Naked ladies worth seeing

GARDENS:SOME PLANTS HAVE an old-world, and somewhat fuddy-duddyish air about them. You see them in long-established gardens, where they haul out their blooms year in, year out – as impervious to fashion as a pair of old slippers.

Bearded irises, London pride, skimmia, and hydrangea: to name a few. One of the reasons that they’ve been in traditional gardens from time immemorial is that they are as tough as old boots. Given the right conditions to start with, they meander along indefinitely, minding their own business, and causing little worry to the gardener.

Another ever-faithful flower, coming into bloom just now, is the South African bulb with the pink starburst inflorescences, the nerine. The most common one seen in Irish gardens is Nerine bowdenii, which thrusts its 45cm-tall flowering stems out of the ground in advance of the leaves. This odd state of affairs, where the scapes (hort-speak for flowering stems) rise alone and vulnerable from the ground, gives the nerine the common name of naked ladies. (In fact, it's just one of several naked ladies in the plant world: among the others are Colchicum autumnale, Amaryllis belladonnaand Arum maculatum.)

Before they open, the elongated and tightly clenched buds of nerines are more like rosy crab claws, or a collection of cerise chilli peppers, than nude women. But never mind that, the name allows gardeners who are stuck for words to offer that joke beloved of old chaps in saggy tweed jackets: “May I show you my naked ladies?”

N bowdeniiis the hardiest of nerines, surviving in all Irish gardens. The most common advice is to plant the bulbs at the base of a south-facing wall, in light, free-draining soil. In warm town gardens, however, they are pretty happy everywhere, except in deep shade or where they are crowded by other plants. The necks of the bulbs should be showing slightly above the soil. If they like the conditions, the clumps will increase until the bulbs jostle shoulder to shoulder. Don't be in a hurry to give them more breathing room: nerines thrive in standing-room-only situations. You need to dig up and divide them only if they become reluctant to flower.

In its native South Africa, N bowdeniimakes large colonies in the leaf litter in the semi-shade of boulders, and at the base of south-facing basalt cliffs. Its specific epithet honours Athelstan Cornish-Bowden, who introduced it to cultivation at the end of the 19th century (by sending bulbs back to his mother in Devon), and who eventually became surveyor-general of the Cape Colony. Mrs Cornish-Bowden passed the bulbs onto Veitch's nursery. One of the first customers to get the new, yet-to-be-named bulb from the Exeter nursery was the Irish gardener William Edward Gumbleton, who lived at Belgrove in Cobh. Like many Cork gardeners today, he was mad keen to have something that no one else had. The more exotic, the better. He sent a flower sample to William Watson, curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, neglecting to tell him its provenance. This caused some confusion, as Mrs Cornish-Bowden had already sent a bulb and a flowering scape, but the connection between the two lots of samples was not made. Perhaps Gumbleton wished to be the first to name the new bulb? In the event, when the mystery was cleared up, it was named by Watson, after Bowden. It is Gumbleton's sample, however, that is preserved in Kew's herbarium as the type specimen – the definitive example of the species – so he maintains a lasting link with the plant's introduction.

For the first 50 years or so after its introduction, gardeners grew Bowden’s nerine as a greenhouse bulb, not realising that it was fully hardy. It is triggered into flower by falling temperatures, so when grown under glass, its blooming period is delayed until November or December. It is two months earlier when let loose in the great outdoors. There is no need to offer it greenhouse protection, unless you wish to hold back the flowering.

Another nerine that one sometimes sees, but usually in pots, is the coral red N. sarniensis– known as the jewel lily, because of its shimmering petals. It is also called the Guernsey lily, as it has naturalised on the sand dunes of that island. It has been grown there since the middle of the 17th century. There are fanciful stories about the bulbs having arrived via a shipwreck, but another explanation is that they came to Guernsey with the exiled Cromwellian, general John Lambert, who was known to have been growing it in his Wimbledon garden in the 1650s. Whatever its origins, the red nerine is celebrated annually on Guernsey in a two-week festival (which opens today).

The pink ruffled N undulataand the white N flexuosa'Alba' are also often grown as container plants, so that they may be given protection from frost. They are easy to cultivate, if you remember to stop watering in late spring or early summer, to allow the leaves to die off. During the busy warm months, when the rest of the garden is in uproar, the bulbs are quietly gathering their strength to provide a blast of old-fashioned fireworks at the darkening end of the year.

Where to see nerines

The Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin usually has some nerines on display in the alpine house during autumn.

In Guernsey, the Nerine Festival opens today and continues until October 23rd at Candie Gardens, St Peter Port.

Nicholas de Rothschild's collection of Nerine sarniensisvarieties is on show for the month of October at Exbury Gardens (www.exbury.co.uk), Exbury, Southampton, Hampshire.

DIARY DATES

Sunday, October 18th, 1-5pm: Apple Day, with expert advice, cookery demonstrations, tastings, and old Irish apple varieties for sale.

Thursday, October 22nd, 7.30-9pm: The Winter Vegetable Garden, a talk organised by Dromcollogher Organic College. Tickets €5 in advance, €6 on the night, including refreshments.

Both events at the Secret Garden, Aghaneenagh, Newmarket, Co Cork, 029-60084, www.thesecretgardener.com

Spring cabbages can be planted now (baby plants are available in good garden centres). Members of the brassica family are martyrs to soil-borne pests and diseases, so make sure you rotate them around your vegetable beds. Try to allow at least two non-brassica years before planting them again in the same bed. Firm the soil around the stems when planting, and keep an eye on them as they get bigger. The wind can loosen top heavy plants and damage the root structure. You may need to offer support, or earth up the stems in spring. In theory, it is now too late to plant out purple sprouting broccoli, chard, spinach beet and winter lettuces, but if you live in favoured areas of this island, and have light soil, you can plant with impunity. The crops will be a little later in spring, but will help fill the April and May gap.