Tag: Naked Ladies

Secret Garden

By Anita Garner

Return of the Naked Ladies

Have you ever moved into a home previously inhabited by an avid gardener and watched as the seasons reveal what’s already been planted and lovingly tended?  I’ve lived many places and a couple of times before I’ve had the pleasure of watching unexpected gifts reveal themselves in gardens planned by someone else.

August in certain Northern California counties  is prime time for spotting Naked Ladies.  Driving through Napa and Sonoma and Marin Counties, rows of them line the road. Clumps pop up in cracks in concrete where it would seem nothing could grow. Now my family’s in Sacramento County where I hadn’t seen any so far this season.

I just returned from traveling, let the pups out, looked way back toward the fence and thought my eyes were playing tricks.  Naked Ladies. Right here in our own back yard.

This home and these gardens were brought to life by a dear friend over several decades.  We oohed and aahed over her beloved rose garden, the trees of all sizes that shade this place, the strawberry and tomato plants that march along the side fence. When Pam moved here decades ago, she was greeted by enormous asparagus ferns that still stand tall and carry their age well.

I don’t remember seeing these Naked Ladies here during her lifetime, but here they are, two big clumps of them, obscured earlier by that prolific rose garden.  One is tucked up against the back fence, nearly hidden by ferns, the other just peeked out from  behind a row of roses now finished with their blooming cycle.

I’m not so much a gardener as a garden appreciator. I’ve loved these Ladies for years and the only thing I knew about them is that they take their name from their stems with no leaves. Here’s more.

They’re in the lily family, starting life as a bulb. During the winter a plant with leaves appears, looking like any other plant.  Then the leaves die away and you can easily forget about them. A few months later during hot weather, up pops a bare stalk then another and another. They drop seeds which insure surprise sightings in years to come.  Once a bulb’s planted, you’ll never know how many will show up next season.

This has now exhausted most of the gardening words I know. More updates from the garden as nature provides.

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Waiting For The Naked Ladies

By Anita Garner

Naked Ladies show up in the oddest places in Northern California in July and all through August.  Clumps of them, pink and fragrant, with up to a dozen beautiful blooms on each leafless stem. They’re  energetic.  They’re sturdy.   They’re random.

They scatter all over the countryside in Napa and Sonoma and Marin in places where no one would have thought to plant them.  All of a sudden comes this magic in a distinct shade of pink, from a bed of weeds, a crack in a sidewalk, along fences, lining a country road, and in no particular formation. You have to smile at their tenacity and because critters don’t like them, they stay around a while.

There’s something mysterious and charming about them so I had to look it up.  Read on if you want to know too.

They’re in the lily family, starting life as a bulb. During the winter a plant with leaves appears, looking like any other plant.  Then the leaves die away and you can easily forget about them. A few months later during hot weather, up pops a bare stalk then another and another.

I wanted to know how they get scattered all over the place. Turns out they drop seeds which insure surprise sightings in years to come.  Once a bulb’s planted, you’ll never know how many will show up next season.

People say Naked Ladies are practically indestructible, but I assumed I’d lost the ones in my yard in Mill Valley a few years ago. A tree had to be removed right next to where the Naked Ladies bloomed the summer before.  Along with the tree and its roots, everything went.  Only dirt was left.

Then came the summer and overnight one bare stalk started pushing up, then another, beautiful and fragrant and naked.

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Here come the Naked Ladies.

By Anita Garner

People say Naked Ladies are practically indestructible, but I assumed I’d lost mine. Earlier this year in my yard, a tree had to be removed right next to where the Naked Ladies bloomed last summer, and everything around the tree got uprooted.

I like it best when Naked Ladies show up in unlikely places. At the edge of town there’s a strip of land alongside the road and that patch of earth, unlike the rest of this mostly manicured area  (Mill Valley is a very well kept little village) remains inexplicably overrun with weeds. Last summer, a gorgeous line-up of feisty Naked Ladies popped up in the midst of the weeds. I wonder how they got there. Hope they’re back this year.

Driving in Sonoma County to visit friends in Sebastopol, I turned off the freeway to take a parallel road through the beautiful countryside and Naked Ladies nodded at me all along my route. I arrived at the driveway of my Sebastopol friends and admired the profusion of Naked Ladies along their fence. My friend, the only person I’ve ever heard say a discouraging word about a perfectly harmless pink flower, said, “I don’t like them. Never have.” I asked what does he have against Naked Ladies and he said, “They make me sad. They have no leaves and that’s no way for a flower to be.”

I, on the other hand, applaud their fortitude. Within the last week, the Naked Ladies have started marching all over town, so just now I checked the bare spot in my front yard and sure enough, four of them are poking through. Soon, these little shoots will once again resemble the grownup Ladies in the picture above.

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