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Saturday, February 6, 2010, 6:00 PM EST - Clivia in Bud

First, the Weather!

We probably got 6 to 7 inches of snow yesterday and last night, but it's very hard to be sure. The winds have blown many open areas almost clear, down to only 1 or 2 inches deep. Around buildings and beyond groups of trees, the drifts are nearly a foot deep.

We always get drifts across the drive just in front of the garage door. I hope our driveway will be plowed by tonight, because I like to go out for breakfast on Sunday mornings.

They tell us that another snowstorm is coming Monday evening. Oh, joy!

Clivia Getting Ready to Bloom

One Clivia robusta from Kranskop in South Africa is in bloom. I think this is slightly late for robusta to be blooming; but then I have two Clivia caulescens that are just finishing flowering, and this very early for caulescens to be in bloom.

In the Clivia House on Thursday, I saw that there are buds appearing on some of the other Clivia plants. Many of the 'Victorian Peach' plants have buds starting to show down in the necks of the plants.

Several yellow clivia are also in bud. These are older, larger plants. There is a first-ever bud showing on one of the Pen Henry White seedlings. I'm eagerly awaiting that flower!

Then there is the oldest Clivia I have, my Belgian #303.A, from somewhere around 1990. No. 303.A has buds showing down in the hearts of two fans. The number 303's are larger and redder than the most recent Belgian hybrids I have seen.

Hippeastrum, too

Finally, two pots of Hippeastrum [papilio x mandonii] are in bloom! I need to take pictures of those, since this is the first time they have flowered. There are buds on the H. petiolatum as well. Let's see what else blooms this spring.

A bigger surprise hasa been that my old Hippeastrum aulicum stenopetalum has set seeds. I've had one plant (numerous bulbs) of H. aulicum stenopetalum for about 30 years. I got it from the late Dr. Tom Whitaker, who got it from the front yard of a lady somewhere in Brazil. It blooms for me from time to time, depending probably on whether I give it any particular care or not. Before I got it, Tom had grown it in his own front yard in La Jolla, Calif., for many years.

It bloomed in the big greenhouse in December, and I took note of the bloom but otherwise left it alone. In 30 years, it has never set any seed, no matter how assiduously I pollinated it. This year, both flowers in the umbel set seed pods. I assume they are "x self," but it is possible that a plant of H. mandonii bloomed at about the same time. In any case, I definitely did not pollinate it myself. Let me stress that it has never, ever, set a seed before while in my possession, whether hand-pollinated or not. Rather curious.

Hippeastrum aulicum stenopetalum

Both seed pods had healthy-looking seed in them, and I planted most of the seeds yesterday. I want to see 1) whether they germinate or not; and 2) eventually, if they someday bloom, whether they are true to their maternal genes or are they hybrids.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 8:00 AM EST - Midwest Clivia Group

Clivia Get-together

I have set the date for the meeting of the Midwest Clivia Group for March 13-14th, 2010. It will again be at my place. We will plan to have a cold buffet lunch at 12 noon on Saturday, followed by visits in the greenhouses.

In hope that we will get the plants to bloom by then, this morning I turned up the thermostats in the Clivia greenhouse from 45 F nights/50 F days to 60 F nights/ 65 F days.

If you are coming, please bring along any plants you want to show us, and anything you want to trade. Let's make it a swap meet as well as looking at flowers and talking with friends.

Sunday is also available for greenhouse visits. Other Clivia Enthusiasts in the area include Rashid Qureshi in St Louis, Missouri (5 hrs west of here by car) and Kevin Akin outside Columbus, Ohio (2 hrs east by car). Both have greenhouses full of clivias.

If you intend to come in time for lunch on Saturday, March 13th, please R.S.V.P. to me: <jim@shieldsgardens.com>

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Saturday, January 23, 2010, 8:30 AM EST - Can You Grow Bulbs in Clay?

Galanthus

Here in central Indiana, we have lots of clay soil. I have tried to naturalize Galanthus in the lawn. Mowing is what eventually eliminated them, but I think not the clay soil. When planted in beds -- i.e., anywhere without grass -- they do well. I grow GG. nivalis, elwesii, and a few woronowii. They do just fine, away from grass and lawnmowers.

Note however that many species of Galanthus are simply not hardy in our climate, regardless of the soil. I've stopped experimenting with Galanthus and Cyclamen, since they are difficult to come by, and I got tired of killing them. Still, GG. elwesii and nivalis do really great here.

Lycoris, Cochicum, Sternbergia

So do Lycoris in addition to squamigera: chinensis, caldwellii, longituba, and sprengeri.

Hardy Cochicum like byzantinum, cilicicum, speciosum, and a few others are terrific here, even in the grass (if you don't mow till their leaves yellow off). My neighbors love the pink flowers in our lawn in later summer! They never complain about the "hay field" effect the unmowed patches of lawn give into early July.

Others that may seem unlikely but that do well include Galtonia, Sternbergia, most Eurasian Gladiolus, and a few hardier Crinum in protected spots (but full sun). You can't have too many Sternbergia! They bloom after the Colchicum have finished flowering.

The Lasagna Method

That said, it is not a good idea to just stick everything into plain clay soil. Add gypsum. Add sand. Add lots of composted leaves, or just pile your leaves on top of the beds when you rake them in autumn.

I make beds on top of the clay, starting with a very thick layer of rotted leaves; then put on a 2 to 4 inch layer of some decent topsoil; and finally cover with 2 inches of plain brown sand. Plant in the sand/topsoil layer (they get mixed when you try to plant anything). The roots will go down to the rotted leaves layer all on their own. I call it the "Lasagna Method."

No spading, but a bit of hauling and spreading. Outstanding drainage! But the clay is close enough that the roots can go down into it, if they need to, to find water in dry weather.

I didn't invent the lasagna method; I got the idea from one of these on-line plant groups. Try it; you'll love it.

Can You Grow Bulbs in Clay?

So, can you grow bulbs in clay? In many case the answer is yes, but you really don't have to. Use the "Lasagna Method" instead.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Tuesday, January 19, 2010, 6:30 PM EST - Repotting in Winter

Scadoxus puniceus

The Scadoxus puniceus are getting ready to bloom. One spike is all the way up, and most of the rest of bloom size have scapes starting to push up out of the bulbs. Before the flowers start to fade, this year's flush of leaves will be up. That means that this is the last possible moment for repotting this species. Seven years ago, the last time some of these were repotted, the larger bulbs were 8 to 11 cm. in circumference. Now, one I measured is 21.5 cm. around; and it is probably slightly under average size. Seven years ago, most were not yet blooming -- several bloomed the first time in February 2005. (Diameter for 11-cm circumference is about 3.5 cm, or 1.40 inches.)

A bloom-size puniceus with all its roots easily fills a 2-gallon (actually 8.3 Liters) container. They might grow even bigger, but I refuse to put any of them into larger pots than the 2-gallon size. If I hand pollinated these things when they are in bloom in February, we'd flood the world with Scadoxus puniceus seeds. Given the minimal conditions, even in the cold Northern Hemisphere, these are formidable greenhouse plants. They bloom when little else is flowering. They are sizeable. They propagate easily but slowly from seed. They seem to ahve taken 7 years from seed to flower for me. You could probably keep the seedlings growing continuously for their first two years of life in a greenhouse or under lights, and that ought to shorten the time to first flowering.

