The extra care I gave to my Hippeastrum bulbs last year paid off this year with a bounty of blooms. I wasn’t sure that would be the case because I felt very late in sorting them out and starting to water them. But an excellent trait of the bulbous plants is that they have the reserves in their bulbs to be very forgiving. Hurray for geophytes. It certainly explains why I’m somewhat successful with them!

You can tell some of these are seedlings because of the differences in the blossoms. I love that no two of them are alike, even thought they are mostly red and white.

I just noticed yesterday that my Brugmansia “Charles Grimaldi” is blooming with just a couple of lovely trumpets. We just cleaned up our patio and got new furniture. Today, we sat out there and ate dinner with the angel’s trumpet wafting its sweet fragrance our way.

Another flower that just started opening some blossoms is the annual Silene pendula ‘Sibella Carmine’ I grew from seeds this year for the patio pots. In the photos I’ve seen, this is a very full plant, but for me, it is a little wimpy. However, the flowers are fun. I’ve always been a sucker for a swollen ovary and the ovaries of each of these flowers is not only swollen but decoratively striped.