Right onwards with this week’s topic: Hippeastrum papilio. Bloggers you may be surprised to note that I’ve only recently been growing tender bulbs – and many have amazed me how they produced flowers from seemingly shrivelled bulbs. However none have knocked me out – TILL NOW. I have become besotted, seduced by an extraordinary bulb from the depths of the Atlantic forests in Southern Brazil that I’ve never seen, let alone flowered before. I’m having an affair – apologies ‘Miss Fox’ my current Lady Friend – but I will have to temporarily leave you for my in bloom rampantly saucy lover - Hippeastrum papilio in English know as “The Butterfly Amaryllis”. It’s endowed with massive green, white, dark red stripy flowers are gorgeous with a staggering almost fluorescent rich lime green centre are, suspended on thick fleshy 2 foot stems – the flowers really do look like butterfly wings.  The subsequent long leaves add a lush tropical effect. I’ve placed this flowering treat in the Cloud Garden Structure at Lullingstone and every visitor has been wooed by its intimidating sauciness!

“The Butterfly Amaryllis” isn’t difficult to grow needing well lit frost free conditions. Keep dry from November to March and moist at other times in well drained gritty compost. Feed if it makes you feel better with a general fertilizer but feeding isn’t a necessity. No bulb has ever flicked my horticultural switch so much! Availability is scarce but your best bet is contacting Jacques Amand Bulbs in Middlesex on (01736) 335851 and in the autumn they should have plants ready for shipping out – when the bulb is dormant. Alternatively trawl the internet.

Plant Filled Footnote: The tender Hippeastrums such as Hippeastrum papilio which hail from South America are often erroneously scientifically called Amaryllis. The frost hardy Amaryllis belladonna – the one and only true Amaryllis hails from South Africa.

Right, stop drifting on the abyss like keyboard, Tom the Plant Man. With Easter bolting towards us the whole team at Lullingstone have been hard grafting away to prepare the World Garden as best we can for our Easter egg filled start to the season this Saturday. I was knackered yesterday – in fact jet lagged – what with morning weeding involving the ‘battled hardened’ stoloniferous inclined creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens in Dublin, to cutting back a very sad, battered normally reliably hardy Euphorbia mellifera in La Palma in the Canary Islands, and after a sumptuously steamy Sunday lunch prepared by my marvellous mum, off to Central Florida to resume a ‘raging battle’ - tidying up winter damaged plants of the stabbing, paper skin cutting nature in the form of Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’. My hands look like they’ve been stuck in a blinking liquidiser!  But the job satisfaction is splendid – a fizzing, buzzing in the heart. In fact I swore that I heard my heart chirp – like a territorially puffed up red-breasted Robin – delighted to be following Tom the gardener around on a sunny Sunday Spring day, feasting on all those worms he upturns!

I’ve mentioned ‘battle’ in this week’s column – well bloggers it’s been horticulturally hardcore of late and I feel like it’s been a battle sorting the garden out after the worst winter in years. My trowel is my musket, gloves my armour but still my defences are regularly pierced by a sly overlooked Yucca leaf that sinks its syringe tip through my glove and somehow manages to with pin point accuracy stab a very nervous location between your nail and skin - Ouch!

And readers the bulbs have been absolutely stunning – they have come from nowhere to be mostly in flower for Easter. My favourites at Lullingstone that look great en masse in the open ground but also in pots are Narcissus ‘Ice Follies’ (see photo), the crispy golden Narcissus ‘Dutch Master’ and velvety purple Hyacinthus ‘City of Harlem’ – knocks you out as you bumble by.................Happy Eastertide...............

I loved the fact that this ground-breaking find was reported last autumn and ‘coincidentally’ only surfaced as a news story to ‘tie in’ with the RHS London Orchid Show over the weekend!

I love these kinds of plant stories – they’re so romantic. Orchids really are so mysterious and the Ghost Orchid is no exception – it can disappear and re-appear so randomly. It’s pretty small at only a few inches high, translucent in shades of brown – yellowish white and has NO chlorophyll, therefore NO leaves – its saprophytic, living on dead matter. How mad is that!!! Its elusive ways really turn me on. It’s very difficult to spot growing in deep shade, usually in beech woodland, so shining a bright torch beam parallel to the ground to glare up its ghostly flowerings spikes is the most practical way to spot it!

The underground root system can be extensive, and one flowering spike in Oxfordshire has been recorded growing out of a decayed tree stump. Flowering is erratic and many years can pass without any flowers being produced, so nothing will be seen above ground. I love its Latin name of Epipogium aphyllum – a name as strange as the Ghostly rarity itself. 

Needless to say, this recent find of the Ghost Orchid is being kept a guarded secret. It has now been reclassified from extinct to critically endangered – where will it make its next guest appearance! Perhaps a Kentish sighting!?! I doubt it, but one can but hope/drool at the thought!
Enjoy the start of spring Bloggers.
Tom the plant man.