The ideal time to repot any plant that goes through a dormant phase is just as growth is starting up again at the end of dormancy. When the plant is going into its spurt of new growth, it is very resistant to stresses such as unpotting and replanting. That is when the hormones are all primed to push growth. Sometimes the plants seem to barely notice that they were disturbed.

Facebook Threat

Frank, my IT guy, informed me today that there are viruses in Facebook that will override any anti-virus protection software you can get. It's best if you do NOT ever download any pictures, programs, or anything else from Facebook. Be Warned!

On that happy thought, I bid you, one and all,

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Saturday, January 16, 2010, 12:30 PM EST - Avoiding Chores

Not Entering Inventory Data

My favorite organizer, after my daughter, is Steph. She works here part-time in the summer in the gardens and greenhouses. Steph is a jewel! She likes to clean, so the garden office is usually clean and neat when she is working. Having a few days free over the Christmas break from college (Purdue University), she inventoried Greenhouse 4 for me, sorting all those pots by name and number and writing it all down.

Now Steph is back at Purdue, and I should be putting all that data into a spreadsheet. Maybe next week......, because I'm not sure I really want to know how many pots of Clivia and of Hippeastrum I have back there.

Not Writing My Investigator Annual Report

This is for my Trillium Speciation research project at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The main focus of my project is the relationship between two species, Trillium erectum album and T. simile. I spent a week there in April gathering a little data. (The weather was alternating between pouring rain and plain old snow; nasty for outdoors work.) Now I have to write up my year-end report to keep the National Park Service research permit alive.

I'm not as far behind on this. I actually put the raw data into a spreadsheet last summer, so the arithmetic is already done. But I do need to think about the data, and summarize my thoughts in the report. Maybe tomorrow....

The Glossary of Plant Biology

I have declared it to be out of beta testing status now, and renumbered it to Version 1.0.0, and I will continue to add terms to it as I run across them. I suppose I may never decide that the Glossary is finished; after all, new technical terms are being invented almost daily in science. Actually, the current version number is now 1.0.1, for the moment.

At least now the urgency to build the glossary has receded, and I can think about other things in between occasionally adding a new word or two to it. If you have a term from plant science that isn't in the Glossary and you think it should be, drop me an e-mail with the word and why you want it included or what you think it means. You can find it at: Glossary of Plant Biology.

Haemanthus avasmontanus Rediscovered?

Tim Harvey mentioned in the Pacific Bulb Society list that someone in Windhoek, Namibia, had recently found living plants of the extremely rare Haemanthus avasmontanus. I guess the rediscovered colony must be in Namibia.

According to Dee Snijman in her book, The Genus Haemanthus (National Botanic Gardens of South africa, 1984), the species was known from only a couple of specimens, collected in the Auasberge, southeast of Windhoek, in central Namibia. The flowers are white, the spathe valves (bracts surrounding the umbel) are brownish white. It is presumed to be related to Haemanthus montanus, but the present-day range of H. montanus is eastern South Africa, including the Eastern Cape Province, portions of the Free State, and into Mpumalanga (the old Transvaal region). Snijman says that avasmontanus is the closest relative of montanus.

An alternative spelling of the specific name is avasimontanus, but Snijman does not use this version. Sadly, Dee's book has been out of print for some time now.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Thursday, January 7, 2010, 4:30 PM EST - Making a Transition from Semantics to Evolution

Epigeal and Hypogeal - Evolutionary Implications of Germination Patterns

Exploring vocabulary runs the risk of getting us back into biology. That is the case in the examination of the meaning of the pairs of terms epigeal/hypogeal and skotomorphogenic/photomorphogenic applied to germination. Why are there two such modes of germination? What are their relative advantages and disadvantages to the plant species?

The parent of an epigeal seedling - in this context, one whose cotyledon(s) are above ground, green, and capable of photosynthesis - invests less in making that seed than the parent of a hypogeal seedling. In this context, that means one that has cotyledons or an endosperm loaded with stored energy reserves in the form of fat, protein, or carbohydrate, all provided by the parent plant at fruiting.

In a suitable environment, the parent of epigeal seeds can make more seeds for a given cost in energy than if it were making hypogeal seeds. Here, "epigeal seed" just means a seed that germinates in an epigeal pattern. The more seeds produced, the better the survival and dispersal potentials. This ought, prima facie, to be the better evolutionary strategy.

Why would a species then make seeds that need lots more endosperm or other forms of stored energy? To give the offspring a better chance at survival. They can be born into a harsh environment and carry reserves with them to better their chances of surviving in spite of the environment.

"Evolution cannot be reversed" is a common saying in biology. Environments change, competing species appear or disappear over time, climate changes. Some modern plants may be trapped in less favorable physiological patterns because an ancestor was forced to adopt this pattern to survive. The ancestor, in adopting the pattern, lost the potential to return to using a different pattern. Some plants using hypogeal germination might be better off if they could revert to epigeal germination, but have lost the genetic capability to do so; and vice versa.

Some plants may be in the process of adapting their inherited mode of germination to newer changed circumstances; and some plant species may be able to facultatively adapt their mode of germination, depending upon local circumstances. I don't know, but I do wonder...

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 9:30 AM EST - Creating a Glossary. 2.

Adventures with Epigeal and Hypogeal

In essence, epigeal and hypogeal are just arcane words for "above ground" and "below ground," respectively. I am only concerned here with their application to plant biology.

These terms are defined for dicots as follows: Epigeal - describes the germination process where the germinating seed raises the cotyledons above the ground where they function as true leaves. Hypogeal - describes the germination process where the cotyledons remain below ground and do not function as leaves.

All well and good. However, one is easily distracted from the biology by the use of terms referring to where rather than how.

Physiologically, this means the epigeal cotyledons power the growing seedlings by photosynthesizing. The hypogeal cotyledons support the growing seedlings by providing nutrition from stored reserved, in the way that the endosperm does; or else the hypogeal cotyledons may contribute little or nothing to the growth of the seedling, if there is some other source of stored reserve. I would expect seeds having little endosperm to germinate in an epigeal pattern. Seeds with generous reserves in the endosperm or cotyledons would not be constrained to rapidly produce a green leaf, so have the option through evolution of first building a sturdy protected plant underground.

It gets a bit murky when we try to apply these terms to monocots. Many monocot plant families have a cotyledon that never emerges from the seed, following the pattern defined for dicots as "hypogeal germination."

Some monocots produce a green shoot very soon after germination, during the first growth season. Edward McRae in his book "Lilies" defines epigeal germination in lilies (genus Lilium) in this way.

McRae defines "hypogeal germination" as that where the seed produces an underground bulb during the first season of growth but no leaf. Only after a period of dormancy, therefore in the second season of growth, does the plant produce a green leaf above ground.

McRae was writing for the average gardener. Lily experts further recognize immediate epigeal, delayed epigeal, immediate hypogeal, and delayed hypogeal germinations in different Lilium species and cultivars.

We can see the rough parallels between the dicot uses of the terms and the application of the terms to lilies. The absence of cotyledons in these lilies can cause pedants a great deal of trouble in using either of them to describe what lily seedlings do. Applying them to other monocots becomes equally problematic. Of such dilemmas are the trials of glossarists apparently made!

Incidentally, in trying to find out what these terms mean, I was told that they apply to ant foraging habits as well: Epigeal foraging in ants is above ground, hypogeal foraging is underground. I never knew that before!

