My Amaryllis belladonna is giving off a wonderful fragrance now. One of the easiest plants to grow - great in areas with no summer water, though they do well with water too. I have them scattered in about 5 areas throughout my front and back yard.
Part Deux: Breathe deep & tell us what smells wonderful...
And a closer look - wish the fragrance can transcend cyberspace. The bees love them.
SoilSandUp- How Beautiful...I want one!!
Many years ago, I was part of a group gathering to watch a Night Blooming Cereaus open....it was awesome.
I had a cactus (lost in a house fire) that had a similar bloom...very large & opened at night, just the one night. I believe it was a type of cereaus also. It was many years old (10+) and would usually throw about 5 or 6 blooms each summer
I got some! I got some!
Plumie Hilo Beauty
thornless natal plum. Flower smells like a jasmine or subtle gardenia. I hope I can succeed in propagating this beauty, I would like to have a gazillion more in my garden
What an intriguing plant! It aappears to be only 1-2" high and succulant type leaves. I love it. Hope you can prop it too, but surely it will spread and you can move small clumps. (maybe to NC! LOL)
The BellaDonna's look beautiful soilsandup, that's now on my list for next year. Love your red Plumeria Vossner, it's so deep, does it have a nice scent? Hmmm Natal plum that one sounds interesting, does it get many flowers on it? I've seen it advertised a few times but haven't jumped yet....but if it really smells like jasmine or gardenia then I may have to get one.
My plumeria I bought off ebay 1 1/2 years ago finally bloomed for the first time today I was so excited, I had been waiting for so long for this to bloom. The blooms are so large and it's a nice fragrance too.
thanks everyone. I love being in this forum and my focus in 2008 has been fragrance and butterflies. I learn a lot from y'all every day.
As far are the red plumies, they are delicious but my Candy Stripe and plumies from friends have been a lot more fragrant, IMO. I like the drama provided by the red flowers so I won't be dumping my red plumies into the compost pile any time soon.
as to the natal plum, mine was a solitary pot at the nursery, I can't believe my luck in finding it. It would be very easy to get in FL though. Just make sure you look for thornless, my cultivar is "Tomlinson".
As to roses, y'all come hang in the rose forum, it is a great place. Most fragrants of mine: Francis Dubrueil (sp?) and Sophy's Rose. But there are soooo many. I listen to what DGers say in the forum about fragrance. As you can imagine this topic comes up daily. But I don't just get them from frag., some I get strictly for form and I'm a big fan of the knockout roses, simply because they're unbeatable when it comes to maintenance. I'm a little sad that they're becoming overplanted, but hey, low maint and pretty, why shouldn't everybody have it? lol
Birdieblue and Astcgirl - Amaryllis belladonna are very easy to grow. Keep in mind that you may not get blooms for the first year or two after transplanting the bulbs, but they will bloom reliably every year after that. And, they lose their leaves in spring, have solitary naked stalks in August, and leaf out in the fall.
soilsandup - TY , how interesting..dropping leaves, flowering, then leafing out again.. Do they seed or are they primarily division plants?
Birdie Blue - they may seed, but I have never collected them. They spread by forming new bulbs - and they do spread freely. It is great for providing some greenery in the winter time, and then in the summer, I have other perennials growing around them to fill in the spaces. They also make wonderful cut flowers.
Fantastic Queen of the Night shot. Will have to add that Amaryllis belladonna to my wish list. Beautiful plumies.....vossner I'm with you on the Natal Plum- too bad it is so slow growing! Here is a late bloom picture. This was another plant from before DG/before organized labeling.....it was a plug that I grew bigger and didn't even know it had bloomed.........I think it is white butterfly ginger.
mmmmm I can smell that butterfly ginger from here, I picked up a couple of tubers at the USF sale, so I'll have a bit of a wait till I get to smell them again.....but it will be worth the wait.
Gorgeous vase full Soilsandup, will have to find somewhere for them to....now they are a must have.
soilsandup, do your pink naked ladies ever get a bluish tint at the tip of the petals?
Fauna - it is great that your butterfly ginger is flowering already. I still don't have any buds on mines yet. I am in the same zone as you, Astc - so we should get blooms around Sept/Oct? And that is a great Queen of the night shot. I have never smelled one before.
Vossner - no, I have never noticed any bluish tint at the tip of my naked lady petals. I bought a few white naked ladies a couple of years ago, but no bloom yet. They have not multiplied yet either, so they must not be nearly as robust as the pink ones. I hate to move them to a different spot and risk delaying the possibility of blooms even more.
