Growing Flowering bulbs in warm climates - Rain lily (zephyranthes)

This is 6th article in this series of growing warm climate bulbs. zephyranthes lily with synonyms rain lily, fairy lily, zephyr lily are very tough plants yet very aasy to flower warm climate bulbs. Not a true lily though,they are from amaryllis familly. Their flowering period is not confined, although they bloom after rains hence called rain lily. In my zone 10b, these bloom almost yer round but heavy blooming is in monsoon rains.Its local name is gul-e-nargis.

This is how the bulbs of pink rain lily looks like. It has the largest bulb as compared to the bulbs of white and yellow rain lilies.


Now they are mostly not available as bulbs but plants. And 1 plant includes many bulbs. They are best planted in groups. Sadly the flowers last just few days.

Growing conditions
Plant them in well drained soil so that they are just under the soil. Even the tip few centimeters above the soil is fine.
Give them full sun. Although they will benefit from shade in very hot afternoons like mine of 120 F.
They like being wet and then dry, then again wet and then dry again. This is how their blooming is triggered.
Give them some fertilizer off and on. I do not fertilize them at all and they bloom fine but this season i i will try some light fertilizer.

Winter protection
As long as temperature is over 4C they will do fine. Below that they might get damaged. Mine loose some of their leaves in winter (ours is mild around 4C) but most of foliage is retained.

Propagation
They are mostly grown from bulbs as bulbs keep producing offsets. For new varieties they are grown from seeds.

Varieties
 There are 3 common species. The most common and famous is pink rain lily, zephyranthes grandiflora. It blooms more easily and frequently as compared to other two. It has the largest flower of all species.
 
Then comes the white rain lily, zephyranthes candida. 

And the last one is yellow rain lily, Zephyranthes citrina or Zephyranthes sulphurea They are very common in lawrence gardens, self sow and pop up at odd places in summers.


There are some hybrids grown from seeds with some different colors including some bi colors but i am yet to find their seeds.

Update: Some varieties of rain lily i tried are following:
Zephyranthes labuffarosa:

Zephyranthes drummondii:

And last but not least here is a wonderful article on rain lilies by Zahrah Nasir. http://archives.dawn.com/archives/69398

Growing Flowering bulbs in warm climates - Narcissus Paperwhite

This is the 4th article in this series. There are many varieties of Narcissus available in lahore in fall. One of them is Grand Soleil which is a fragrant one having yellow flowers, a bit expensive though. The other one is paperwhite which gives pure white flowers and very cheap costing only Rs 10 per bulb. This is the one you are going after as it is very hardy, very tolerant of poor soil and does not care whether planted in sun, semi shade and even full shade. And if that is not all, it does not mind drought as well. So for a careless gardener, it is a perfect bulb to try. I have heard that they are easy be forced as well but i could not try it this year.

Here are the growing tips:
1-Buy fattest and biggest bulb possible. Try to get those having baby bulb-lets attached. Buy as early as possible. Plant them on regular intervals so that supply of flowers is continuous in spring.

















2- Bury them till the neck. Their roots need depth and very vigorous, i find 10 inches pot not enough for their long roots.

















3- Narcissus here love the semi shade so full sun and shade both will do the job
4- Water just once after planting and NOT after that until you see some top growth. Remember less watering is the key to flowering for paper whites. They are very tough and do not mind drought for a long period. More water will promote foliage but no flowers.
5- You can give light liquid fertilizer or little cow dung manure but if you don't, they won't mind.
6-Do not worry if the bulbs pushes itself upwards because of roots growth. Mine did that a lot. Again, do not tempt to water seeing them coming upwards.
















































And this was the progress after 1.5 months. They should be flowering right now and i will share the pics as soon as they appear. There are some barren areas in my soil bed and i put these bulbs over there as only they will survive there. You can see the baby bulbs also growing with parent ones. You can save bulbs for next season when flowers are over.

































And this is how they look pure white and fragrant blooms.