Naked ladies are popping up all over our garden. Hundreds of them, flesh pink and gorgeous, except for a few that are pure white, and lovely too...
And I make the same joke every year when the belladonna lilies, aka naked ladies, are blooming, and one day someone is going to dong me on the head and yell "Stop!!" But when the flowers spread across the garden each midsummer, the pun becomes irresistible, just like the naked ladies.
Naked ladies get their name from their habit of emerging from the ground as extremely suggestive stems, which then open into opulent, flesh-coloured blooms, or at least the shade that several Renaissance artists imagined women's flesh to be. I have never actually seen anyone who is quite that shade of pink. I suspect you'd need to be parboiled to actually achieve it.
But the flowers are fabulous, not just because they are big, bold and spectacular. Belladonna/naked lady bulbs are happy in the hottest, driest, most barren part of your garden. They bloomed stunningly through the worst droughts and even while bushfires raged around us and everything else was covered in ash, wilted or just looked dead. Any bulb that will reward you in a season like that is deeply lovable.
On the other hand, the naked ladies seemed delighted that the drought had ended, too, and have multiplied exceedingly, so that the rocky hard-to-mow places now don't need mowing at all as they are filled with naked ladies. In dry years, each bulb produced at least one other, ie; one bulb would become two the next year, four the year after that, then eight, etc.
Give belladonna lilies rain, as well as a well-drained position, and one bulb may give you four or even six, which means 12 the next year, and 24 the year after, which is well on the way to being "Wow! Will you look at that!"
This is not the time to plant belladonna lily bulbs, as when the blooms die back the leaves will erupt, and the leaves will nourish the bulbs for flower and new bulb production. It's best to wait till the leaves yellow and vanish, and you are left with the giant bulbs poking slightly out of the soil - never plant belladonnas deeply - waiting to be transplanted into well-drained, sunny soil.
If you are worried about a vast amount of gaudy pink clashing with your red roses, stick to the white belladonnas. I am married to a man who thinks a white flower is a waste of a spot where you might have a pink, red or yellow one, so our only white belladonnas are accidents.
This is the time to go bulb crazy, even if it's not with belladonna bulbs. Most bulb catalogues come out in February, and you can also begin planting the daffodils, jonquils, tulips, hyacinths, freesia et al that will delight you through the tail months of winter and all the way through spring, if you choose your varieties wisely.
Step 1: Find a site. Spring bulbs need a sunny but cool spot, not next to a stone or brick wall, and as far back from the hot sunny paving as you can. If you have some good thick-canopied deciduous trees you possibly have the perfect spot for bulbs, as they will get winter and early spring sun but be shaded all summer.
You can also plant bulbs in tubs or pots on paving or patios. The flowers will look charming, but the bulbs below may "cook" next summer and not bloom the spring after this one. You have been warned.
You can of course let your patio bulbs bloom, wait for the leaves to die back, then dig them up and chill them for two months in the fridge - do not mistake them for onions - and then plant again. I prefer the "bung them in and let them bloom" solutions.
Step 2: Choose your bulb varieties. This is where catalogues or at least labels are invaluable. Daffs, tulips et al need cold winters, which we can provide, but many don't survive hot dry summers, which sadly we often do far too well. They also need well-drained soil, so in a wet year they may rot if you have clay or shale half a metre below your garden soil.
Look for the varieties where the label mentions their heat tolerance and extreme adaptability to every kind of condition they may be exposed to. Given that there are only a few mountainous areas in Australia that give cold winters and cool, slightly moist summers, most bulb suppliers will provide plenty of choice in the "heat tolerance" department, but if you just grab the first ones that catch your fancy, you might find they are one-season wonders, and vanish after that first glorious bloom.
Step 3: Buy a lot. Just like spuds are cheaper if you buy a sackful, bulbs become cheaper the more you get. If you can't afford 100, form a "bulb consortium" with friends and divide up the treasure. Ten friends buying 100 bulbs will give you 10 bulbs each, if my arithmetic is correct, which it usually isn't. Ten bulbs will give you at least 80 bulbs in three years' time, and possibly a lot more.
Step 4: Plant. Bulbs are usually planted about as deep as the size of the bulb i.e. if it's 3cm wide, plant it 3cm deep. There are exceptions, as with belladonnas, so read the label, or look them up online. Remember, if you make a mistake you are not going to have those 80 or 160 daffodils in three years' time...
Step 5: Wait. This is hard. Bulbs are planted when dormant, and so don't do anything at all for ages, unlike a punnet of pansies or heartsease that will be blooming in a couple of weeks. But bulbs are worth the wait.
Step 6: This is the best bit - just keep waiting. Do nothing but enjoy them, year after year, apart from picking vast armfuls for your vases and for friends. You can feed the plants when they are in leaf, and water then, too, but do not in any circumstances mow the leaves, as they are feeding the flowers to come. Just wait till they vanish naturally for the summer.
And then wait again, for the lurking wonder under the soil that will become hundreds of flowers in the years to come.
This week I am:
- Still waiting for vegetable seeds to germinate, as apart from the red cabbage and coriander, nothing much is happening in this year of rain and not much sun.
- Floating on the scent of the massive ginger lily blooms that line the shaded bank below the house, and still looking for a few stems that are straight enough to put in a vase.
- Enjoying the mauve blooms of the hedge of garlic chives that form an (almost) grass-proof barrier around our vegetable gardens, though a double row of belladonna lilies does a more efficient job.
- Watching dozens of small water dragons race away every time I approach their rock. The larger ones just ignore us, and every other human - I even have to stop the car to encourage them to move off the road.
- Impatiently inspecting the Jonathon apples, my favourites, which won't be ripe for another fortnight, and possibly longer given the cool summer. I really want to get my teeth into a Jonathon...
- Not buying bulbs, no matter how tempting the new varieties in the catalogues, as I invested in them decades ago, and though some varieties have died out, we reap the profits of the extreme survivors every year.
