Tag Archives: Nerine filifolia

Plant Collector: Nerine filifolia

The daintiest of nerines - N. filifolia

The daintiest of nerines – N. filifolia

Nerines are a star of our autumn garden so the appearance of N.filifolia always arouses that slight sense of autumnal melancholy in me, coinciding as it does with the realisation that the days are getting shorter again. But the references tell me that in fact it is summer flowering and certainly it is always the first nerine to bloom here. It is also the daintiest member of that family that we have. It is tiny. While the stems can be about 25cm long, individual flowers are only a cm across at most with particularly frilly, waved petals in deep pink and nine flowers to each head.

The filifolia part of the name means fine foliage, grass-like in the vernacular. With us it is evergreen. In harder climates, it may lose its leaves. Like all nerines, it is a South African bulb, from the Eastern Cape area. It builds up easily and is not fussy in the garden, as long as it doesn’t get swamped by stronger growing plants.

Nobody could call it spectacular. It is just one of those little treasures that adds detail and seasonal interest to the garden. The problem will be sourcing bulbs. You will probably only find it from bulb specialists or other gardeners, though Trade Me is always worth watching for odd plants that are not widely available these days.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday March 2, 2012

Latest posts Friday March 2, 2012

1) Space limitations in the Waikato Times this week means there is only one new post from there at this time – Gardening with grasses. Shun the contrived use of dwarf grasses forced into an unnatural role as an edger but use them instead in mixed plantings with perennials with a debt to the prairie style of gardening.

2) Judging by the visitor statistics to my website this week, it seems unlikely that anyone has missed the piece on what looks mighty like plagiarism + Penguin + Sally Cameron + Tui garden guides Round Two – More bad Penguin. It resulted in an immediate recall of a second book in the series (Tui NZ Vegetable Garden). There seems to be a bit of debate about whether it is entirely the author’s fault or whether the publisher must also bear some of the blame. Frankly, I think Penguin has to take some of responsibility – at the very least for choosing such an ill equipped author in the first place. Too many corners cut in trying to get that series of books onto the market.

3) In the absence of other original posts all I can do is to recommend a YouTube clip which was the source of great delight to me this week. A lawnmower who learns to dream big. And in case you think that was computer generated trickery, we have the rather more mundane clip which shows it is … real. Remote controlled flying lawnmower.
We are not optimistic that our Walker mower has the capacity to fly.

Nerine filifolia

Nerine filifolia

Looking out the window this morning at the swimming pool, Mark commented that clearly the swimming season was over for the summer and at least I had had a swimming season whereas he had not even been in this year! The only consolation about the most disappointing summer we can ever recall is that we were not alone. Most of the country has been similarly afflicted and indeed, our daughters in Sydney and Canberra tell us the same thing! Shared disappointments are so much easier to cope with. And gardeners move on. Autumn is here. The autumn bulbs are starting – Haemanthus coccineus with its red paintbrush blooms, the lovely blue Moraea polystachya, cyclamen, Rhodophiala bifida and the first of the nerines. Nerine filifolia is evergreen with us and is simply the daintiest, most charming little rockery nerine you are likely to see. I potted some to sell a couple of years ago and not a soul wanted to buy them so these days we just keep them to delight ourselves.