I Used to Have…

Have you ever walked around your garden and thought to yourself, “I used to have fill-in-the-blank-with-missing-plant. Now where is it?”

I used to have a variegated toad lily. Now where is it?

Why are all the leaves so green on this toad lily, which is where I planted the variegated toad lily?

I know why they are all green.

This is/was my variegated toad lily!

As happens, variegated plants will send up all green shoots sometimes.

And those green leaves have more chlorophyll than the variegated leaves, so they grow stronger and produce more all-green shoots which grow stronger, which…

You get the idea.

They crowd out the variegated shoots.

But there’s hope for having a variegated toad lily here once again.

There are one, maybe two shoots of variegated leaves still hanging on. If they just hang on a little longer, next spring when they sprout up again, I’ll dig this entire toad lily up, separate the variegated shoots from the all-green shoots, and replant them together, away from the all-green shoots. That will give them a fighting chance.

And yes, of course, I’m saving all the green shoots! Even though I didn’t buy an all-green toad lily, the variegated one “gave” me one. It would be rude not to plant it somewhere.

Another toad lily nearby is sporting its gold variegation.

I’ve never seen it send up any all-green leaves like the variegated one. That’s good because how many toad lilies does one have time to fuss over?

And why are they called toad lilies?

And what is the name of the variegated toad lily? Tricrytis ‘Imperial Banner’.

And thank you for reading to the end of this post.