I think we should ban the use of both epigeal and hypogeal from discussions of any and all monocots. Find other terms for describing germination processes in monocots. The Liliists (is that a word?) would probably revolt, if we tried.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Monday, December 28, 2009, 7:30 PM EST - Creating a Glossary

The Glossary of Plant Biology

The Glossary of Plant Biology is on my web site at: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/info/Glossary.html if you are curious about what I've been doing for the past few days.

It has been great fun! Since I intend it to be an adjunct to this blog, with easy access via links to definitions of technical terms I may use, I can point out the weaknesses in some of the technical concepts we use. I did finally include a vague definition of "species," against my better judgement. A rigorous definition of species has proven elusive to biologists over the last century or so.

I started life collecting bugs. My notion of "dorsal" is the zoological definition of the word: the surface of the animal away from the ground. I discovered, much to my surprise, that this definition just does not work in botany, so it's a good idea NOT to use the terms "dorsal" and "ventral" in relation to plants. At least not around me, please.

I am also discovering that there are some great on-line sources for definitions. For technical terms, I recommend Wordnetweb at Princeton University. Based at a great university, this is my source of preference among those I have seen so far in developing my Glossary. Highly recommended.

Wikipedia is also very comprehensive and very good -- so far as I can tell. I have read that the Wikipedia group are losing volunteer monitors to tend various sections, and vandals are hacking pages in some cases. I suppose we should use Wikipedia with great care and not for anything where accuracy is critical.

Dave's Garden web site has a couple lists of definitions. There are lots and lots of words defined! Most definitions seem pretty good to me, but I only looked at a few. So far as I know, anyone can post a definition there, and no one vets them critically -- again, so far as I know. Probably somewhat less rigorous than most Wikipedia entries, at a guess.

As a working biologist for about 70 years (if you count the bugs I caught as a little kid on the farm), I found I had a pretty good feel for most of the words I thought of to include in the Glossary. This is logical: I think of words that I have already used or have read in books and articles. So I ought to be able to put together a usable definition if not necessarily one that a specialist in the field would write. I want my definitions to be useful to persons who do not have an advanced degree in biology. Understandable is more important than rigor in my Glossary.

I'm still working away on it. Meantime, if you poke around through it out of curiosity, let me know if you spot any glaring errors. I'm not going to get up-tight about nuances, but I don't want to mis-state the general meanings of terms. Let me know: <jim@shieldsgardens.com>.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 9:30 AM EST - Miscellany

Local Weather Report

So far we have missed the bullet on the big winter storm in the central USA. They had predicted freezing rain for last night and this morning, but it came down just as rain. The freeze edge moved just to the north and east of us, so some other poor unfortunates are getting "our" ice storm. That's OK with me, given the alternative.

Glossary of Plant Biology

I have been somewhat bored the past few days, being reluctant to go out in the rain and snow and cold wind. So to entertain myself, and because I need an easy reference to which to link my comments when I use technical terms, I set to work. So far I have somewhere over 90 terms defined, almost all the definitions coming off the top of my head. So it is meant to help the non-scientist reader get a quick idea of what a technical term means, but not to serve as a textbook for serious students.

You can find it, the Glossary of Plant Biology, at this link: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/info/Glossary.html but I will normally provide a direct link into the Glossary whenever I use a term defined in it. For example, try meiosis. If this does not work in your browser, please let me know.

I will eventually start to borrow proper definitions from other sources, but for now it has been fun just to see how many technical terms I could come up with and generate reasonable definitions for.

If you spot errors, by all means contact me and point them out to me. Use my blog e-mail, <blog@shieldsgardens.com>

The Matter of "Species"

I purposely omitted a definition for "species" from the Glossary. In practical terms, a "species" is whatever a biologist says it is. Another way of saying that a biologist knows a species when he sees one.

The problem arises when someone tries to put into a few words a definition of "species" that holds up for all cases of what most biologists have called "species" in the past. One man's species is someone else's group of several species. Does there have to be gene flow through all populations of a species for there to be just one species?

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 5:00 PM EST - Peach Clivia. 2.

Pink in Relation to Peach

Following up on my discussion of peach clivias, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that pink clivias are just peaches with the underlying yellow pigmentation suppressed.

Clones and Strains

I cannot claim complete coverage here, because I am sure there are many pink clivias in South Africa that I have never seen, and probably some in Southern California as well. The pinks I am most familiar with are those from Solomone. They have pinks, Watercolor Washed Pinks, and Charm Pinks. All have very light pigmentation in the petals and sepals, but none I have seen are absolutely devoid of all yellow color. They may need to be classified as pale peaches.

Solomone Pink No. 2010 (left) and Solomone Pink No. 2011 (right)

Solomone Watercolor Pink No. 2004 (left) and Solomone Watercolor Pink No. 2005 (right)

Whether these Solomone "pinks" are pink or are peach seems to depend very much on the lighting in determining whether you or I can see very much yellow underneath the pink. How much patterning shows up in the Watercolor lines seems to depend on the year and therefore on the growing conditions. I see less contrasting pattern on the plants here in Indian than I thought I saw on them in the Solomone greenhouse near Watsonville, California. In any case, they are remarkable flowers and worth some work breeding new generations of their like.

Besides the Solomone pinks, there is the South African 'Wittig Pink'. A true-breeding pink strain has been developed from it by Sean Chubb as 'Pretty Pink'. I've never seen a 'Wittig Pink' but I do have a couple of Sean's 'Pretty Pink' plants. They are still too small to bloom by at least a couple years, so I will have to wait patiently to see where these plants are headed. It seems likely that the 'Wittig Pink' is in the same genetic class as the 'Appleblossom' strain, which latter is characterized by light rose to pink coloration in a pattern so that only edges or tips of the tepals are colored. Some plants of this strain lack the yellow ground color.

With my three plants of Sean's 'Pretty Pink' and a couple seedlings from the 'Appleblossom' group, I will eventually be able to undertake my own breeding experiments in this classification.

Are there any "true" pinks in the clivias? For that matter, what is a "true" pink? I think we need to define a pink flower as one that has no yellow pigments visible under the dilute red anthocyanin pigments in the surface layer of cells. I have not yet seen a real pink clivia so far. When I do see one, I think it will have come from breeding in the 'Appleblossom' strain. Keep watching for the 'Appleblossom' clivias.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Monday, December 21, 2009, 5:00 PM EST - Peach Clivia. 1 Modified.

Update of Yesterday's Blog

I have added a link to a page on peach clivias in the Shields Gardens' Info section to yesterday's discussion: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/info/PeachClivia.html.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Sunday, December 20, 2009, 5:00 PM EST - Peach Clivia. 1.

Clones and Cultivars

Keith Hammett and associates demonstrated a few years ago that peach clivia flowers have both yellow carotenoid pigments and much lower levels of the red anthocyanin pigments. The characteristic appearance of a peach flowered clivia is due to the presence of both the yellow pigment and the red pigment. There is no separate and distinct "peach" pigment, at least not in Clivia.

The classic peach clivias were David Conway's 'Tessa' and 'Ellexa'. The precise origins of Dave Conway's cultivars are obscure. He found many as unusual stand-outs in the stock of other nurserymen in Southern California. He raised many from seed, often using his mixed pollen method, where he simply combined pollen from all the plants he wanted to breed with, and then applied that mix to every flower on every plant. We may never know where any particular Conway cultivar came from.

Conway's 'Tessa' is a medium sized to small plant with mostly erect leaves. The color of the flowers seems to be a deeper shade of yellow-peach. 'Ellexa' is a larger plant, with taller scape and longer leaves. The leaves arch over so that the tips may hang below the horizontal. 'Ellexa' has flowers of a somewhat lighter shade than those of 'Tessa'.
Conway's 'Tessa'
Image of 'Tessa' copyright by Shields
Gardens Ltd. All rights reserved.

