IT is just as well that the garden does not suddenly fall asleep with the falling of leaves and the approach of winter. Days are shorter, darker and the weather unenticing for the many outdoor jobs awaiting attention, but the lingering presence of late flowers and the welcome awareness of evergreen foliage, largely ignored at other seasons, brings pleasure and an assertion that the garden never really stops.
In sheltered sunny corners, nerines are still doing their best, fresh clear pink colouring a welcome respite from the dying-leaf colours which are everywhere. From South Africa, the nerine is a bulb which seems to thrive on neglect - at least a particular kind of neglect. It needs sunshine, warmth band good drainage.
Frequently it is planted at the base of a wall - often the base of a house wall where a suitable south-facing wall is available. In country places you see them thriving in the gravel in such situations. They need reasonable soil, needless to say, but once planted they can be left alone for a long time. They are available in late winter and that is the time to plant, to move or to divide. The gardener's initial instinct may be to bury them several inches down as is done with other bulbs, but the nerine will prefer to have its nose showing at ground level. The other thing they really like is to get crowded. Newly-planted bulbs often don't flower well until they have had a chance to settle in well and get and get to know their fellows. Then they really party.
The green, strappy leaves are produced in late winter and early spring and then die away in late summer before the flower spikes appear. The stem is a foot to 18 inches high supporting a spherical head of refined trumpet lily-like flowers. They may start to flower as early as September in some places. Here they are flowers of October and November - if the frost spares them - and that is sometimes a heartache as a sharp early November frost can blacken them overnight when they are in their prime. The very worst winter frosts such as occur once every 20 years or so could kill the bulbs completely but such a distant possibility should not be a deterrant.
The usual one on offer and by far the easiest - and hardiest - is Nerine bowdenii with clear pink colouring in the forms usually available. Sometimes it is referred to as the Guernsey lily since a consignment of bulbs was washed up on the shore and took root after a shipwreck. Different shades of pink are available but you will have to search for them and there is a white-flowered form also. One rich arose pink is Nerine "Paule Knight". This is a hybird but is quite hardy given a sheltered position. In bud, the colouring is carmine rose and the anthers are maroon, altogether a strong and eyecatching combination.
There are other nerines, Nerine sarniensis and Nerine flexuosa which are more tender and are often grown in the greenhouse. Numerous hybrids of these have been raised and they are easy if protection from frost and winter winds and rain can be afforded them. There was great breeding done in this area early this century and at the time the Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin held a big collection but these were wiped out one particularly frosty night in 1930.
One noted Dublin gardener, Miss Doris Findlater, raised several good cultivars in rich pink, claret and scarlet colourings during the 1950s and 1960s and they are to be found in the greenhouses of the specialists. They deserve to be better known. One of the scarlet ones she named "Glensavage Gem" after the name of her home.