It was a long, very hot, and very dry summer. It sapped the spirit of gardening entirely from these bones. Things bloomed, but not enthusiastically. The daylilies, those we have left, did bloom in spite of the heat. They are under an overhead sprinkling system, so they never suffered from the drought. Other bulbs did not fare so well nor perform so nicely.

This morning brought cold rain, and temperatures hovering in the upper 40's F. But the past week was delightful! It was beautiful Indian Summer weather, and I took what may have been my last walks on the Monon Trail until next Spring.

The Monon Trail in Carmel, Indiana, on a beautiful Indian Summer day.

A New Bloom

Back in September, there was one flowering of note. Haemanthus unifoliatus seedlings finally bloomed at an age of about 6 years.

Haemanthus unifoliatus

Zephyranthes atamasco

This large-flowered rain lily is native to the Southeast of the U.S.A. This pot is blooming out of season in the greenhouse, as they usually bloom early in the spring in the greenhouse.

Zephyranthes atamasco

There are other white-flowered rain lilies native to the southeastern U.S.A. One of them is Z. simpsonii, which I also have. Z. atamasco is probably the hardiest rain lily, since its range extends as far north as parts of North Carolina. I have not heard of any rain lily surviving outdoors in the ground over a winter as far north as Indiana. Pity, as I think they would look very nice blooming naturalized along country roadsides.

Cyrtanthus sanguineus?

This bulb came to me labelled Cyrtanthus eucallis, but now that it has finally bloomed, it looks much more like Cyrtanthus sanguineus.

Cyrtanthus eucallis or sanguineus?

After checking the descriptions of both species in the booklet, "A Review of the Southern African Species of Cyrtanthus" by C. Reid and R. Allen Dyer, Amer. Plant Life Soc. (1984), I have to conclude that the flower shown is sanguineus. Here is a comparison:

Species:	Eucallis	Sanguineus
Flower	Smaller, not recurved	Larger, recurved
Umbel	Up to 6 flowers	Single flower

Nerine bowdenii wellsii

Nerine bowdenii wellsii is maybe a subspecies of bowdenii that occurs in the high elevations of bowdenii's range. There are two general populations of bowdenii, as far as I understand the situation. A more or less typical form at moderate elevations in the Eastern Cape Province, and the form wellsii in the high ridges of the Drakensberg Escarpment between the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. This one is from the high elevations.

Nerine bowdenii wellsii

The form wellsii may not be significantly different from typical bowdenii, as others in fact claim. I wanted high-elevation ecotypes in any case to try to develop cold-hardy varieties. It turned out that bowdenii takes forever and a decade to reach bloom size when grown from seeds in my nursery!

On the Road to Africa

A week from now we will be on our way to Tanzania, in East Africa. I'm not lugging a computer on this trip, so there will be no posts to this blog while we are there. However, I am taking a camera and my iPad along, so we will post to Facebook while travelling. You have to be a Facebook "friend" to see my stuff on Facebook, but I will post some pictures from the trip in this blog after we return home.

On Facebook, I'm James Shields but you will find me as shieldsgardens@facebook.com, if you look hard. There are hundreds or thousands of people called "James Shields" in this world.

While we are gone, I'll try to catch my e-mail every couple of days from the iPad. At home, the house-sitter won't answer our phone, but our 80-pound Husky mix will definitely answer the doorbell!

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana