I remember that my Grandfather Barnett raised the “dinner-plate” type of these flowers when I was a youngster… but I only began to grow them about 10 years ago, when I was given several bulbs by an acquaintance. In fact, they were the first of what is now a yearly robust avalanche of this big white variety, which I’ve divided to plant several patches of. I enjoy gathering just a few too many of these lovelies into a blowsey bunch into an old pewter vase…
Another vase collected the “stray” blooms more haphazardly up on the wide bedroom window sill, where there is a similarly loose collection of animal sculptural pieces: one of a pair of crystal birds; a cast iron dog & several long cherished pottery oil lamps by my friend Dwight Davidson… a humorous cobalt Holstein cow & one of the ducks which were his earliest production pieces. Each of these has some story, of course.