In Southern California, the most widely distributed strains of peach clivias were the 'Victorian Peach' line developed at the former Sunlet Nursery near San Diego. These plants were probably developed using some of Conway's peaches as well as other available breeding material. A true breeding line or lines eventually resulted. The results varied, with there being a very pale peach strain, as well as a dark peach atrain, and a group of intermediate shade plants. With the closing of Sunlet Nursery, I think quite a bit of the Victorian Peach stock was obtained by Victor Murillo.

'Victorian Peach' Dark Strain
Image copyright by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

A famous South African peach line produced the 'Cameron Peach' strain and the 'Tipperary Peach' strain. These two lines of plants had a common origin at one nursery, and were arbitrarily split into two groups when that nursery was dissolved. They are apparently not widely available outside South Africa.

'Cameron Peach'
Image copyright by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

It is generally thought in Clivia circles that all the above peach plants originated from isolated sports in the Belgian hybrid strain. Whether they are all genetically the same peach or not remains to be clarified by Clivia breeders around the world. For some additional discussion, see Shields Gardens' Info section on Peach Clivia.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 11:00 AM EST - Red Clivia. 2.

Clones and Cultivars

The classic red clivia was Conway's 'Doris', and many of us bought it. Just as good a red, perhaps a better one, is Conway's 'Abigail'.
Conway's 'Doris'

Other reds that we have had include the regular Solomone Red strain, and Solomone's selected "Reddest" strain.
Solomone Red Clivia

We look for reds wherever we can find them. A nice red turned up in a batch of pastels received from Kevin Akins; I call that one "Kevin's Red."

Years ago, Pen Henry sent me a batch of seeds from her breeding program. A few of those resulted in plants that are now blooming size, labeled "Pen Henry Reds." I am sure Pen's red is a complex interspecific hybrid, since the berries are yellow with only a little pink coloration. I think her reds derive from her 'Tropical Splendor' strain of interspecific hybrids. I'll talk about berry colors some other time.
Pen Henry Red Clivia

Other Conway plants with notable red coloration in the flowers include 'Sabrina Delphine', 'Fleur de Lis', and 'Jean Delphine'. In my greenhouse, some of these have not done well: 'Abigail', 'Doris', 'Fleur de Lis', 'Jean Delphine', 'Sabrina Delphine', and the Solomone "Reddest." I suspect that the Solomone red lines have a lot of 'Doris' genes in their backgrounds. I have one plant of my cross ['Sabrina Delphine' x 'Doris'] that has suvived to just about bloom size. I am eagerly waiting to see what its flowers look like.
Clivia 'Jean Delphine'

Many red clivia have tulip shaped flowers. This seems to be genetically linked with the genes for intense red color. On the other hand, some of the South African reds and the Belgian reds tend to have more open, flaring flower form. Some of my [Miné X Bing Wiese Green Throat] from South Africa have good flower form, decent red color, a white ground color and throat, and a rich green heart. At least sometimes.

The Best Reds in California

While Conway's 'Doris' and his 'Abigail' bloom quite a nice red color in southern California, there are redder reds on clivias there. Plants from the cross ['Abigail' x 'Doris'] made by Maris Andersons in Santa Barbara have excellent deep red flowers in a nice umbel. Jim Comstock has produced a few of the very reddest reds I have ever seen. I do not know the names of any of the Comstock red clones, and Comstock's breeding materials are not available to anyone so far as I have ever heard.

I repeated the ['Abigail' x 'Doris'] cross myself here in Indiana, and we have about 6 surviving plants from that batch. At least two of them are actually large enough to flower this year, if they happen to feel like it.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Sunday, December 13, 2009, 11:00 AM EST - Red Clivia. 1.

Breeding for Reds

Light has a very strong influence on color development in Clivia flowers, and in other flowers as well. We perhaps need to explain to newcomers and remind our experienced colleagues that anthocyanin color expression is controlled by incident light. If the genes allow anthocyanin pigments, will the light induce their expression?

You can buy a rich red flowered Clivia in Southern California and grow it in Indiana, and see with your own eyes (my own eyes in this case) that here in the cloudy, nearly-sunless Midwestern winters, your red clivia blooms red-orange or even just plain old orange. It's enough to disillusion a strong believer!

There are good biochemical reasons for this, which need not concern the non-biochemists among us. Just remember that in Northern latitudes and in regions with significantly reduced direct sunlight in winter and spring, red colors do not develop fully in most Clivia plants.

A noble breeding goal for someone growing Clivia in the Northeastern USA , eastern Canada, or northern Europe would be to select for deep red color in your Clivias where you are and breed with them. If I were 20 or 30 years younger, I'd work hard on this myself.

I might mention that some of the newer Belgian hybrids bloom more pastel than red-orange here in Indiana. You might still want to incorporate some Belgians into your breeding program, so that you can get to first flowering in under 36 months. I have one [Belgian x Belgian] that went from planting the seed to first flowers in ca. 30 months here in Indiana. If you add in ca. 10 months from pollination to seed harvest, you can go from pollination to first flower in about 40 months, or just over 3 years, even here in northern climates like Indiana's.

If I had a growing greenhouse separate from my blooming greenhouse, I could keep the temperatures warm all winter and supplement the lighting with high intensity metal halide lights to hasten growth even more. Of course, that would be more expensive.

I'll let you know if any of my various past attempts to breed for better reds ever yield any plants that actually have red flowers here in Indiana.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Saturday, December 12, 2009, 5:00 PM EST - Winter Weather.

Weather

We did not get the snow that much of the Midwest got last week, nor the heavy rains that others got. We did get about ½ inch of snow in the Indianapolis area, and as the first snow of the season, it caused havoc on the streets at the first morning rush hour. We and ours did not participate in the havoc, fortunately.

It has also been a bit cold around here. The lowest temperature I've recorded from my maximum-minimum thermometers so far this season has been +9°F (or about -13°C). It's likely to get colder here than that before the next two months are finished.

Today is mild, about 35°F so far, with the sun shining. I worked in shirtsleeves back in the big greenhouse for a while before lunch, but tonight or tomorrow we may get rain or freezing rain. It's still winter, after all!

Light Snow and a Dark December Morning

After the first light snow of the season, things do not have the romantic look of a Midwest winter with heavy snow on the ground and the tree branches. It just looks dingy with a measly half inch of snow on the ground. (My spell checker informed me that it was not spelled "measely." So why have I always pronounced it with three syllables?)

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Sunday, December 6, 2009, 3:00 PM EST - Flowers for the Holidays. 2.

Clivia for Christmas

Most Clivia will not be blooming until late February or early March. The Belgian hybrids we grow come from ID'Flor in Lochristi, Belgium; and some of them, but not all, bloom early in the season. We have a few in bloom right now.

Clivia miniata, Belgian Strain

I'm not in Europe to check, but I suspect that there a plenty of Clivia plants in bud or in bloom in florists' shops and supermarkets there right now. Most Europeans who buy blooming clivias treat them as annuals and discard them when the flowers fade. They really should treat them as perennials. I can't believe that people over there have not been specifically breeding clivias to bloom in time for the holidays. I'm surprised no one in the U.S.A. has tried this. But then it's the sad fact that most Americans, even flower lovers, don't realize the beauty of Clivia plants.