Any one out there have experience with the white belladonnas?
i bought some from easy to grow bulbs but no action. I can't even remember where I planted them.
Plumies? Did someone mention plumies (hmmm, did I post this already?)
I haves my brugs blooming, love Maya & my Star Dancer best. Also the PeanutButter Shrub http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/120557/ that is alive with butterflies. My Nano Blue butterfly bush is very fragrant. My hostas are blooming also, Fragrant Bouquet, August Moon, Honeybells and my all time favorite fragrant Regal. Also a plummie, sweet autumn clematis, confederate jasmine, wild petunias, & 4 o'clocks. Sadly my gingers aren't blooming yet--it's so dry :(
The crinums are full of blooms today.
Gee Fauna, which Crinium is that?
Elaine, which plant are you speaking of?? I do miss Carmen, bless her soul, she's one of the reasons I left DG for a while.
I think it is this one: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/93830/
f4f, i almost made a comment about it. I think it is crinum a. var. procerum. I have it, too and mine just bloomed also.
Could be! Basically it is big green crinum that you see everywhere down here. I never really have had a definitive ID, so I'm glad you piped up.
hmmm. mine is not green, mine is reddish (see pic by JeanneTx in PF). Mine looks exactly like hers.
but the flower looks like yours
grrr, zone envy.
But envy this, my lilacs and wisteria often bloom twice a year :>P I was just smelling a few wisteria blooms the other day.
i'm envious, i'm envious! lol
I wasn't going to post this picture- not the best and yes, one of these days I'll get my gardener/helper back.......maybe I should put it in the ID forum so I can go ahead and really know what it is.......
f4f, ck this website for crinums. This is the first place I ever go when researching crinums, you're bound to find yours there. BTW, I just looked up procerum and it means "tall" nothing to do w/ reddish leaves.
http://www.marcellescrinums.com/html/crinum-species/crinum-procerum.html
I've got a new scent that just came up....Fragrant Gladiolus aka Gladiolus callianthus. I planted about 100 bulbs and those that survived my squirrels decided to start blooming right now. It's a faint scent but very nice and sweet. Cute little flower.
OMG Fauna! What a gorgeous picture of your crinum!
Astcgirl, I grinned with your post. I got 100 gladioulos this year too, when I got the package in the mail I thougt " What was I thinking???!" hahaha!
I planted glad callianthus when it was aka acidanthera. Lovely but strange plant. Mine are just beg. to put some greens and last year they bloomed for the first time in 3 years in December?!? The fragrance was lovely. Back them, I had great hope for this plant. These days it's fallen in the "if they work fine, if not, oh well..." category
I had high hopes for this plant too because it would have been a great addition to my late summer flowering plants. But, the fragrance of the ones I had were very, very slight, the flowering was uneven, and then after 2-3 years, they succumbed to thrips. I wish that was the end of the saga, but the acidanthera (Vossner - that was the name that I originally knew it by, and that is the name that stuck) was and is such a prolific producer of bulblets that I am still pulling them out from the three places in my yard that I originally put them in. It was not a plant that I thought would be so hard to get rid of.
Astcgirl - I hope you have better luck with yours. From your picture, it is starting out nicely.
I had no plans with this plant....just threw them in thinking if they made it it would be a bonus...since they smell. So far only 1 has bloomed out of I'd say 50 (the other 50 disappeared with the squirrels!) I just put them all around in different places....extra bulbets would be a bonus, I like it so far, I like the scent and the height.....I may change my mind like yourselves after a couple of years though....especially when I will have more reliable bloomers....I can see your point though.
I'm just so bad at saying "NO" to fragrant plants.....it's just so hard. If it says it's fragrant it mysteriously ends up in my shopping cart and paid for....must be the fragrant fairy
I am afraid to breathe deep. Beckygardener convinced me to add fish emulsion to the morning glory pots on the back deck.......eewwww. I guess if I were a possum...or a bear.... it might be a welcome 'fragrance.' Each morning I think I am going to find the pots raided.
LOL re the fish emulsion...I swear by that stuff...I'll "one up you though" - I decided to give many things a "head start" while they were INDOORS still...the teens still have forgiven me for THAT one...LOL
whoo whee - and that stuff sticks to the inside of the nose --- driving to work -----I kept 'sniffing' and wondering how long it would take for all those lovely folks I work with to meet at the ole water cooler for a chat ... I figured by the end of the day, I'd find a prescription on my desk for an antibiotic creme!! HA!
doncha think it's a wonderful irony that we'd use stinky fish emulsion to promote heavenly fragrance? lol
hahaha!