Our torches are glowing

"Crikey, what are those things?" asked the tradie working around the back of our house. He was pointing towards the quartet of dazzling orange scadoxus in bloom at the rear of our yard. With the low afternoon sun catching their vivid tops, for an hour or so every day it looks they are torches on fire. These flowering bulbs have several common names, including Natal Paintbrush, which tells you where they're from, and Scadoxus puniceus will help you find it in a reference book or online catalogue. Every year I do a blog posting about them, and that's what I am doing again.

Even from inside our house the Scadoxus are
the first thing you notice when you look outside.
Perched on fast-growing 40cm tall stalks which
had barely poked out of the ground just seven
weeks ago, in early July, the flower heads
take about two weeks to fully unfurl.  

Then when they do unfurl they'll last another two to three
weeks in this condition, depending on the weather.

They've bloomed much earlier this year, thanks to the mild
warm winter we have enjoyed. Usually September is their time.

The countless hundreds of little pollen tops help to explain why
the blooms look so afire when the low sun hits them.

Pollen falls constantly from the blooms, dusting the deep red leaves.

The vivid flowering is testament to the
health of these very easy-care plants, but
as confirmation the little thicket of baby
bulbs forming around the base of the
older bulbs promises that the scadoxus
shows will just get more spectacular as
the years roll by.

In my previous posting about the succulent Senecio in the hanging basket I mentioned how lovely it is to have plants given to you as gifts – every time I look at them, especially when they're at their very best, I think of the person who gave me the gift of the plant.

Well, by happy coincidence it's the same story with these scadoxus; they were a gift from another gardening writer who I worked with, the lovely Geoffrey Burnie, who is now editing Your Garden magazine. Thanks once more, Geoffrey, your scadoxus bulbs are loving life here in the mostly shady (but not always shady), sheltered spot you suggested I plant them.

Toothy grins

I love watching plants go through the build-up to flowering. Some send up stalks plump with promising fat buds that advertise their coming delights to patrolling bees and other insects. Others are much more modest about their sex life, just popping out without fanfare, 'doing it' briefly, then resuming operations as if they're glad that awkward business is over for another year.

However, in the case of the star turn in our garden this afternoon, the little succulent Faucaria, it has being "going to" flower for a few weeks now, and today it's saying to every bee in the backyard "look at me, look at me". I can understand its desperation to be loved, too. It does have a rather unfortunate smile, a 'toothy' grin of multiple fangs that makes it look like it's a relative of carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly trap. It does look alarming. In fact it's nothing of the sort. It's just another weirdo in a succulent universe full of weirdos, and our weirdo is in love with life, trying to make babies once again.

And so here it is in flower, yellow daisies basking in the sunshine.

Two weeks ago, see what I mean about its little image problem?
Those things looking like lurid tongues protruding between its teeth
are the flower buds. Slowly but surely the faucaria developed a
whole ullulation of flower bud tongues, ready to burst into full
noise when the moment came.

Each flower is filled with pollen, ready for the bees to visit.

The botanical name of 'faucaria', rather unsurprisingly, means 'animal mouth'. This is a native of Cape Province and the Karoo Desert in South Africa (hi you guys!). I don't know the species name of mine, it doesn't quite match the photos I have checked out online. Maybe it's some subspecies of Faucaria felina, that's my best guess.

As for how to grow it, all I've done is plant it in free-draining soil in a spot that gets lots of sunshine. I let it survive on our natural rainfall, and I don't feed it (although I did apply a seaweed liquid a few times, to encourage the roots to grow). I do pull out weeds that try to muscle in on its territory, but that's about it. Since I planted it out from its pot into the ground, it has spread a bit further, but it is a slow-grower. That's fine by me, I hope it bursts into bloom same time, next year.