If it isn't too much to remember to do, I'd be interested if you could come back in the fall and tell us how this project turned out. Here are some questions I'd like to hear about: We still don't know what these are, but I'm guessing Oriental Lilies? Did you buy dwarf, lowgrowers? How many bulbs were you able to stuff into one basket? How tall did the stalks grow, as compared to expectations for bulbs planted in the ground? How long did the blooms last, and how many per stalk? When the blooms faded, did you leave them in the basket, or plant out in the ground? Did you move the basket elsewhere for the stalk to mature for next years flowers? When you repot them for the next season, I'm wondering if the bulbs will have grown in size, as they do in good fertile ground where there's room to pull themselves down and get 'comfortable' or have they shrunk? Also, was there room for the bulbs to multiply/divide -- did you find smaller bulbs had grown in there as well? And did you water, if there's no rainfall where they're hanging? Do your friends who don't water, also grow in baskets? Any other comments on how they turned out would be of interest, too. Nell

We have orange Ditch Lilies, came with the house. I moved some, put them out in the road ditch! They are extremely nice there, help hold the soil shape for water runoff. We have a large pipe under the road and it really gets roaring with spring and fall rains. Those lilies do a great job, along with the cattails, of breaking the flow, turning the water flow down to softly running along. Prevent the forced water from carving out the side of ditch, eroding the whole field. These lilies don't care if they spend a month or two under water when the ditch floods. We just mow around them in the ditches and their bed in the yard. It prevents spreading, and I only have narcissis and bushes in their bed, so no conflicts. Narcissis blooms earlier, dries up and disappears when the lilies arise. Bushes are higher, seem ok. I would not put these orange lilies in a regular, mixed plant bed of perennials. They just out-compete other plants. However mowing the whole bed, preventing any leaf growth will kill them back, along with the dog running thru them and breaking off foliage. I like seeing the orange lilies, just not everywhere, so the lawnmower is your friend. I was hoping for orange daylily-type spread when I planted my "other color" daylily plants. However they don't spread nearly as well or fast. I wanted the other ditch bank to have daylilies blooming over the summer. Still have lots of seperate clumps, darn it. Still have to mow the grass between them. Some are 10 years old, nice clumps, but still spaced apart. I am THINKING of going to massive fertilizing to get growth and flowers, no mowing.

Hostas? I had thought of planting hostas under bamboo, but thought shooting might be a problem. Were it something like H 'Undulata', who really cares, but if a shoot came up in the middle of a big, mature H sieboldiana, like 'Elegans' or 'Great Expectations', or some other desirable slow-grower, my wife would be most unhappy.

Damon, Your site looks ideal. The presence of the Skunk Cabbage suggests a soil composition that is organically rich in nutrients that have siltated into the area and probably where water tends to stand for prolonged periods of time. Look to see where the sphagnum grows in relation to the Symplocarpus. In fact you may want to draw a "floor plan" of the area noting roughly where can be found whatever is there and indicating the wettest spots and the driest spots. Have you checked out the water in the stream? To find out its pH, presence of organics, etc. and to find out what lies upstream that could imperil the colony. The site appears to be subjected to winter flooding and for this reason I would suggest that you find a location that lies protected from any strong flooding surges but one that is accessible to the existing creek via an intake channel and an outflow channel back into the creek. You will need to do some digging and measure out an area for the population to begin in. Dig out the top 12 to 18 inches and refill with a 50 50 mix of creek sand and and peat moss. Be sure the channel to the site is higher than the growing site and outflow slightly lower. This will take some adjustments but I suggest the inflow coming from the upstream portion and the outflow routed to the downstream portion of the creek-either need not be deep, maybe 2 to 3 inches to do the job. You will have to experiment. Once you get all of this done and the water is moving into and out of your bog and the bog is stable introduce some of the sphagnum moss you have growing there into the bog and see how it fares. You could also introduce a Darlingtonia as an experiment to see what happens. If it takes and looks healthy then go for more as you desire. Here are several links I recommend you either Favorite to read later or print out as suits you. Darlingtonia around Florence, Oregon US Forest Service-Darlingtonia Robert Ziemer Field Observations SF State Biogeography of Darlingtonia