Plant-A-Day 2020 (Day 121) Camassia quamash

Here are some native flowers that are relatively new additions to the memory garden, planted in the fall of 2018. They bloomed well for me in May of 2019 and are blooming again now, in May 2020. From grass-like foliage, they send graceful sprays of the bluest star flowers. I’ve only seen these growing wild once in my life, down in a vacant lot in Centralia with a lot of other native wildflowers that were unfamiliar to me. Below are pictures of those plants, with the larger photos from my own garden.

I’m still learning how to garden with these. I want the foliage and any seeds to ripen, so I don’t want to plant anything to smother them over the summer as I might with tulips or narcissus.

For 2020, my goal is to add a bunch more of these to the native plant garden that we just created. I also plan to feed the existing bulbs a few times to make sure they continue to grow and thrive.