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Nerine sarniensis (Guernsey Lily) - A bulbous winter growing perennial with summer deciduous strap shaped leaves and umbels of showy 7 to 15 flowers held on 18 inch tall stalks that emerge just prior to the leaves in the fall. The large lily-like slightly fragrant flowers can be white, pink or red, but our plants are a cultivated clone that are all entirely red with long recurved petals of a crape paper texture that glitter with showy long extended stamens tipped with purple anthers that turn white when dehiscing.
Plant in full to half day sun in a well-draining soil with bulb necks fully exposed. Water in fall when leaves emerge unless natural rainfall has occurred and hold back on watering in summer months while plants are dormant. Cold hardy to around 15° F. Nerine sarniensis is widely considered to be the most beautiful of all the nerines though it does not always flower reliably each year. When they do the plant is spectacular!
Nerine sarniensis grows naturally on rocky mountain slopes in the Western Cape of South Africa. The cleric and amaryllid expert, Rev. William Herbert, established the genus Nerine in 1820. It is unclear whether he named it for Nerine, the Greek mythological sea nymph and daughter of sea God Nereis and Doris, or for Nereide, the daughter of Nereus, son of Oceanus. The specific epithet sarniensis refers to the Island of Sarnia, the Roman name for Guernsey, where Nerine sarniensis was at one time thought to have occurred naturally. The often told story about how boxes of this bulb in route to Holland from South Africa ended on the shores of Guernsey in the Channel Islands is somewhat of a botanical legend and one that many disbelieve though the plants have been cultivated there for more over three centuries, which has given the plant its most often used common name, Guernsey Lily. Our thanks go out to our outside salesman Mike Craib for giving us the first bulbs to make our crops in 2021.
Information displayed on this page about Nerine sarniensis is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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