out the summer to flavor soups and salads. '

out the summer to flavor soups and salads.

' Use Lilies for Color

All Through Season

Lilies are a highly deverse groups of summer flowering perennials that can provide the novice or the experienced gardener with a highly rewarding, continuous show of color from June through October. Careful selection of varieties not only provides a prolonged profusion of color, but also a diversity in flower shape, color of blossoms and size of plants. Yellows and oranges predominate, but whites, pinks and reds are readily available. Although some varieties reach over eight feet tall, the newer hybrids that bloom at between two and three feet easily integrate themselves into most flower borders.

Foxtail lilies, which are really an Eremus, make dramatic accents in the early summer, producing tall spikes covered with hundreds of starry bells. Some species reach as tall as 10 feet, so unless you design a giant-sized flower border, be careful to select from the shorter species, three to four feet tall. Actually grown from tubers rather than true bulbs, foxtail lilies are more difficult to establish than most of the hardy bulbs, but are well worth the effort.

Blackberry Lily Blooms 1

In Late Summer

Another favorite for late summer bloom is the blackberry lily. Actually a member of the iris family, this plant is started from division of rhizomes or fleshy underground stems. In August and September, graceful sprays of small, red-spotted, orange flowers appear, producing a tickgreen, capsule-type fruit. Later in the fall, the capsules split to reveal clusters of black seeds, resembling blackberries, thus its name. These seed heads are interesting in dried flower arrangemfents. i

(Dr. Diane Relf is a horticulture specialist with Virginia Cooperative Extension and is a member of the faculty of Virginia Tech.)