Amaryllis belladona in Connecticut
Judy Glattstein (Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:58:23 PDT)

The Amaryllis belladona I flowered in the open garden was in Wilton,
Connecticut. "Open" in that the bulbs (all two of them) were outdoors,
close to house foundation and sheltered under the deep roof overhang.

This garden had the gardener's holy grail of high organic, moist yet
well-drained soil. The west-facing slope from street down to plateau
where the house was situated was gravel two feet down, which was as deep
as I ever felt like digging. The neighborhood was underlain with a
stratified drift aquifer. Tulipa aucheriana (one bulb) planted on that
slope multiplied into a nice little colony - until, that is, deer moved
into the neighborhood and ate them. Dicentra peregrina also did very
nicely there.

In the wooded section (slope down from behind house to lower flat
portion of property) with five 100-year-old white oak trees, Cyclamen
coum, C. hederifolium, C. fatrense, C. europeum, C. repandum were
thriving and reseeding. Trillium also liked it there.

I was looking in my old notebook for information on the flowering of
Amaryllis belladona, didn't find it but did find a note about Mirabilis
longiflora waking up in April 1993. In a pot, to be sure. I still have
the same plant so that's rather nice and reassuring. Means I can keep
some plants alive for a respectable time frame.

Here in New Jersey my garden is on clay, so cold, wet soil in winter.
Easy to rot roots.

And, by the way - Texas may be stricken with drought but we are flooding
out. June's total rainfall was 8.65 inches, July was 6.35 inches, and
with today's .95 inches I'm sure August is already over 5 inches. August
2nd we got 2.8 inches in 30 minutes that ran down a path, tunneled under
the edge where it met the driveway and hydrodrilled down the center.
Foot-deep sinkholes. Tuesday the paving company was here. 34 tons of
asphalt and 196 feet of driveway repaved. Small bulbs planted along the
edge of the driveway will be surprising me next spring, when and where
they might emerge.

Judy