getting to know you

We were at Arbor Gate yesterday for pansies to liven up a wintery pot of sleeping Texas bluebells. I always browse into all the corners looking for natives and suddenly there were some pots of the big floppy leaved plant we inherited when we bought our house several years ago - a messy plant that only occasionally flowered and then only after a really good summer wetting from the gulf. They always seem to need more sun than our tall pines and magnolias allow through to the ground - our yard becomes shadier by the year. Well, it's more accurate to say that it was becoming shadier (post-Ike, we have more sunshine on the ground). We have, from time to time talked of taking out this messy mounding plant but because our list of things to do is long...... Anyway, there was the plant in a plastic nursery pot with a $40 price tag. Suddenly it seemed to me that we may have been uncharitable to these lush denizens of our back and front yards. But more than their sudden worth, they also now had a name - Crinum.

The picture is from Dave's Garden but it looks very like the Crinums in our yard.

It seems that these lovelies may need a little more tender loving care in the form of fish emulsion, etc. in order to strut their stuff without the scruffy appearance.

According to my online research, The name Crinum originates from the Greek Krinon, which means white lily but Crinums are not lilies (family Lilium), but a member of the family Amaryllidaceae.

It's always better if you know a little about those with whom you live.