Tag Archives: nerines

Let there be flowers and the gentle change of seasons

In a world that seems to be growing more chaotic, unstable, downright dangerous and even vicious by the day, let there be flowers.

I know I am not alone in limiting my time following the news and on social media. Never in my life did I think I would be taking life guidance from RuPaul but his advice to ‘look at the darkness but don’t stare’ are words that I repeat to myself every day. It is one thing to be aware of what is happening but it can be overwhelming if I spend too much time following it closely.

The bright cheer of the dwarf helianthus makes me smile. This is a named cultivar but I have forgotten where I recorded the name.

Instead, I give you the gentle predictability of the change of season from summer to autumn here with photos from yesterday. I have used the shorter version of the helianthus in the borders but the tall leggy form – likely closer to the species or as it is found in the wild – seemed to fit better in the controlled abandon of the Court Garden. No more. We are in danger of losing it because it is not as capable of coping with competition as I thought. As soon as this remaining clump has finished flowering, I will relocate it to the more cultivated environment of the borders where it will be given its own space to thrive.

The Jerusalem artichoke is also a member of the helianthus family but it does not justify its place as an ornamental plant. Not enough flowers, I am afraid, but an abundance of tubers which I dare not eat. While tasty, no matter how hard I try, I can not find ways to prepare it that improve its digestibility without the unfortunate side effects. Its name as fartichoke is fully justified.

The heleniums are in the twilight of their season but remain eyecatching. These have one of the longer flowering seasons of the summer perennials and fully justify their prime position in the borders.

Cyclamen hederafolium are coming into their autumn peak and what a delight they are. We have many of them, many many in fact because we encourage them to seed down in their pretty pink and white charm. I am not a fan of the bigger cyclamen hybrids but the species are a source of great delight throughout the garden.

The rockery is hitting its stride with its autumn display. The colchicums are a fleeting delight but one we would not be without. The nerines are just starting, mostly red so far but plenty about to open in other colours. I live in hope that the Lycoris aurea will stage a reappearance. I planted a pot of flowering bulbs out in the rockery years ago but I can’t remember where and it has never flowered since. It may have gently withered away to nothing or it may still be masquerading as a random clump of nerines which I just haven’t noticed aren’t flowering. Perhaps our hot, dry summer will have triggered it to flower. Or maybe not.

We have two dwarf crabapples in the rockery, standing little more than 1.2metres high after about 50 years. Their flowering is insignificant and their form and foliage unremarkable but they justify their place with their ornamental fruit in autumn.

Moraea polystachya, an autumn form of the peacock iris, seeds around enthusiastically but harmlessly and rewards us by popping up randomly – on the edge of the drive in this photo – and having one of the longest seasons in flower of any of the autumn bulbs because it keeps opening a generous succession of buds.

The belladonnas are bold, a bit scruffy and have bulbs and foliage that are too large to make them obliging garden plants. But they are a welcome addition in wilder areas, in this case on the site of the old woodshed we removed this summer before it fell over of its own own accord. We don’t know anything about the grinding wheels except that Felix must have gathered them up fifty years ago and there are three in graduated sizes.

The first cymdidium orchid is opening. This somewhat understated one is always the first of the season and is a top performer in its spot, arching over the old stone millwheel which has been repurposed a bird bath.

Finally, camellia season has started. Camellia sasanqua ‘Crimson King’ is always one of the first to open. Even with climate change, there is a reassuring predictability in the cyclic nature of the seasons.

May there always be flowers. I can stare at them as long as I like without fear of being overwhelmed by a sense of despair, anxiety and helplessness. In the flowers and the seasons lie promise and joy and we need a whole lot more of that at this time.

Autumn nerines

The autumn rockery this week

Look at the nerines. Autumn stars, these are.

We grow a few different species but what is coming into bloom now are what we refer to as the N. sarniensis hybrids. I will admit that I do not know what they were hybridised with. As they appear to have been popular in both Europe and Japan by the 1600s, I am guessing the genes are pretty mixed by now but dominated by the species, N. sarniensis.

