A kind of "Cherry tree" in my garden

This "cherry tree" voluntarily planted itself in my garden a few years ago. Last season it started blooming for the first time and this season it continues to do so.

Formerly, this tree grew wild in the forests around Dalat. Thanks to its flowering during the new year, local people have started to hunt for smaller trees to plant in their gardens. Mine, perhaps, was grown from a seed blowing in the wind!
The blossom has 5 petals and is light pink. It comes in clusters and last for a few days. When the tree is old enough, it can be covered with multitude of blooms, which makes the tree looks quite spectacular.

I don't know whether it is any way related to the cherry tree of Japan. I hope some kind visitors to my blog give me more information on this tree.

A very special sun-flower

I got three seeds of this sun-flower from Stephanie, a gardening friend overseas. I sowed them and two germinated. This happened a few months ago. Now both plants are showing flower heads.

Instead of the usual yellow blooms, these plants has dark chocolate blooms. Isn't that very special?

I'm thrilled at seeing these heads. I hope at least one of the heads will open while I'm here and that I will have viable seeds for next time.

Many thanks to Stephanie for these.

Update December 26th, one of the heads has opened. The flower has dark chocolate color. I'm so impressed!

Update 28th December: the bloom is fully open.

Happy Holidays!

Sweet Nymph

One more bulb from Royal Colors - Sweet Nymph - is showing off its first bloom.




Parly open, she looks like a lotus, doesn't she?


There are two scapes with 4 buds on each one. Will see how she turns out to be when fully open tomorrow.

More photos of Evergreen in full bloom

I posted when the bulb first opened its bloom. Two days now and the bulb/plant looks even more glorious.
Here are a few more photos of Evergreen in full glory.






I'm so happy with Evergreen; such a good bulb!

Updates on Royal Colors Amaryllis

Until today, all my four bulbs have produced scapes. And the Evergreen is fully open.


I didn't notice that Evergreen would have more than 4 blooms per scape so I was very happy to see that each of its scapes has from 8 to 10 blooms!


It's really a treat.

Royal Colors amaryllis

I ordered 4 amaryllis bulbs from Royal Colors of the Netherland. They finally arrived last Monday after circulating nearly half the globe!


These bulbs have probably been pre-chilled to be bloomed around Christmas time. First thing I did with them was to clean them off brown, papery skin to avoid possible rot.


Then I soak their roots in water for a day before planting to help them recover more quickly.


Finally, I planted them in a good mix yesterday afternoon.


This morning, I was greeted with this.


Wow, it's quick, really!

Update: I found one more scape emerging from another bulb - the Evergreen, this morning Dec 2nd. It's very exciting watching these.