Nerine Bowdenii 'Isabel'

Offering a similar colour to yesterday's Lobelia, here is a well established bulb that is so hardy and reliable in flowering it constantly surprises. Nerine Bowdenii is a bold plant, its 60cm flowers borne on sturdy stems that defy anything the weather throws at it. It also bursts into life just when other blossoms are tucking in for winter, bedraggled and tired. There are several named nerines and I have a few. This particularly deep variety is called, I think, 'Isabel', and is anything but tired. The flower originates in the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa where the July temperature range is 7° / -7°. The well established clump sits in my tallest terracotta urn and is untouched so far by our winters. The foliage may look a bit weather beaten perhaps, the flowers the very opposite. And such are the vagaries of photography that I include two close-ups, one taken this morning, the other as dusk approaches. The colours are totally different. Different cameras though.