Looking for a New Pet? Try an Orienpet

Most of us gardeners get nursery catalogs off and on throughout the year. I just got a John Scheeper's catalog for spring bulbs you plant in the fall. I've already dog-eared a half dozen pages and circled items on each of them. Along with the ones I'm thrilled to get, I also get some of the more discount catalogs. Names that come to mind are Park Seed and Holland Bulbs and, yes, I usually flip through those, too. One thing I've always noticed about the more mass-market discount catalogs is they all seem to share the same bank of dated product photos. There's a little boy dressed in 1950s style with his balsa wood plane stuck in this enormous hedge. Or the gentleman standing next to an elephant ear plant that's bigger than he is. Most memorable for me is one with a little girl from another era standing under this gigantic stand of lilies. They tower over her like the carnivorous plant from "Little Shop of Horrors" but in all actuality, these lilies are real and they're called Orienpet lilies. Again, I've seen Orienpet lilies offered in catalogs over the years, but I have shied away from them, thinking they're just a little over-the-top gaudy. What are they? Well, they're a cross between Oriental lilies and Trumpet/Aurelian lilies and they grow up to 8 feet tall! Oriental lilies are so welcome in our late summer gardens. Just when most perennials have produced their last flush of flowers, my Casa Blanca and Stargazer Lilies begin to open and release their heavenly scents. I'm particularly partial to Casa Blanca because they're white and look like egrets flying low over the top of the other plants in the garden. At dusk, they're simply striking and heaviest with scent. Visiting the English cottage garden at the Crane Estate in Ipswich, Massachusetts a few weeks ago, I came across two massive clumps of lilies as tall as I was and I knew I'd stumbled upon Orienpets. Just like my Casa Blanca and Stargazers, I could smell them from yards away and one clump actually looked like Stargazers on steroids. Another large clump further along the path was vivid yellow and though yellow flowers in the garden aren't my favorite, they absolutely glowed in the sun. According to a 2006 Chicago Tribune article, "Filling a Tall Order," Orienpet lilies were first developed in the 1940s by American hybridizer, Leslie Woodriff by crossing an Oriental lily with a trumpet lily — which was no small task given the genetic and chromosome barriers of two distinct species. No stranger to a challenge, it turns out it was Woodriff who, in 1974, also introduced to the world perhaps the most beloved Oriental lily: Stargazer. Upon arriving home from our trip, I wanted to know a little more about Orienpets so I Googled them. Well, wouldn't you know it, one of the first things that popped up in my search results was a summer sale ad from Holland Bulbs. Though it's way too late in the season to be planting bulbs that should bloom in the summer, I went ahead and ordered a bag of three Orienpet bulbs. Along with a few other things. I planted the bulbs as soon as they arrived. A little on the soft side, I'm hopeful but realistic. Same with the other bags of regular Oriental lilies. And with the eight clumps of Siberian iris that I quickly potted up and are sitting on my back porch. No signs of life yet but I'm hopeful.