Various other Belgian hybrids from ID'Flor, not necessarily blooming right now.

The newest Belgian hybrids are medium sized, bred to be compact enough for a windowsill or a small table. The leaves are medium width, neither so narrow as the wild types nor so broad as the fancy Japanese and Chinese hybrids. Belgian plants from 15 years ago were larger and the leaves were narrower. The flowers were all the same color, a bright red-orange. The Belgian growers now breed for pastels, yellows, and peaches.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Sunday, November 29, 2009, 1:00 PM EST - Christmas Flowers for the Holidays

Christmas Flowers

As far away as Europe, the Christmas season brings "Amaryllis" (Hippeastrum hybrids) and Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) into the stores and homes. Regardless of what eslse is blooming, these seem to be the most popular flowers for the holidays.

Poinsettias

The traditional flowering houseplants for the Christmas holiday season are poinsettias, Euphorbia pulcherrima, native shrubs of Mexico in the family Euphorbiaceae. Whereas you once had your choice of red or red, you can now choose from colors from red to pink to white to even blue or green (these last thanks to food dyes). Although perennial in mild climates, these are best treated as throw-away annuals in colder zones. Remember, the "petals" are leaves or bracts that develop striking colors to attract pollinators to the small, almost insignificant flowers in the center of the cluster of colorful bracts.

Poinsettias Seen at Kroger and at Habigs

The colors seemed rather conservative so far, with no garish blues and only a subdued orange color seen.

Amaryllis

You should be able to find potted Dutch Amaryllis bulbs in garden centers now. If you force them, you should be able to have them blooming by Christmas. These "Amaryllis" are actually hybrids in the genus Hippeastrum in the family Amaryllidaceae. Although most of their wild South American ancestors are adapted to seasonal growth during a rainy season, these modern hybrids can be manipulated to bloom at various times of the year. Although we often call them "Dutch Amaryllis," they are as likely to come from South Africa or from India as from The Netherlands.

I haven't seen any Hippeastrum in bloom so far this season, but these bulbs in bud at Habig's Garden Shop in Westfield will probably be in full flower in another couple of weeks.

This one grows commonly in gardens around Cape Hatteras. I like the bold colors and the simplicity of the flower.
Hippeastrum hybridum "Cape Hatteras"

Don't throw these bulbs away after they finish blooming! Set them in a warm, sunny place and keep them watered. Feed lightly with a soluble bulb flood. We recommend Peters or Jack's Professional Peat Lite (20-10-20 with micronutrients). In September or October, before frosts start, move the plants to a protected but cool area, decrease watering, and let them rest. After a month or so of resting, repot the bulbs and start watering again. Move to a warm, brightly lit area, and watch for the new bud to appear. The cycle is starting all over again, and you can keep this going for as many years as you care to.

Cyclamen

The giant Florist's Cyclamen are a far cry from their wild ancestors! The commercial plants are derived from Cyclamen persicum, native to Iran and surrounding areas. The flowers on the florists' hybrids are huge compared to those of the wild species. The florists' plants come in plain or frilled forms and in colors from red to pink to white, including some picoteed types (if I recall correctly).

These are also perennials, and should go through the summer indoors, when you should keep them dry and warm. Repot in autumn when you see the first new growth starting. The tubers will probably not divide, but they should just get bigger and bigger with the passing years. Feed the same thing as we recommend for amaryllis and other bulbs.

Other Florists Plants

Paperwhite Narcissus, Hydrangea, Kalanchoe, Christmas cactus, and more things are on offer at various places. More later.....

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Saturday, November 21, 2009, 1:00 PM EST - Seed Dispersal and Red Lists

Seed Dispersal in Trillium

Discussions in the Trillium-L list have convinced its members, including me, that seed of Trillium are principally spread about by ants, yellow jackets, and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Russell Graham in Oregon found this link: Cornell University. So we have scientific evidence that deer are active dispersers of seeds.

It seems likely that other animals that like ripe fruit and berries might also fill the same function, where they still exist with wild Trillium colonies. For instance, black bears surely must like ripe Trillium fruit as much as deer do. I would expect raccoons to similarly enjoy an occasional ripe Trillium fruit for lunch. I know our local raccoons at this time of year leave lots of persimmon seeds in their scat.

George Africa from Vermont sent me these comments and observastions on this topic:

"Deer are frequent here and regularly eat the seed pods from trillium. I have been trying to increase my collection of grandiflorum and it's always a close battle to stay a day ahead of insects and deer. We have a large population of bear here too. Sunday night I was out looking skyward to observe the meteor showers and I heard something behind me. Flashlight came upon two glow-in-the-dark yellow eyes and (s)he wasn't out for meteors. Turkeys were reintroduced in Vermont in the 70s and now they are everywhere. They bed down in the trilliums and eat the pods too. I suspect the bear do but haven't seen them or looked to verify signs."

The question is, in which animals that eat ripe Trillium fruits can the seeds survive and emerge in viable condition? Accoding to John Gyer, there are doubts that the seeds would survive the digestive processes in carnivores, nor the gizzards in birds like wild turkeys and other fowl. So wild turkeys, bears, coyotes, and even raccoons might be precluded as effective seed dispersal agents for Trillium. John does suggest that some kinds of birds might spread trillium seeds. We need to check this out.

The way to demonstrate that a large mammal is a dispersal vector for a plant species is to grow that plant from the droppings of the animal in question. It might be more practical to feed ripe Trillium berries to captive bears and raccoons.

Narcissus cantabricus in Bloom

This tender dwarf Narcissus has survived 8 years in my greenhouse, but rarely bloomed. In August 2008, I finally repotted it. After spending a year recuperating from the transplant (or more likely from 7 years of neglect) if is blooming its head off this year. Repotting helps!
Narcissus cantabricus foliosus

South African Red List

Justin Smith in the Pacific Bulb Society list found this terrific link for anyone intersted in plants of South Africa:

• www.sanbi.org/biodiversity/Red%20List%2003-02-2009.xls

You need Excel or a compatible spreadsheet program to open this file. The parent site for this file is SANBI: Biodiversity Policy and Planning. For a searchable on-line database of names and their status (synonyms, nomina nuda, etc.) use this link:

• http://www.sanbi.org/frames/dbasesfram.htm

Coffee Shops -- A Bit Off-topic

Today's Wall Street Journal has a piece on the demise of the coffee shop. The writer claims the late 19th and early 20th century coffee shops in Vienna were the sources of all the new ideas of their times. Now, places like Starbucks are feeble shadows of those classic coffee shops. The silence is broken only by the faint click of people posting to their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Where are today's intellectuals? Maybe they all have jobs, unlike most of the folks hanging around coffee shops a hundred years ago.

In Indianapolis, we at least have Martha Hoover's excellent Café Patachou and Petit Chou establishments. They have the best croissants in Indiana! They make wonderful omelettes. Their tomato atrichoke soup is outstanding.

We stopped at Petit Chou at Clay Terrace yesterday afternoon for tea. I had a croissant with ganache cream (fancy chocolate sauce); positively decadent. I'll have to go back before Thanksgiving for another. Now if I can just get them to make croissants filled with almond paste....

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 1:00 PM EST - Planting Spring Bulbs

What to Plant Now

This is late in the season to be planting your spring flowering bulbs, unless you are planting tulips and lilies. In fact, this is generally the ideal time to plant bulbs of Tulipa and Lilium. It is too late to plant Narcissus, which need the warm weather of late summer to develop their root systems.

