Ah, a little hippie paradise

Angela, Your place is a paradise and now I am very envious as I look out my windows and still see some snow and more in the forecast for next week!

All your pictures are enchanting especially the silhouette in your hot tub...

As most of your bulbs bloom in the spring, do you ever get repeat blooms in mid or late summer?

Donna

Thanks for the kind comments. It is hard to imagine snow when today it is 90 & thunderstorms! I have so far not had any repeat bloomers in summer or fall, how I wish! But the varieties do bloom at different times, that bright red on reflecting in the hot tub blooms first, then the other two pictured here. The johnsonii and picotees are just now starting to send up their scapes. And I've had johnsonii bloom as late as June, but only once per plant.

I also have some that must like their spot too well, and are growing nothing but foliage. Huge, robust foliage larger than a standard crinum - but looking like 2nd year in a row of no blooms. I think I will dig those and replant them more shallowly, and in a drier spot to see if I can induce them to flower. I cut off all their leaves this year in January, and that didn't phase them, they promptly sent out loads more big, robust leaves. Any other tips/tricks for inducing bloom in landscape plants?

Spent the day in Galveston and lots of Hippis are blooming there too. One guy (older gentleman) had dozens of softball sized bulbs with loads of offsets around each one. I told him how many I had and his jaw dropped a little. His are all red or white. He said he was a little disappointed that he wasn't getting blooms yet, but I told him that I saw many on their way and he invited me into his garden to point out the many scapes that I could see from the sidewalk.

When I left he had an ear to ear smile knowing his bulbs will be blooming soon!
K

What a gorgeous sight! Your screen room is beautiful! You have a great view and I love the idea of filling those beds with your own seedlings. With a bit of patience, you'll be rewarded with tons of blooms. I can't wait to see your posts in a couple of years... garden beds brimming with blooms of all different sizes, shapes and colors! -Tina

Angela,

These are gorgeous pictures and you obviously have a beautiful home!

A couple of questions:
-Are any of your beds in full sun or do they get some kind of protection during the hottest part of the day?
- When you plant in the ground do you prepare the bed differently for the bulbs and do you mulch close to bulbs?
-Do you have Lemon Lime? This is a strong cultivar that offsets readily so always seems to have a scape or two through out the year, although nothing like the spring. flowering.
-What do you have that is as large as a crinum? Did you grow it from seed? I have a crinum that came as a stowaway in a pot, now entering its third year that hasn't flowered yet.

Again, gorgeous landscaping, drooling here :)
-J

Thanks everyone for the compliments, I like playing landscape designer=)

K - what a wonderful story! I often go knock on doors of houses that have old heirloom blooms in the yard, and more often than not, I meet an interesting retired couple who tell me some charming stories about how they acquired them.

J - My screen room has north/east exposure. It gets full morning sun, and mostly afternoon shade. The north side being shaded by the screen itself for most of the day. Makes it perfect for hippis, gives them just the right amount of shelter from the sun. The hippis under the peach tree are in full sun, all day. They definitely take some stress, but still bloom every year. The blooms fade faster, and the foliage dies away earlier in the fall. They basically seem the same as agapanthus, foliage is more lush and flowers last longer in part shade, but they will still put on a show in full sun so long as the drainage is good. Some varieties seem more tolerant too. I have johnsonii in full sun too, and its scapes are the most beautiful dark purple when emerging because of all the sun. Those I intermix with curcumas, and the large curcuma foliage seems to provide a bit of summer shade to the hippi foliage, which they seem to like.

Nothing special as far as prepping the beds. We have mostly sugar sand here, so nutrient poor, but excellent drainage. I have added 2-6 inches of compost to my beds when I start them, but even here "compost" is still pretty sandy. I mulch heavily. In most cases, just the basal plate is in the soil, and the bulb is buried up to the neck in mulch. I don't have bulbs in spots where water stands, so rot doesn't seem to be a problem.

I don't have lemon lime, but I'll keep an eye out for an opportunity to acquire it, be very interesting if it could rebloom.

The one I have with the massive foliage and refusal to bloom was received as a vendor mistake mixed in with h. johnsonii. It bloomed the year I got it, so I know it is a hippi. Here is the bloom:

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Here's the foliage (no blooms for going on 3 years), but from 2 bulbs, there are now 16!
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For scale, in this picture, the purple leaved plant right next to it is 4' tall. The hippi foliage is taller that my powelii xalbum crinum foliage!
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I had to move one of them last year, biggest bulb I've ever seen on a hippi!
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Would love to get it to bloom again, just not sure how. The only difference between where it is now, and the spot it bloomed in was amount of moisture. The original spot was under an oak, and has turned out to be too dry for hippis.

Angela

Angela,

Wow that is some big bulb! I had wondered if it could be an amarcrinum since they have such different looking hybrids . I only know this because I have been considering getting some :).

Thanks for the advice about full sun. I will look for a place with morning or afternoon sun.

-Jody

Thanks for the suggestion Jody. I did some googling on amarcrinums for images, and to me the flower structure looks different, more bell shaped. Also, my understanding from reading Scott Ogden's Garden Bulbs For The South, is that the amarcrinums (inherited from their parent the amarillis belladona, which is different from a hippeastrum), prefer a CA climate with a wet winter and a dry summer, and they are prone to rot here in FL where we have a wet summer and dry winter. So I think I do have just a large hippeastrum.

Good luck finding spot for your hippis. You could always put them in some large pots so you can move them around in your landscape to find areas they like before planting them in ground. Or like I did, just stick them in the ground and then if they start showing signs of stress, move them=) My conclusion about the first location being too dry is that they bloomed but failed to grow good leaves. So I think maybe I need a spot that is wetter than the first spot, but drier than the current one...

Angela,

Thanks for the info, - don't like wet summers - saved me time and money! I like you! Unlike the other CHAD inducing members of this list who keep luring poor innocent me into buying another hippi LOL
I have that book too - I guess it would help more if I opened it :) Its just that Google is so much faster!
-J

no, you are right that is not a crinum bulb. Though Ellen Bousant does form a bulb that looks more like an amaryllis than a crinum the foliage is wrong for her.

sometimes when you transplant hippis into the garden it will take them a couple of years to bloom. Don`t fertilize it.

I live in Galveston, a sandbar, so fully understand the soil. It EATS compost and organic material in days it seems. By the time I finish hauling and spreading mulch it`s time to start again.

Bit slow responding, sorry about that.

J - your response cracked me up. What can I say, I'm a book nerd and love to read=)

Beachplant, thanks for the great info. Do you find that certain varieties of hippis take a while to settle in? I have not found that to be true with any other variety of hippi I have. They seem fairly oblivious to being disturbed, unlike crinums that will definitely sulk for a while after being moved.

Sun_worshiper, it seems to me like I have read on a few different posts where some of the hippies like to be a root bound or overcrowded before they bloom, maybe that's all they need is a little bit of crowding.

Thanks Devonfawn. I wonder if that means that this variety is better suited to being a potted plant than a garden specimen. Hard to get root bound in the ground=)