Nerine bowdenii

[Diane Whitehead]

Nerine bowdenii is the commonly-grown nerine here.  As I drive around the city, I notice patches of its bright pink flowers in many gardens.

Every year my daughter digs some up when they are in bloom and puts four in each pot to sell.

When she pots them, she removes any tiny new bulbs and plants them in a new section of her garden.  She was surprised that these plants are evergreen.  She is going to keep track to see how long it takes before they are leafless over the summer.

[David Pilling]

It is also quite possible to grow Nerine bowdenii from the plentiful seeds it sets. I've not seriously timed it, but I would guess 4 years to flowering without any effort.

[gastil]

The Nerine I received as N. bowdenii do go dormant, or more precisely, have their leaves dry up over the early summer. But now they are leafing out again, in the hottest part of summer. Mine do self-sow but I have not counted how many years from seed to flower. I have some in seed pots, just casually set on top of failed seed pots, which have made baby bulbs. Those baby bulbs do "go dormant" (leaves, not roots) in summer. 

I also have a patch of Nerine which look the same, just bloom earlier in the winter and go dormant sooner in the late spring and have been lushly leafed out now for a few months. Other than timing, they look identical. This Nerine I received mislabeled as a Lycoris, back in the 1990's so I don't have an ID for it. 

My Nerine do not transplant well. Or, I should say, I clearly lack your daughter's skill transplanting. I've never had one succeed dug up.

My Nerine filifolia are blooming abundantly now. Those I get flowers from seed in 3 years. I find the N. filifolia easy to transplant even though mine are evergreen. Their leaves go brown on the ends but keep pushing up green from the base. 

Some day I'd like to grow one of those hybrid Nerines with the nearly-blue dark purple petals. 

[Diane Whitehead]

I haven't seen any dark purple bowdeniis, though I have Quest, a dark purple Nerine sarniensis.

I have crossed it with my pink bowdenii, hoping for a hardy purple.

[CG100]

The plants circulating in the UK as N. bowdenii are hybrids that generally stay in leaf so long as the weather doesn't get colder than a degree or two of frost.

Some years ago, new plants appeared, known as Zeal hybrids, which supposedly introduced extra vigor (as well as new colours) due to them being "virus-free". The vrus-free belief has long been regarded as wishful thinking and I suspect that most Nerines in trade and gardens in the UK are now routinely called N. bowdenii. Supposedly essentially all carry plenty of virus.

[Uli]

A very good choice are the X Amarine Hybrids of the so called Belladiva series. They come in different colors, are vigorous and free flowering in my climate. I don't know how hardy they are. Nerine bowdenii does not flower in my Mediterranean climate but is still there. I used to have magnificent increasing clumps of it in my former garden in Germany. It might need colder winters than I can offer. I can grow Nerine sarniensis and its hybrids in the open garden. They start to flower now but are much slower to increase than N. bowdenii or the Belladiva Hybrids.

[David Pilling]

Here they stick to the timetable, at the moment there are no leaves, but there are flower spikes. The bulbs will not have leaves all through the Winter meaning I can store them in the garage. Leaves get going around the start of Spring.

Back to the seed, ephemeral it maybe but it does not seem to start growing until Spring (if allowed to drop into the pots holding the original bulbs).

[Martin Bohnet]

Uli's "Special German Nerine" opened up for the first time today, but it took 2 years to establish - not surprising if you remember that Nerines build their flower over 3 seasons - there's an article describing flower abortion risks for them quite well:

Theron, K.I., & Jacobs, G. (1996). The Effect of Irradiance, Defoliation, and Bulb Size on Flowering of Nerine bowdenii W. Watson (Amaryllidaceae). Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science jashs, 121(1), 115-122. Retrieved Oct 8, 2023, from https://doi.org/10.21273/JASHS.121.1.115

Also includes lot's of reasons they don't flower anymore for Uli: Winter temps constantly above 2°C, Prolonged times constantly above 17°C in Summer...