I grow very few tulips here, since the large hybrids don't last long for me. The problem is heavy clay soil and very wet summers, both of which are less than perfect for tulips in their summer dormancy. Some of the dwarf Tulipa species and hybrids do much better here, and we had them for quite a few years. None of them seem to be permanent here, unfortunately.

Lilium 'Black Dragon'	Lilium henryi

Lilium bulbs should not be stored out of the ground, which is precisely what the Dutch mass producers do. They should be transplanted in late autumn -- right now -- rather than being offered to people in spring and in late summer, as the mass marketers do. Only two Lilium have lasted any length of time here: L. 'Black Dragon' and L. henryi. I think I should plant lots more of these two varieties.

Dwarf Narcissus Species

I had an inquiry about how to grow some dwarf Narcissus species. The questioner lives in Pennsylvania, but I answered of course for Indiana; the differences should not be too great, but there are some.

I have Narcissus calcicola growing well in a raised bed "rock garden." N. fernandesii and N. willkommii also grow there and bloomed for several years. N. assoanus only lasted a couple years in the rock garden and then disappeared.

This bed is 12 to 18 inches high, with the top layer being sandy river bottom silt with a limy character; it has lots of shells of dead snails in it. Under the sandy silt, there is a thick layer of pea gravel. Finally, the base layer is #8 river gravel (about 1/2 to 1 inch diameter pebbles). Fritillaria crassifolia kurdica thrives there too, even seeding around modestly. Two species of Brodiaea live in the same bed and come back and bloom every year.

"Calcicola" means loving lime or living in lime. That may be why N. calcicola does so well in this particular bed. It clearly tolerates very cold winter temperatures with the ground frozen to a significant depth. Jane McGary noted that her calcicola do very well in her acid soil in Oregon. The difference in amounts of moisture between Indiana and Oregon may be important in this regard.

In more conventional beds, not elevated, N. bulbicodium conspicuus and N. b. nivalis lived for awhile and even bloomed a couple times. N. asturiensis does as well as any garden hybrid Narcissus in an ordinary bed here.

None of the species named here did well inside my cool greenhouse (lowest temperature T > 32ºF or 0ºC). They did better outdoors, even if they did not survive forever outside. Summer rain may have hurt them, but they seemed to need the freezing temperatures of winter to grow and bloom.

Books on the Web

A member of the Pacific Bulb Society list posted a note about an on-line library of scanned books. This one is particularly appropriate to those interested in plants: the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I downloaded a book on Lepidoptera of India by F. Moore from 1893 (PDF file with over 300 pages). This web site has books going back to the 15th century. Check the site out; you'll probably be fascinated!

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

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Sunday, November 15, 2009, 6:30 PM EST - Weather and Bloom

Weather

November has been very mild so far, with only light frosts overnight and afternoons about 55ºF to 68ºF (ca. 13ºC to 20ºC), about 3 to 15 degrees F (2 to 8ºC) warmer than average for this time of year (autumn). November has also been quite dry, after a very wet October (over 5 inches/125 mm of rainfall, vs. about 2.5 inches/62 mm on average).

Bloom in the Greenhouse

All the tender plants except the Cymbidium orchids are already long since inside the greenhouses for the winter. The plants of Cymbidium are starting to bud out now, so we should have flowers before Christmas. We will move the pots inside the greenhouse before there is a hard frost (temperature lower than 28ºF/-2ºC).

The only outdoor flower still in bloom is Crocus cartwrightianus, which is pushing its last new flowers out of the ground. All else is finished for the season.

Inside the greenhouses, the Lachenalia are starting to bloom, with L. rubida and L. viridiflora both flowering just now. Lachenalia pusilla finished blooming weeks ago, and L. (Polyxena) ensifolia has finished blooming. Massonia echinata is in full bloom, and Massonia pustulata and M. depressa are in bud.

Narcissus cantabricus foliosus is in bloom, after having been repotted in August 2008. A few pots of Nerine bowdenii are still blooming, although most of the bowdenii have finished. Nerine undulata is starting to bloom, and when it finishes, the Nerine will be over with until next summer.

Two large Zantedeschia aethiopica cultivars are starting to bloom; with luck, they will continue off and on for the next few months.

Occasional Clivia are in bloom now (C. robusta, some miniata Belgian hybrids) but their main bloom isn't expected until March.

This is the quietest time of year for us.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Thursday, November 12, 2009, 2:00 PM EST - Conservation by Intervention

Human-Assisted Plant Migration

In the face of changing climate, plants are being squeezed out of their traditional habitats by not just human pressure alone. The changing climate is making things too hot for a lot of plants. The following is from the November 11th Sigma Xi - American Scientist daily e-newsletter. My apologies to Sigma Xi for picking up items from them two days in a row, but news about plant conservation is rare and hard to come by; we can't afford to ignore any of it.

---

A Hunt for Seeds to Save Species, Perhaps by Helping Them Move

from the New York Times (Registration Required)

CHICAGO -- Pitcher's thistle, whose fuzzy leaves and creamy pink puffs once thrived in the sand dunes along several of the Great Lakes, was driven by development, drought and weevils into virtual extinction from the shores of Lake Michigan decades ago.

But in the 1990s, seeds collected from different parts of the thistle's range were grown at the Chicago Botanic Garden and planted with the help of the Morton Arboretum along the lake, in Illinois State Beach Park, north of Chicago near the Wisconsin state line. The plants from Indiana's dunes to the south are doing well; the plants that had come from the north are failing.

With those mixed results in mind, scientists from the botanic garden are sending teams out across the Midwest and West to the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin to collect seeds from different populations of 1,500 prairie species by 2010, and from 3,000 species by 2020. The goal is to preserve the species and, depending on changes in climate, perhaps even help species that generally grow near one another to migrate to a new range.

---

Discussion of this item was picked up in the e-mail list of the Pacific Bulb Society, and Paul Licht, director of the U.C. Berkeley Botanical Garden pointed out that this work by the Chicago Botanic Garden is part of a larger program. To quote from Paul's posting:

"The program referred to here is part of the larger 'Seeds of Success' program (http://www.nps.gov/plants/SOS/index.htm) designed to 'save' many plants. Here at Berkeley, we are involved in collected about four dozen native Californian species as part of this program which focuses on more or less common species. In addition, we have been collecting and are now introducing several extremely endangered local species under the sponsorship of the Center for Plant Conservation.(http://www.centerforplantconservation.org/)."

Unquote

The U.C. Botanical Garden has more conservation projects underway.

Boyce Tankersley, Director of Living Plant Documentation at Chicago Botanic Garden, then took up the story:

"The CBG studies with respect to assisted migration are ongoing and the causes of some of the problems associated with Pitchers Thistle were only recently determined.

These kinds of projects are relatively unique because they require very long term investments of staff and financial support. We are very fortunate to have been able to assemble those in one place, at least for the Pitchers Thistle.

The Science staff working on this and other conservation efforts either at the species or ecosystem levels are now located in the new Science Center."

Unquote.

The Center for Plant Conservation is located on the grounds of the Missouri Botanic Garden in St. Louis. I visited the CPC on a trip to St. Louis about a year ago and had the pleasure of hearing the CPC story from the director herself, Dr. Kathryn L. Kennedy. They welcome the support of the plant-loving public! I encourage everyone to look into and support this activity.

