Mark, I would wait until your population of Zephyranthes stabilizes over the next couple of years and then re-evaluate. It often takes a few years for some kinds of bulbs to bloom reliably and in my experience, that happens with Zephyranthes. The first year is not representative of their bloom cycle and amount of bloom - generally that starts with the second year. That sounds like a gorgeous combo, by the way! > On Sep 25, 2020, at 8:50 AM, mark akimoff via pbs <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > > Hello, > > I work for a Historic Garden Conservancy dedicated to preserving the legacy > of the first two female landscape Architects to start a firm in Oregon in > the 1930's, Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver. One of their earliest > designs from 1929, recommended planting Pink Rain Lilies, in front of > Heliotrope as a foil for the roses in a parterre planting for a garden in > Tacoma, Washington. > > The combination sounded pretty stunning so I set out to recreate this > design, obtaining Zephyranthes rosea and Zephyranthes grandiflora from > several different commercial online bulb sources. I planted these in May, > along with several flats of Heliotrope 'Marine'. Several flowers appeared > immediately and I thought if this keeps up it will be a stunning sight. But > that ended up being all the flowers that showed on the rain lilies. I tried > trying drying the rain lilies out for a few weeks at a time, while trying > to keep the Heliotrope looking good and then introducing more water but no > blooms. Now the fall rains have started in earnest and still no blooms on > the rain lilies. > > So i'm wondering if anyone with more experience with Zephryranthes would > have any recommendations about how to get better summer blooms with those > two selections? Or is there a better one to try? I have seedlings going of > Z. morrisclintii and and some small offsets of Z. 'labuffarosea' from one > of the exchanges but they are years away from making a show in the garden. > > I have some bulb catalogs from the 1930's and they list Zephyranthes > robustus, with the following description "Large, bright pink flowers > appearing in late summer on 6-8" stems. foliage during winter and spring. > The flowers are long enough to be useful for cutting. It's adaptability to > culture in pots, rock gardens, and borders makes it a very useful member of > a well known group" > > Any tips or tricks to recreating this floral show would be much appreciated? > > Thanks, > > Mark > Garden Manager/Curator > The Lord and Schryver Conservancy > Salem, Oregon > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…