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Balloons in the garden

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Wordless Wednesday

Balloon Flower Purple

The Balloon flower is a pretty flower once it becomes established in your garden.

I have three of this bluish purple kind, as well as two white balloon flower plants and one pink balloon flower plant. Yes, I love balloon flowers. Can you tell?

In the lower right corner I think that you can see a bud forming. The petals are folded in and as the bud grows it looks like a hollow ball or a balloon. When it finally opens the flower appears as above.

Unfortunately the flower, once it’s bloomed, doesn’t last long – perhaps a day at most. The flower dies quickly and droops like a wet rag.

I’d just finished picking off a bunch of dead flowers before I took this photo. That’s why there’s so many flowerless stalks. When a dead bloom is plucked off it’s stalk a milky white substance drips from the damaged stalk to heal the wound.






Choosing your Amaryllis bulbs

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Choose your Amaryllis bulbs carefully. You will find that bulbs that have started to grow while in the store displays are often stressed, and in that first year the flowers will be smaller- if they produce any at all.

You want to pick bulbs that either don’t have, or whose bud tip is barely showing. Make sure that the bulb still feels firm when you touch it as well. I’ve often found bulbs rotting in the store shelves because they’ve been kept in a too warm area.

Many of the bulb kits contain a bag of peat moss, a cheap plastic pot and a small bulb. You might do better trying to find larger bulbs as they often grow and have two stalks instead of one. It’s far better to perhaps purchase loose quality bulbs of a good size and plant them yourself in a good soil mix. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the results.

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