Blackberry Lily
A Beginner's Guide to the Blackberry Lily
The blackberry lily is a perennial plant with a gorgeous floral display that is also sometimes called leopard lily. It is a plant that is native to China, Japan and eastern parts of Russia. Although it is called a lily, more recent DNA analysis indicates that it actually belongs to the Iris family.
The flowers of this plant make it popular with gardeners looking for vivid hues in their landscape. The shape of the yellow or orange flower with its crimson spots is like those of the iris plant in that it has six sharply tapered uniform-looking petals arranged around a rhizome in a circular formation. However, it is also distinctly different from the iris in that the flowers or on 2 to 3 feet tall stems. The spiky flowers can make the stems top-heavy and it can look floppy if not properly staked to deal with heavy winds. The flowers are really very short-lived as often they last only for a day but in the blooming season, which is summer, there is a great frequency of blossoms that always gives the plant a vibrant look. The other element of this plant that is visually interesting is the seed heads that appear after the flowering period. First there are seed capsules shaped like pears which fade in color from green to tan and after these split open, we get to see clusters of black seeds that look like blackberries - which have earned the plant its name. The seeds remain on the stalk for months and make it an ornamental plant even when not in bloom. There are gardeners who choose it for the drama of the blackberry look and some florists use it in arrangements for the very same reason.
The blackberry lily is usually grown from seeds and it starts flowering from the first season if it is started with sufficient growing time. It is best to plant the seeds in warm soil with a 1/4 inch depth in indoor pots in late winter. In an evenly damp and moist seedbed, you can expect to see germination within 2 weeks. Within 6-8 weeks it will be ready for the outdoors whether as a container plant or to be planted in the ground. It is important to wait until there is no danger of late frost. Remember that the plant does well in light shade and full sun when choosing a location for it in the garden. Also, while the plant is visually interesting it is not very showy and it may be a good idea to place it where it can be enjoyed from nearby rather than from afar. It will also be a good idea to pair them with other blooming plants so that that section of the garden does not look empty until the blackberry lily starts flowering. The plant is popular used in containers, as part of perennial borders and for naturalizing less formally laid our areas of the landscaped garden.
The blackberry lily does well in fertile and loamy soil that needs to be well drained although it can handle sandy and clay soils as well. It is interesting to note that the species tends to grow taller in richly moist soil while it is shorter in drier, poorer soil. The plant is known to do well in hardiness zones 8 to 10 although there is evidence that it can be grown in zone 4 also. This perennial does not need any special winter maintenance and tends to handle its own over-wintering needs. In fact, the blackberry seed heads can make it an ornamental presence in the garden even during the winter months.
All you need to do in terms of maintenance and care is regular deadhead to increase the flowering period. Dead-heading can also help reduce self-seeding as this can be a real problem in some places. It has become something of an invasive self-sower in some regions of north-eastern US where it has been naturalized. The seedlings can be identified easily and moved without too much difficulty and so whether you want to increase or reduce the presence of the blackberry lily in your garden it can be done fairly easily in the spring and early autumn months.
Hello Yellow is a cultivar of this species and it grows to 1 1/2 to 2 feet and produces striking yellow flowers.