Life in general has kept most of my recent posts dealing with the goings on in my family instead of my gardens. Not that this is a bad thing as my blog was intended to chronicle both. Late last night I was ushering the dogs outside before retiring for the evening. Miss Betty patiently sits and waits for me to attach her wheels as the other two dogs hurtle out the door in a frenzied dash to see if they can scare up any unwanted creatures of the night. I shake my head when I hear them bark at nothing more than the dark. I lift and slip her now useless back legs into the stirups and fasten the harness, Betty turns and with a gentle loving look as though she is thanking me she rolls out to act as crowd control. Popeye atempts to dash past her but she cuts him off as if to say, "Ok you, calm down and do your business." As I stand in the night air I catch a slight fragrance in the air, could it be? I turn to the greenhouse doors a short seven feet down the path behind me, the fragrance getting stronger as I come near. I opened the door and the fan at the back of the greenhouse quickly flushes the fragrance into my face, it is intoxicatingly strong. I return to the house and to alert MeMa and we both return, she with her IPhone and I with a flashlight as there are no lights yet in the greenhouse (on the list).
This midnight beauty is one of five in bloom and there are two more buds that will be open the following night. Their white petals have the softness and color of a downy swans feather. And fragrance so unbelievably strong. The outer ray of petals give it an easy eight inch circumference.
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| Night-blooming Cereus - Epiphyllum oxypetalum |
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| The show is short lived, by morning they are closed up never to open again. |
They sound interesting the only blossom in my greenhouse would be the peach tree in spring time.Apart from tomatoes & cucumbers but the flowers have no fragrance.
ReplyDeleteMine is a fairly old plant now, at least twenty. I was at a private residence and saw a piece of the plant lying on the floor. The owner of the home mentioned they had gotten the plant from her mother’s estate and had no idea what it was only that it was ugly and never flowered. I brought the cutting home and it rooted. I identified the Cereus and started feeding it bat guano and am rewarded yearly with these lovely blooms.
DeleteAnd they are beautiful! Good job with the flashlight and phone.
ReplyDeleteIt is beautiful. Bat guano - do you collect or buy that?
ReplyDeleteI purchase it from the nursery mixed with mint.
DeleteHow wonderful that you were outside at just the right moment! :-)
ReplyDeleteWOW! We have night-scented Stocks, but I've never come across your Cereus. Without any Bat Guano to hand, I don't suppose they flower anyway.
ReplyDeleteNative to Mexico, they need heat all year but any packaged fertilizer will do. I use the guano because it brings results quicker and I have it on hand for my orchids.
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