Dragons in the garden

The spires of r=tall snapdragons, good for cutting. — Ian Lee/Flickr

It was St. George, you recall, who as hero of the "Golden Legend" slew the dreadful dragon that in days of yore devoured unmarried maidens in the west of merry England.

After he saved the king’s daughter from this awful fate and won the gratitude of the populace, George’s fortunes soared. He ultimately became England’s patron saint and a figurehead for the royal military.

But somewhere along the way, he also came to be associated with woodland sprites, spring festivals and a character named Green George, who presided over May Day revels. In a ritual fertility ceremony, he was married to the Queen of the May, setting off "rowdy jollifications that sometimes got out of hand," according to my sources.

One claimant for the site of George’s battle with the fire-breathing monster is Uffingham in Berkshire, near the Oxfordshire border. Dragon Hill, a spot where nothing grows, is purportedly the location where the blood of the mortally wounded dragon soaked the ground.

Funny how we start with heroics and wind up with horticultural issues.

I think of George whenever I contemplate my own living, breathing garden dragons — snapdragons, that is, a summer bloomer also known in England as dragon’s mouth.

There’s no evidence that George was familiar with this flower, although he may well have encountered it. Known to the Romans, the cultivated form was spread through the whole of the Roman Empire, and remnants of the original colonies still bloom among the ruins of Roman temples and amphitheaters — maybe at the base of Hadrian’s Wall in the northern British Isles. Lacking facts, we can speculate.

St. George slaying the dragon. — Hans von Aachen/Public domain

Even George himself had some difficulty dispatching the dragon with his trusty lance. Likewise, it takes a strong and courageous character to beard the snapdragon in his den.

Honeybees and moth-like syrphid flies are entirely unable to penetrate this flower; in feeding, they resort to stealing just whatever bits of pollen may have stuck to the snapdragon’s tightly closed lips. Only the much larger bumblebees and hummingbirds can pry open the mouth of the beast and enter to seize the sweet prize, accomplishing pollination in the process.

Children (and the childlike) have no difficulty viewing the awe-inspiring maw of the snapdragon. Gently pinch the flower behind the "jaws," and the mouth pops open with a snap, revealing toothy prongs of petal and stamen deep inside. How can you resist this fierce flower, especially since it does not require the sacrifice of virgin maids for health and vigor, merely modest amounts of fertilizer and regular watering?

I’m inordinately fond of snapdragons, which are usually grown as an annual but often survive mild winters to bloom again through another season. My best run was with some ‘White Rocket’ snaps that lived seven years before petering out. The current, second-year stand of pink ones have been just spectacular and are regrouping (after a trim) to continue the show into the fall.

Snapdragons are easy to grow in full sun and reasonably fertile soil that isn’t allowed to dry out. You can sow seed indoors in March or early April, but raising seedlings is a little ticklish and it’s probably easier to buy transplants for setting out in mid-May. Be sure to deadhead spent flowers to keep the blooms coming.

Although many garden centers seemed fixated on dwarf varieties like ‘Little Darling,’ I favor the taller kinds that are good for cutting, like the ‘Rocket’ and ‘Sonnet’ series. Since I’ve heard it exists, I’m hot on the trail of ‘Black Prince’ in honor of our hero George. I plan to introduce him to "Princess,’ and if things turn out as they do in fairy tales, they’ll have a fine romance and we’ll have an excuse for rowdy jollifications.