Yesterday my garden was filled with naked ladies. Pink ladies danced in the breeze among elephant ears, beneath the protective leaves of banana trees.
It was only in May that they filled my beds with their thick, flat, green leaves while the ladies hid beneath the spring soil. Those leaves have been gone just long enough for me to forget their promised arrival. There has been no sign of my ladies for about a month. Now overnight they have awakened, poking pale pink arms through dry dusty clay. Pink blossoms appeared out of nowhere; pastel coiffures above long, thin, leafless stems like a hungry ballerina chorus, each dancer reaching above her head ready to sway to the music of garden.
3 comments:
Beautiful ladies.
Costas
Your ladies are not Amaryllis belladonna but Nerines which grow in a similar way but have a different flower shape. There used to be four species but now there are a number of cultivars also.
The original species were deep pink, white and a vermillion red with a very full flowerhead as well as a very fetching pink one that bloomed while it was in leaf. In higher rainfall areas the whit variety also keep their leaves.
I wish I could send you some but unfortunately they would not get through customs.
PS If you can avoid it, do not transplant them as that very often inhibits flowering for a number of years.
Thanks for the information, Arija. I do transplant them often, actually dividing and moving replanting. I have had very good luck with flowers appearing after one year of regrowth. Maybe my climate and dirt works well for them.
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