Blood Lily, Another Survivor
Posted: May 22, 2018 Filed under: Gardening | Tags: African Blood Lily, Automatic Gardening, Gardening, Gulf Coast gardening, Scadoxus multiflorus, Southern Gardening, subtropical climate, Subtropical Gardening, Year-round gardening 21 Comments
Continuing with plants that made it through the harsh weather this year, I was really pleased to see the Blood Lily back and blooming.
The Lily grows from a bulb and could have drown as it is growing in the good old Texas dirt, which is clay gumbo here. The ground apparently stayed warm enough to keep the bulb from freezing.
For more information and better photos, go to my Blood Lily post.
It’s a bit like a grand, scarlet allium. Very eye-catching.
And it does really well here.
What a beauty!
It sends up a bud and blooms really quickly. It will also multiply.
I need one of those.
It should grow in Florida.
I have seen those around, but not for sale. Not well known, I suppose. Keep looking, right.
Have you tried the internet? Bulbs should ship OK.
Will look the bulbs keep getting eaten..
I was going to say the same thing as Jane, it looks just like a red Allium christophii.
I will need to look that up. We usually don’t grow Alliums here.
Ooh, that’s beautiful; so glad it came back for you!
Me too!
Beautiful, they have to live in the greenhouse here.
Yes for the winter, but could come out for the summer and stored like other bulbs in cool conditions. They are a spring bloomer and would probably work in a pot. If I move up north, they are coming with me.
It’s interesting that it’s a native of South Africa. A plant from S.A. that I’ve had very good luck with is the Cape honeysuckle, which has a small, orange trumpet-shaped flower. It’s a hummingbird magnet. I gave mine away, because I just didn’t have enough direct sunlight for them, but bloom? Oh, my. There’s a spring bloom, and then they sulk through the summer because of the heat. But in the fall, once things cool again, they’ll put on even more blooms. Glorious.
What’s interesting is that South Africa lies at about the same latitude south as we do to the north. We’re 29N, roughly, and they’re 28S, roughly. I’ve never thought about the fact that being the same distance from the equator might be key to why certain southern hemisphere plants do so well here.
There are also many plants from Australia that do well here. What amazes me is how people have been shuttling plants around the world since very early times.
A client gave me small bulbs of this, but I have never grown it before. I doubt that it is as flashy as I was told, but I want to see what it does. I really like it now, not because of the bloom that I have not yet seen, but because it is from that particular former client.
Similarly to what another commenter said – The blood lily flowers reminded me allium flowers – except the color is different.
I did look them up and they are really close.
Gorgeous.