowers bred for durability and showy blooms. Fragrance tends to diminish or in many cases disappear altogether.

The queen of the fragrant lilies is Casa Blanca which appears in mid-July and disappears in early August. I've heard some people describe its fragrance as cloying, sugary, like cotton candy. To me, it's a heavenly scent--more like vanilla laced with a whiff of musk.

Then the species lilies with their elongated stamens. They are fragrant but you have to be up close-- unlike Casa Blanca, one of which can perfume a large garden. The first to bloom is the statuesque Black Beauty which can reach over 6 feet tall.

Then the delicate white species lilies:

And finally speciosum rubrum, the last of which is blooming in my garden in late August.