I had lily of the valley growing in my pasture, in full sun and terrible soil, and I spent years trying to get rid of it because it's toxic to livestock. You'll find it growing along roadsides in massive drifts, too. I will admit, when the breeze was just right the perfume was intoxicating, but I wouldn't plant it purposely.
@Slow-worm I wish crocosmia would grow like that here; I can barely keep it alive. I think it's just too cold in the winter, and I'm too lazy to dig up bulbs to store over the winter.
New England, USA
Metacomet soil with hints of Woodbridge and Pillsbury
That's right. I had several stems with the seed capsules on. I am still really annoyed with myself for binning what I thought was an empty container when my lily of the valley were dormant.
In Wales we dug up a small clump ..illegally.... in the grounds of an old house...just before the bull dozer went in to flatten the house and build umpteen new houses.
Planted under an oak tree away from any precious plants they did rather well!
However, there's a house round the corner from me, where the front garden is south facing, and raised a couple of feet above the pavement level, with a wall supporting it. Convallaria runs right along the edge of the wall in a little gap between the wall and the grass. If it's well watered initially, it can cope with those drier conditions no problem. Our climate suits it too, regardless of site.
My dad had a patch of it in a raised border along the side of his house; the soil was like concrete and dry as a bone, the LoV just an impenetrable mass. Since then I've always thought of LoV as a bit uninspiring.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
We have had our Lily of the valley for quite a few years and they are spread around the garden, even growing in a lawn, have to watch when mowing, plenty of leaf now.
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"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Planted under an oak tree away from any precious plants they did rather well!
CONVALLARIA MAJOR VIC PAWLOWSKIS GOLD .
I am not keen on this one.