A Tale of Two Amarcrinums

Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com
Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:45:35 PDT
Jim Waddick, I can’t help you with information about xAmarcrinum in zone 5,
but here in zone 7 it seems to take care of itself in the garden without any
problems. 

 

I’m convinced enough of its reliability in our climate to have planted
eleven of them to border a curved 40’ bed in my garden. 

 

None of the plants I know came with clonal designations. In fact, I have no
idea how many xAmarcrinum clones exist.

 

Now that I’ve grown the plant for several years, I realize that the ones I
have have inherited the best qualities which their parents have to offer: in
these plants  the great flowers of Amaryllis belladonna are combined with
the ease of culture (in our climate) of Crinum. Fortunately, the foliage is
nothing like Crinum foliage: xAmarcrinum is much tidier, with foliage only a
bit bigger than that of Amaryllis belladonna. It also inherits from the
Crinum parent the ability to grow throughout the summer and then easily
survive a winter dormancy. Yet the individual flowers are not so ephemeral
as many Crinum flowers are. 

 

The local planting best known to me has been established for a long time,
maybe decades. I don’t know when they begin to bloom, but I see them in full
bloom annually in late October. The owner of the garden where they grow
tells me that they continue until cut by severe freezes. You can see these
plants here:

 

http://jimmckenney.com/x_amarcrinum_in_a_local_gar…

 

To judge by the size of these, I think my plants still have a few years of
catching up to do. 

 

Jim McKenney

jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com

Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone
7, where record breaking high temperature readings of 100º F (37.7º C)
occurred yesterday at the airports in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore,
Maryland.

My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/

BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/

 

Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS 

Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ 

 

Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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