An Abandoned Lot in Louisiana
One of my earliest bulb hunting experiences was with LSU horticulture professor Dr. Neil Odenwald. He took me to an abandoned lot, and we discovered Crinum jagus and a pink rain lily clumping up in beautiful clusters of pink in this seemingly abandoned garden. It was the Zephyranthes grandiflora.
That’s the thing about this plant. Somebody planted it, the house came down, the people left, and it kept blooming for whoever eventually walked back in. There are many rain lilies that bloom all across the world, but few put on the show of this one. The joyful flowers open wide on stalks about 3–6 inches above their flattened dark green foliage, and they bloom through the hottest part of summer, over and over, usually following a rain.
A Note on the Name
I’m not a botanist and I try to stay out of the weeds, but you should hear this from me rather than from a stranger at a plant sale.
The plant the whole nursery trade sells as Zephyranthes grandiflora is, by current botanical accounting, properly Zephyranthes carinata — described by William Herbert in the Botanical Magazine in 1825. It’s native to Mexico, Colombia, and Central America. The name Z. grandiflora as Lindley published it actually belongs to a different plant altogether (now Z. minuta), and the two have been tangled together in horticulture for a very long time.
We sell it as grandiflora because that’s what it’s been called in this trade for a century and that’s what you’ll be looking for. But if you ever see Zephyranthes carinata on a label somewhere and think it looks awfully familiar — it is. Same plant. Same 1825 introduction. Herbert, who also gave us Zephyranthes as a genus, named it for the keel on its leaves.
Zephyranthes itself: Zephyr, Greek god of the west wind, and anthos, flower. The flower of the west wind — which is to say, the flower of the weather that brings the storm.
Why They Bloom After Rain
Summer thundershowers, with their splash of water and quick cooling of temperatures, trigger massive blooms three to five days after the storm has passed. This is why they’re called rain lilies.
What’s worth understanding is that it isn’t individual bulbs deciding on their own. Every bulb in a colony gets the same signal at the same time, and they all respond together. That’s why an established patch throws dozens of flowers within a few days of a rain, and why one lonely bulb is nothing to look at. These are plants that want to be planted en masse.
A single bloom lasts only a day or two. The show is made of many flowers opening across a week, with stragglers for another week behind them. Then it’s over — until the next storm.
My Favorite Way to Use Them
Perhaps my favorite landscape use of these pink rain lilies is to see them mixed in with liriope, a common ornamental grass border. The casual eye rarely notices the difference in foliage between the rain lilies and the liriope. Then 3–5 days after a good rain in June or July, that “common” border explodes in large popcorns of star-shaped pink blooms. Nobody sees it coming. That’s the whole trick.
As my former horticulture advisor at Texas A&M told me: “I love rain lilies because they are like old friends that pop back into your life. You haven’t seen them in ages but you are so glad to see them again.” Thank you, Sharon, for such a great quote.
Telling the Pinks Apart
People wonder why they’d want more than one kind of pink rain lily. Here’s the honest answer: they’re different plants doing different jobs, and planted together they give you a gradient of pink and a much longer season.
Comparing the Z. grandiflora to our other pinks — Habranthus robustus and Zephyranthes ‘Labuffarosa’:
1) Shape. The Z. grandiflora and the ‘Labuffarosa’ bloom with an open, star-like look, while the H. robustus has a more trumpet, elongated bloom.
2) Color. Blooms on a Z. grandiflora are so vibrant they’re almost an iridescent blend of pink and purple, with maybe even a hint of blue. The ‘Labuffarosa’ is a lighter pink than the grandiflora, though not quite as pale as the Habranthus, while the H. robustus is a very light, soft pink. Planted together, the three give you a lovely gradient — deepening from the palest blush of the robustus, through the gentle rose of the labuffarosa, to the rich, almost iridescent bloom of the grandiflora.
3) Foliage. Foliage on the Z. grandiflora is darker green and smaller; the H. robustus foliage is paler and flatter.
4) Height. The grandiflora and ‘Labuffarosa’ are shorter than the Habranthus robustus, which makes for great layering.
5) Timing. The H. robustus begins in April/May; the grandiflora starts the first of June and continues through the heat of summer. Their bloom times overlap for several weeks at the end of May and into June, so you get a stunning combination.
Planting & Care
Zones: 8–10 in the ground. Colder than 8, grow them in pots and move them to a garage or shop for the winter.
Spacing: The most-asked question we get is “How close together should I plant the bulbs?” The answer is: it depends on what you’re after. If you want the area to look natural right away, plant about 2 inches apart. If you’re willing to let it look sparse for a couple of years, plant 4–6 inches apart. They multiply quickly and will fill in — it just takes a couple of seasons.
Depth: No more than 2–3 times the height of the bulb, so about 4 inches deep.
Sun: Great in full summer sun; happy with a few hours of summer shade. Works well under irrigation, especially in a dry summer.
Maintenance: Almost none. Normally all that’s required is some hand weeding around the clumps as they grow up with other summer plants.
Dependable
The Zephyranthes grandiflora multiplies quickly through the hot humid summer months in the South. It’s a perennial bulb, so it needs time to establish, but we always plant with next year in mind. It can absolutely be planted during the summer — that gives it time to settle in.
Just when you’re sure the southern summer heat was too much for them, along comes a rain and your area is transformed into a sea of bright pink. Ask the abandoned lot in Louisiana. It had been doing that for decades before either of us showed up.
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