It really is shocking pink or highlighter pink, brighter even than in this photo

All nerines hail from areas of southern Africa and there are currently 24 species recognised. Notwithstanding that origin, the common name internationally is the ‘Guernsey lily’ owing to that island in the English Channel adopting the flower early on as its own and establishing a cut flower trade with it. I have no idea if it is fact or legend that a ship carrying a load of nerine bulbs to the Netherlands was wrecked nearby and the bulbs floated to the shores of Guernsey Island and naturalised themselves on the coastline. It is a good story and bulbs had to get there somehow.

The history of nerines in cultivation seems to be pretty murky, maybe because it goes back over 400 years. I had always assumed – based on the photos of the Guernsey lily that appeared to be predominantly red – that sarniensis in the wild was red. Mark thought it was orange, based on Nerine fothergilla major (which has now been reclassified as sarniensis, just to confuse us further) but it appears that the colour may be variable in the wild.

Our nerines range from pure white through pale pink, pink and white bi colours, mid pinks, coral shades, shocking pink, cerise, crimson, shades of orange and scarlet.

Ageing to blue purple tones

“Oh lord,” said Mark, looking at the purple ones on my flower lay, “the phone will ring next week with people wanting a purple nerine. Reader, they don’t open purple. Mark spent a bit of time crossing and selecting to get the blue and purple lines in the flowers and those ones age to purple. We never named any of them and we don’t know if other breeders have similar shades which they have put on the market, which would seem likely. Whether any are available in New Zealand is another matter.

Very few of our nerines have ever been sold commercially. We have a few named cultivars originally from the Exbury collection in the UK (where they have to grow them under glass), Felix Jury named a few but not many and I think Mark named one that we once sold. It is all a bit academic now because we just enjoy them in the garden and it doesn’t matter to us whether they are named cultivars or unnamed hybrids.

These nerines are deciduous and they put up their flower spikes before putting out the fresh foliage. I don’t love the foliage in spring when it is getting tatty and tired and we have some quite big clumps of them, but they make up for it in autumn. Because they have foliage through the winter, sarniensis nerines are frost tender and they struggle in cold, wet conditions. They need to be in full sun with sharp drainage and the large bulbs nestled into the soil but with their top half and necks exposed to bake in the sun. They are quite particular about conditions and won’t flower if they don’t like them. Nerine bowdenii which flowers later is much easier, hardier and less particular but only comes in pink, I think.

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: April 23, 2010

Latest posts.
1) Nerines, mostly sarniensis hybrids, are a mainstay of our autumn rockery.
2) Instead of thinking buxus hedges, think instead about lines and definition in the garden. There are other ways to achieve a similar outcome without the blighted buxus hedge – Abbie’s column.
3) Our mild and dry autumn continues – weekly garden tasks and hints.
4) It may be six months until our annual Garden and Rhododendron Festival here in Taranaki, but dedicated garden openers are hard at work and counting down already.

Autumn in the rockery at Tikorangi

Our rockery has two main periods when it is at its fullest and most colourful – in the early spring when dwarf daffodils, snowdrops and many other tiny treasures bloom and right now in autumn when the nerines and cyclamen hederafolium are at their best. My summer mission taking apart every pocket in the rockery has borne fruit with renewed vigour apparent throughout. Some may think the nerines on the garish side but we love their autumn display. We have a whole range of colours now from nearly apricot through coral, orange, reds, pastel pinks to highlighter pink and deeper, smoky colours bordering on purple. Felix Jury worked with the nerines, mainly sarniensis hybrids and he acquired some of the Exbury hybids over 40 years ago. Most of the cultivars in our garden are unnamed hybrids from that time although Mark has also had a play in his turn and did name one, Coral Star, which we have sold in the past. Felix’s preference leaned towards the smoky plum colours and he named two: Smoky Queen and Nelson’s Blood.

From near apricot to near purple with plenty of oranges, reds and pinks between