Our amaryllis belladonna is in bloom again. It has at least a dozen stems of very fragrant flowers this year. After the leaves died down, the flower stems appeared from the dry bare earth and opened up into clusters of flowers in only about 2 weeks in late July.
Amaryllis belladonna requires almost no care in our climate. I never water or fertilize it. They live off wintertime rains. I only need to clean up the dead leaves in June and the dead flower stems in September.
I think I planted only one amaryllis belladonna bulb about 10 years ago in this spot, but it has multiplied into several bulbs over the years. It took years to come into flower, but now it flowers reliably every summer. I see amaryllis belladonna flowers all around the Bay Area. They often grow in untended dry areas, such as in strips between the sidewalk and the street.
August 10 2012 | Amaryllis | Comments Off on Amaryllis Belladonna
These are 3 pictures of flowers blooming in our yard this summer. The first picture shows an Amaryllis belladonna plant. These beautiful fragrant light pink flowers have appeared for the second year in a row from a bulb that I planted in the ground several years ago. The flower stems appear from the bare earth about a month after the leaves turn brown and die in June. Ours has about 10 flower stems this year, about twice as many as last year.
The second picture shows a cluster of purple dahlias that I planted in one of our raised bed gardens last year. These dahlias have grown vigorously and bloomed profusely in our raised beds, which get watered regularly and have some protection from snails and slugs. When I tried to grow dahlias in the ground a few years ago, snails devoured them.
The third pictures shows a group of hollyhocks growing in another one of our raised bed gardens. I planted the hollyhocks by seed last summer. They have grown very quickly over the past year with regular watering, but no fertilizer. Some of our hollyhocks are now over 8 feet tall. Our hollyhocks started blooming in early July, and they were full of dozens of flowers of various shades of pink and white for over a month. Now they are starting to fade. This picture was taken about a month ago.
August 20 2011 | Amaryllis and Dahlias and Hollyhock | Comments Off on Summer Flowers