It would seem reasonable to start with common species, but of course they are common because they have a high survivability; they are very adaptable. The rare ones are rare because they do not have this capability! They are rare because they cannot adapt to new and changing environments. These are almost the definitions of 'common' vs. 'rare'. So success with rare and endangered species of plants is likely always to be difficult to achieve. Niche species will always be a great challenge to keep alive as the planet changes.

If you plant new seedlings of a rare plant back into the same place where it is going extinct, it is not unreasonable to expect that the seedlings will be affected at least as much as the existing plants by whatever forces are driving the extinction. You would need to find new locations, and make the new spots safer for the plants than the original habitat was.

Change is inevitable and on-going. Remember that everything growing in the Midwest above ca. latitude 40ºN was not there 20,000 years ago. There was just a mile-thick layer of ice. The plants have had 20,000 years to migrate to where they are now. The next migration, unfortunately, may have to be made in 100 years instead -- that is where I can see human intervention being useful and indeed necessary. We can move plants from one mountain that's becoming too warm to another that is higher or farther north, and perhaps they will survive a while longer.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 2:00 PM EST - Odds and Ends

Bar Codes for Species

The following item as taken from the November 9 issue of the the Sigma Xi/American Scientist e-newsletter:

---

Plant Experts Unveil DNA Barcode

from BBC News Online

Hundreds of experts from 50 nations are set to agree on a "DNA barcode" system that gives every plant on Earth a unique genetic fingerprint. The technology will be used in a number of ways, including identifying the illegal trade in endangered species.

The data will be stored on a global database that will be available to scientists around the world. The agreement will be signed at the third International Barcode of Life conference in Mexico City on Tuesday.

"Barcoding is a tool to identify species faster, more cheaply and more precisely than traditional methods," explained Patricia Escalante, head of the zoology department at Mexico's National University (UNAM), which is hosting the gathering.

http://snipr.com/t6189

---

I assume that rare and endangered species will be bar coded first. It will be interesting to see which genes or other DNA sequences they have chosen for this new system. Will they manage to sort out the species of Trillium in the area around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? The numerous but almost extinct species of Hippeastrum in South America? How about all the dwarf Narcissus species in Spain and around the Mediterranean? Try this site for more information: http://www.barcoding.si.edu/

Growing Nerine from Seed, continued

Malcolm A. in the U.K. responded to my post to the Pacific Bulb Society list on growing Nerine from seeds with some very helpful comments.

He got one Nerine bowdenii bulb from seed to first flower in just two years. He keeps the plants growing continuously, allowing no dormant period; and he waters and feeds the seedlings regularly. He also notes that N. sarniensis seedlings grow more slowly than bowdenii and that [bowdenii x sarniensis] seedlings grow faster than pure sarniensis.

I'm going to step up my feeding and watering of Nerine bowdenii seedlings. If you have had experience growing Nerine from seed, please share your observations with us. E-mail your comments to me at this blog and I'll post them here for you. (My web ISP does not seem to have a fancy blog system, so we do it all by hand.)

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Monday, November 09, 2009, 2:00 PM EST - Indian Summer

El Niño

Our Indian Summer is probably connected with the current El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean. I've not been following this one closely, but it is expected to give the Midwest a milder and drier winter than usual, while the Pacific Coast should be wetter than normal. A mild winter here in Indiana would be quite alright with me, but we'll see.....

Yesterday was a beautiful Indian Summer day here in central Indiana. "Indian Summer" refers to summer-like days that occur in mid to late Fall, after we have had several nights of frost. Yesterday was dry, sunny, and warm, with the afternoon high temperature about 72ºF (ca. 22ºC). My daughter and I took our dogs for a walk on the Monon Trail (an abandoned railroad right-of-way made into a long walking and biking trail).

We had beautiful Fall colors until about a week ago, when it rained and took all the leaves down to the ground. Now we have raked some of them up and we have hauled in the bagged leaves that our friends Terry and Kathy pick up from their lawn on the far northern side of Indianapolis. Composted leaves are fantastic materials for building soil, making new flower beds, and mulch to suppress weeds in summer.

Hardy Gladiolus

Besides the usual hardy glads such as Gladiolus communis byzantinus, G. italicus, G. imbricatus, and G. caucasicus from the Meditarranean and Eurasia, I have had a few corms of Gladiolus oppositiflorus salmoneus from South Africa survive the winter outdoors in the ground for several years.

This glad comes from the Drakensberg, the mountainous escarpment that marks the edge of the high central plateau or High Veld of South Africa. At points, the High Veld reaches 3,000 meters (about 10,000 ft.) in elevation To the east, the low coastal plain, the Low Veld, is warmer and wetter. A few South African bulbs are hardy here in the Midwest, including Galtonia sp., Crinum bulbispermum, Crinum variabile, and this Gladiolus species.
Gladiolus oppositiflorus salmoneus

I've lifted my two surviving clumps of this glad, since I want to increase them in pots before I line them out in the beds again. Otherwise they will gradually dwindle away.

Another hardy glad of South African origins is G. x-gandavensis, which has primrose yellow flowers. Unlike oppositiflorus, gandavensis actually increases nicely in beds here.

There is a primrose yellow form of Gladiolus dalenii, and the form of this old hybrid is very much like that of dalenii. Still, dalenii does not seem to be hardy outdoors here -- but there are so may local ecotypes of dalenii, that there are very probably some quite hardy forms if you could find them or their seeds. So I'm pretty certain that gandavensis is descended from a very hardy form of dalenii from crosses made somewhere in the past couple of hundred years.

Both gandavensis and oppositiflorus have long since finshed flowering and had their tops killed back by frosts. If I were going to lift and propagate gandavensis, right now is when I should do it. But not this year. Instead, I think I'll take Emma for a walk.
Gladiolus x-gandavensis

Happy Birthday

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday, Linda!

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 4:00 PM EDT - Nerine Again

A White Bowdenii

This is an all white form of Nerine bowdenii. The bulbs came from the Croft Nursery in the Eastern Cape Province in 2000 as tiny bulbs. This is the first to bloom, so it took nine years to get here. Croft Nursery has moved in the meantime and is now known as African Bulbs in the Western Cape Province.

This plant has the wider petals of the Eastern Cape Province forms of bowdenii but with a hint of the ruffling of form Wellsii from the Drakensberg.
Nerine bowdenii, white form

Growing Nerine from Seed

A lady from Portland, Oregon sent me an e-mail asking about growing Nerine from seed. I thought this would be a good place to answer her inquiry.

Nerine have small, fleshy seeds that cannot be forced into dormancy, a trait that is referred to as "recalcitrant." Similar seeds are found in other Amaryllis Family genera, including Clivia (1) and (2), Crinum, Brunsvigia, Haemanthus, Hymenocallis, and Scadoxus.

These seeds germinate almost as well lying on a tabletop as when planted. They should all be started by pressing part-way into the surface of a moistened, well-drained potting mix. Take great care not to break off or damage the thin white shoot that the seed sends out. For the potting medium, I prefer a mixture of ProMix BX or HP with Biofungicide, made by Premier in Canada, mixed with sand and small mesh granite grit. The pots are set in a tray and placed under fluorescent lights. Water regularly from below.

I have my lights in a basement room where the temperature is between 68°F and 76°F summer and winter. The lights are on a timer and are turned on for 16 hours each day.

I try to keep the seedling bulbs growing continuously for the first 18 to 24 months if possible. After that, allow the bulbs to grow on their natural growth and dormancy cycles.

Some species grow very slowly from seed. N. bowdenii and also sarniensis can take 5 to 7 years or longer to reach bloom size from seed. N. krigei can take at least as long.

