flower query

[celticdragonfly]

Okay, anybody want to identify this flower? It's something from a bulb, I can tell that much.



There's a closeup here

It sprouted and blossomed in the planter area in front of our house, next to the "porch" area.

Comments

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

Looks like an amyrillis to me. I like 'em, very pretty for such easy care plants!

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

Yup, an amaryllis. They grow from bulbs and come in white, pink, red and red- and pink- striped with white. Personally, I think the all red and all white ones are really spectacular.

They behave like daffodils and narcissus. Once they die back, if you dig up the bulbs and separate them all out (think of breaking up garlic cloves), replant them. They probably won't bloom the first year, but the second year, you've got amaryllis blooming all over the place. The bulbs range in price from $3 to $5 per, so propagating your own is a really cheap way to get some spectacular early blooms on the cheap.

My front planter has paperwhites and little apricot/yellow daffodils under the strawberries. Most of the year I've got a nice bed of strawberries, but every November the paperwhites come up and bloom fragrantly, and then in February the apricot cups come up. When they die back, the strawberries are ready to take over blooming and producing berries. Yum!

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I presume you can propagate all bulbs that way? I wanted to plant a BUNCH of bulbs when we moved in last fall, as I'd been told that was the time to do it, but I was just too sick with the pregnancy, so I'm planning on trying again this fall. Pretty though the amaryllis is, it wouldn't be my first choice - I'd go for irises, and I don't remember the names of the others I saw, mostly lots of blue and purple stuff. I'd love to have strawberries, are they hard to grow? Do you start them from seed? I have a black thumb, so I figure I stick with things like bulbs that come up on their own.

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

Yes, you can propagate all bulbs like that. However, if bulbs have been forced or broken up, you'll miss a year of blooms because the stored food/energy in the bulbs have been used up by the forcing or broken apart. "Naturalizing" bulbs means a clump of them has been allowed to grow for a couple or three years-- but it's recommended that one digs them up and separates them all out every three to five years for best yield. Bulb propagation is very cheap and you get quite a lot of yield over a few years.

Iris are rhizomes and are not quite the same thing. They're grown from rooty things called corms. I don't know how to propagate them. They're reliable re-bloomers once established; plant a clump and they'll come back year after year just like bulbs.

The easiest way to grow strawberries is to buy a flat. They spread on runners like spiderplants, so they're best confined by a border. You can grow them from seed. I am not familiar with how they deal with frost, so I'm not so sure you can assume they'll winter over. Violets are another easy-care runner-spreader plant similar in habit to strawberries that produce beautifully scented subtle little flowers that I'm sure Maggie would love. Violets can handle frost.

If you decide to go with bulbs, keep in mind that different varieties bloom at different times of the year, die back and then there's nothing showing for the majority of the year. That's why I paired mine with strawberries, so I wouldn't have a weedy or empty border bed during 3/4 of the year. And the strawberries are a nice sweet bonus. ;)

Another idea

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

Looks like the amaryllis my sister gave me for Christmas. Beautiful, aren't they?

They aren't hardy up north here, but I can apparently keep it indoors all summer, put it in a dark place in the fall, and it will bloom again next year sometime. (Probably after I put the Xmas decorations away, which is what I did with it this year.) You're lucky that you can grow them outside, which would be much easier.