Actually, they fade in comparison to the already mentioned Amarines, which also have been hardy, bigger, higher and more free flowering here for 4 years now. As I have Amaryllis beladonna in flower right now I'll cross-polinate for sure. I've also bought 2 of the color selection/hybrid types this year, only one of which will flower and which both are still potted as I want to plant them deeper and they have been in full leaf since I got them in early summer - happy to report on their performance in following years.

I've had Nerine bowdenii

before but always kept them potted, which they don't seem to like in the long term - they all dwindled away over a few years. The smaller ones seem to like potting much more, most of all Nerine masoniorum

.

[gastil]

I revisited the wiki page https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/NerineSpeciesOne#bowdenii

Photos and timing of blooms and leaves for my Nerines are at least not contradictory to what the wiki page shows. So for now I will continue to call mine N. bowdenii, even though mine behave differently than others'. I expect climate causes the seasonal difference. Here there is little frost most winters. Most of the rain falls in winter. (Although I do water these in summer when I see leaves emerging.) I would call this coastal Mediterranean. My climate is similar to Berkley, where some of the wiki photos show blooms. So if I knew the dates of those blooms I could compare. 

For example, mine have never bloomed at the same time as Amaryllis belladonna in August, nor my white Amaryllis hybrids in September and October. And with today's photo I mess up the topic thread title. 

[David Pilling]

Actual photos from today, see Nerine and Amaryllis blooming together. Been the best Amaryllis show ever,  alas a lot of rain and wind to stop me going outside and sniff the flowers.

Oh yes, all my Nerine are in pots. They are badly neglected. They have survived and increased. I'd not say they are happy. Nearby there is a garden with a spectacular display of them - puts mine to shame. But I will get quite a lot of flowers and they will keep on until nearly Christmas. As you can see the Amaryllis will soon be gone. Most of the Nerine are yet to come.

[Martin Bohnet]

Oh yes, all my Nerine are in pots.[...] They have survived and increased.

So i guess it's a combination of my somewhat more continental climate (always more stress in pots) and my bad old habit of being overly critical about fertilizer.

[Diane Whitehead]

I bought several different bowdenii - Blanca Perla, Bicolor, Edelweiss.  I grow them in pots in my cool frost-free greenhouse.  It is well-ventilated so does not get hot in the summer.

They flowered soon after I bought them, but for the last five years have not.

Should I fertilize?  Maybe I will plant one of each outside in the garden where the common pink one flowers regularly.

[David Pilling]

I should define 'neglect' - they spend the Summer on the shady side of the garden, no sunshine, low temps, I imagine they never reached 21C this year. A lack of soil, and no feeding. I don't bother watering them either. I am not saying do as I do, I doubt this is a good way to grow them.

[Martin Bohnet]

As described in the article I linked above, Nerines build their flowers over 3 seasons and can abort in any of them, so there's no quick telling if changed conditions are better than those before. If all are genetically true bowdeniis, and the ones inside the greenhouse do not flower, while those outside in the ground do it could be, besides the temperature range, as well the lighting intensity.

Actually, when I got the bowdeniis from Uli I was quite surprised they really were deciduous and do loose their leaves in winter - most other "clones" I had before stayed evergreen - another hint there may be some sarniensis material involved - no winter leaves, no winter light requirements. So it could be that your "cultivars" actually could do with some artificial lighting in winter?

[OrchardB]

o
I now grow these, what a few years ago I thought of as a tender special plant, (before climate change) in my vegetable garden as a cut flower. These were recovered from my previous family home and go back 50/60+ years, so no longer named. I will cut the first this week; some leaves showing now ~15cms growth. Must weed out all the wild strawberries growing over them. They last some weeks indoors and usually produce seed too if kept after the flowers die off.

Brian, SE UK   sticky chalky stony soil. Maybe all this sulphur fallout from the volcanoes further south will change that.