If you love the old-fashioned striped crinums you see thriving around old Southern homesteads, you are going to love Crinum 'Schreck'. It is very similar to our other striped variety, Crinum Milk and Wine (Crinum x herbertii), with all of the same good qualities but with four or five times as many blooms on each stalk! Better yet, if the Milk and Wine Crinum is known for being the toughest bulb in the garden, this special variety of it is tougher! This crinum owes its popularity to plant enthusiast Marcelle Sheppard, who noticed the difference in this type of Milk and Wine Crinum and used her influence in the plant world to bring it to light. Many wish they knew the story behind the breeding of this plant; however, we do know that it remains one of the toughest and most elegant summer-blooming crinums.
Blooms: Fragrant, trumpet-shaped white blooms striped with wine-red stand atop sturdy stalks about 2-3 feet tall, rising above a fountain of long, strappy green leaves. Typically, as these crinums bloom each summer they will send up an average of 15 bloom spikes, sometimes lasting for a couple of weeks each, so you get a long season of color through the hottest part of the year.
Planting: This bulb comes growing in a 1 gallon pot. Plant it in the garden at the same level it is growing in the pot, keeping the neck of the bulb right at or barely above soil level. Crinums perform best with at least 8 hours of sun a day, though a little late-afternoon shade is welcome in the hottest areas. Give it well-drained soil and space plants about 3 feet apart so they have room to form big clumps. Water regularly the first season while it gets established; after that it is very drought tolerant. It is reliably perennial in zones 7-10, and a layer of mulch over the bulb in winter helps in zone 7.
Landscaping Tip: Crinums don't like to be moved, so choose a spot where it can stay for years. Over time it forms a large, long-lived clump that is perfect along a fence line, at the corner of a house, or as the backbone of a cottage garden bed.
Animals: Like most crinums, deer and other animals tend to leave it alone.