Habranthus robustus

It is a bulbous plant of Amaryllidaceae family, native to Argentina and Brazil, not hardy at our climate. I keep it in pots and take it to the cellar before the first frosts. There it waits for spring, in the compost, normally without water, but sometimes our overzealous neighbour waters it. Due to this superfluous watering it has green shots all winter and I have to repot it already in January. I think it also affects the flowering which is not so good as I would expect. The repotting was shown in an earlier post.

It usually begins to flower in June and continues until August. But the peak of blooming is at the beginning, when we usually are somewhere in the Alps on holiday, so I can see only the remnants of late beauty.
Well, there are still some flowers...

It has long, ribbon-like leaves and 7 cm flowers which have a vivid magenta color after opening, but this dims a little on next days. One bulb produces many flowers one after the other. The flower stem is rather long (too long for me). I always remove the dead flowers, so I don't know if it could set seeds.

I mix a ready made compost with 1/3 part perlite for planting. During summer I give it a fertilizer used for flowering pot plants. It produces many bulbils every year, these can reach flowering size in two years. In summer I don't let the compost to dry out but certainly take care to avoid stagnant water.

I have seen window box planted with it. I usually put many bulbs together to have many flowers, but this means I have to give more fertilizer.