Herk 2

He's now very much part of our family.

Let me introduce you to "Herk".  While my husband was living here in Holland Michigan and I was living back in Alberta Canada....I would get to fly in for weekend visits. One of those visits Bear treated me to a trip to Chicago for their Flower and Garden show in March.  We bought a bulb that looked like a "leek on steroids". The kind dutch man told me to only plant the bulb about 2.5 to 3 inches in the soil and leave the rest out... I had no idea what I would get for a flower but I was very intrigued as this is a Crinium lily...a member of the Amarylliacea family...

Herk was potted and his growth monitored by my husband...(Fiance at that time) Every week or so he would take a picture with his BB and send it too me to assure me that my plant was alive although "Fred" my fish wasn't!  I was very disappointed with his growth rate....Everytime I visited I would find him "freshly watered... then when I arrived down here and started watering and fertilizing him myself even I was shocked at how much water he went through.  But, if you think of a leak and how juicy they are....Then multiply that to the size of a good 8 inch diameter at the base by 18 inch in height....now add on all these 5 foot long leaves!  Thats a lot of moisture requirement. I started noticing Herk growing at an incredible rate and putting on twice the leaves... Then with in a month of my arrival I noticed a "stick" coming out between the layers wrapping the bulb.. It grew a good  four inches daily. Unfortunately I do not know where those first pictures went.

So here we are at the first real identifiable sign he is from the Amarylliacea family.... I looked at the size of him... all that green lushness and thought "are you kidding me! Just one bloom"

I noticed that not only was he sending out the long shoot above, he was also growing bulblets from his base... would they be called bulblets?

Then the bud started to open

The first indication that something amazing was going to happen

I looked and wondered about all these obvious individual spikes. Remember I had not seen a picture of the flower at this point.

Then it became obvious that I wasn't going to get just one flower...But, multiples of them!

My inner gardening goddess was clapping and smiling....

Just look how many continue to grow and stretch...

Still like a kid watching a christmas tree...waiting for the wrapping to come off and find out what the present actually is....

Hello beautiful.... and oh what a wonderful heady smell... such a bonus!

I looked and counted the individual buds yet to open

Then there were two

I think the most that opened at the same time was 14.

as more blooms opened the smell grew stronger but, wasn't over powering at all.

It was a wondrous sight... filled my heart with joy as I watched each day one bloom die but others open... there were 36 blooms off Herks coming out party...It was a much welcome bit of colour and fragrance in the middle of......

THIS.....

March 2012

Thankfully the living room wall is all glass on the south side and the plants just love it...

by the middle of March the living room started to look more like a greenhouse.  Im hoping that

Bear will decided to build me a little greenhouse to replace the big one I left back in Alberta.

Maybe if I put some pots and grow lights etc all over in his Man cave!

I did go on to take the new babies off of Herk...just literally cut them off and stuck them in good potting soil. They are growing well but, it will be many years before their bulb is as big as Herks.

Obviously an older post.... but I didn't want to be left out of the link up over at Tootsie Time...

and since Glenda is talking about unusual house plants I thought this was very fitting

Kate

http://www.tootsietime.com/