PlantFiles: Pink Rain Lily, Rainlily
Zephyranthes rosea

A very beautiful flowering bulb! In my experience with this rain lily, it seems to like being pot bound ... with its many offsets. I was living in Zone 6 ... Cleveland, OH (less than a mile from L. Erie ... though it may be considered Zone 5b or 5a ... depends on your source) when I first started growing this bulb. I let it go dormant in the pot it was planted in. The following Spring, I resume watering (same pot)... the new growth zooms up, quickly, followed by the flowers that look like large Q-tips before they open up. I have not noticed a fragrance ... maybe I need to take a closer sniff!

I divide the bulbs and re-pot every two or three years ... depending on how closely they were originally potted.

The initial blooming consists of numerous flowers almost all at once. Then, it flowers regularly, though not as prolific, throughout the summer.

This Zeph. is widely available. I have not tested its hardiness, but others consider it to be very tender. As a pot plant under glass it does not bloom as profusely as many of the other species.

Z. rosea is sometimes confused with the larger Z. grandiflora, but their flowering habits easily distinguish the two species, as Z. rosea has significantly smaller, rounded blooms, sometimes with eight blossoms. In contrast, Z. grandiflora has six-petalled blooms nearly three times the size.