Growing seedlings of bowdenii, krigei, or laticoma in crowded conditions merely retards their growth and prolongs the already lengthy wait for them to reach flowering size. Nerine bowdenii and sarniensis seedlings do not like to be disturbed. Start your seeds in pots large enough to hold a mature bulb, so you do not need to transplant the young bulbs before they have bloomed.

Nerine like most amaryllids seems to need to get a certain minimum biomass accumulated before they will bloom. Even when they reach that apparently critical mass, only about one out of three bulbs of bowdenii will flower in any given year. This genus is not for the impatient or the greedy!

Other species, especially some of the dwarf ones, can bloom in only three or four years from seed. Of these, I recommend Nerine filifolia, filamentosa, appendiculata, and the dwarf from of angustifolia.

For more on the various species of Nerine, see: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/amaryllids/nerine.html and to order some, see our bulbs price list.

The most spectacular Nerine are the many colorful hybrids of Nerine sarniensis (see this blog, October 27, and the Exbury/Vico Nerine web site.) They come in colors from white to pink to peach to orange, red, and burgundy. Some of the older hybrids are aneuploids and do not breed readily with any other hybrids, but most of the Rothschild-Smithers hybrids are probably diploids and fertile with each other.

Some of the forms of Nerine bowdenii should be interfertile with each other, and it has been said that bowdenii has been successfully crossed with sarniensis. I've not seen any plants that I thought were bowdenii-sarniensis hybrids, however.

I have failed to successfully cross most other species onto bowdenii, but I did get one cross, [krigei x filifolia] that appears to be a true intermediate between the two parental species. I have failed to get hybrids with laticoma using krigei, filifolia, and bowdenii. I have even found that some crosses of one bowdenii variety onto another bowdenii type will not take, so you need to experiment to find what crosses you can make in Nerine.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 2:00 PM EDT - Transition to Winter. 2.

Outdoors

In the garden, one clump of Sternbergia is still in bloom, but Crocus nudiflorus and Colchicum atropurpureum are fading fast. A happy surprise was seeing Crocus cartwrightianus blooming for the first time!

These corms came from Jane McGary in 2004 and are just now starting to flower. I had given them up for lost -- crocuses tend not to last long in my garden. This is a beautiful flower.
Crocus cartwrightianus

Indoors

In the warm greenhouse, more Nerine are blooming. Nerine sarniensis 'Exbury Renoir', a truly exquisite flower, is blooming on a bulb from Nicholas de Rothschild's Exbury Nursery.

Note the diamond sparkle to the petals. That sparkle is in the petals themselves, it isn't water on the surface.
Nerine sarniensis 'Exbury Renoir'

Almost as lovely is the very old hybrid, Nerine sarniensis 'Dame Alice Godman'.

Nerine sarniensis 'Dame Alice Godman'

I've only recently learned how to care for Nerine sarniensis varieties properly. They require a dry rest in summer, so keep them warm, but not too hot. Keep their roots bone dry, but mist the bulbs and surface of the potting mix once a month through the summer with plain water.

When they are in growth, they need to be watered regularly but sparingly. Let the potting mix dry between waterings. Feed them sparingly as well, with no nitrogen AT ALL in the fertilizer! This means you need to get a fertilizer with a composition formula N-P-K of 0-10-20 or 0-20-35 or something similar. You can make your own with Potassium sulfate, still quaintly known in horticulture by the obsolete 19th century name "sulphate of potash." Dissolve about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoonful of the dry Potassium sulfate crystals per gallon of water, which will give you 50 to 100 p.p.m. of potassium.

The expression "p.p.m." or "parts per million" means 100 milligrams per liter of solution. You could probably water the bulbs with a solution of 50 p.p.m. of potassium every time you water.

Also in the warm greenhouse are Nerine bowdenii in bloom, in particular there are several pots of "Koen's Hardy" blooming; these came from Aad Koen in Monster, The Netherlands, several years ago.

Finally, I'm waiting for the first bloom on a bulb of a pure white Nerine bowdenii from Cameron and Rhoda McMaster, who are now in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. I received the bulb as a tiny offset or seedling years ago, and it is just now blooming.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Friday, October 23, 2009, 10:00 AM EDT - Transition to Winter

Distractions

I had a root canal yesterday morning on one of my teeth. This was my first-ever root canal, and it was not bad at all. Of course, it took six hours for the local anesthetics to wear off. I'm just glad it was on a tooth with only one root!

Probably worse was the other day when my dog, Emma, jerked me off my feet while my daughter and I were out walking our dogs together. I'm still sore from my hard landing.

The Last Flowers in the Garden

Today we're in for an all-day rain; yesterday was cloudy all day. So these pictures are from a couple days ago.

The Sternbergia reached full bloom. There are only two clumps left from more than a half dozen groups of bulbs that I planted in various places up to ten years ago.

They make a bright spot of golden yellow in the late Fall garden. I hope to spread the increase from this clump around to other beds in the garden over the years.
Sternbergia lutea

Colchicum atropurpureum are fading.

I'm still very impressed with this colchicum. I'd like to have it in more places, since it starts blooming after all the other colchicums have finished. Its flower is markedly smaller than say, cilicicum, but the color is a very intense red-purple. I love it!
Colchicum atropurpureum

Crocus nudiflorus surprised me by blooming! Over the years I have planted nudiflorus several times, always getting nothing by leaves from clumps that eventually disappeared forever. It seems that most commercial Crocus nudiflorus are a waste of time, money, and garden space.

These corms are definitely worth every iota of time and money. This group of corms came from Jane McGary in Oregon, and they are an excellent strain. They seem to be slowly increasing, having gone from six corms originally to now eight of blooming size.
Crocus nudiflorus

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Saturday, October 17, 2009, 11:00 AM EDT - Nerine Autumn Bloom

New Workstation

About two weeks ago, my old personal workstation (PC) in my office/study died. Two days ago, the new one arrived and was installed. It is much faster than the 7-year old machine that passed away! Still, I missed the old machine while waiting for the new one. I worked on my notebook computer or on one of the other workstations, but none were really comfortable for me. So, the blog lapsed.

Some of what would have gone into it if I had not had the computer loss:

Nerine bowdenii

My bulbs are in bud or in bloom right now, but they can bloom any time from August to early December here. They are almost leafless now, but in January they will start a new flush of leaves and will stay green through summer. These bulbs are native to the high Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal and to the mountains of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. They are not hardy enough to bloom outdoors in the ground here in Indiana, but a few of them will survive for several years under heavy mulch.

According to Graham Duncan in "Grow Nerines" (Kirstenbosch Gardening Series, 2002), Nerine bowdenii was at that time one of the most heavily produced cut flowers, being grown in the Netherlands and in the U.S.A. Nerine bowdenii bulbs do not bloom every year, so if you want to see their flowers annually, you will need to grow several pots of bulbs. I grow my flowering size bulbs of bowdenii individually in 1-gal. (7-inch diameter and depth) pots, with only the tips of the bulbs showing above the surface of the potting medium.

Nerine bowdenii "Wellsii" is the form found in the high Drakensberg of KwaZulu-Natal. It is characterized by ruffled petals and sepals and the pink midribs and edges of the petals. The flower shown spans 2 inches across from tip to tip.
Nerine bowdenii "Wellsii"

The bowdenii found in the midlands of the Eastern Cape Province are slightly smaller and less ruffled than the form Wellsii. Also from the Eastern Cape is the white flowered form of Nerine bowdenii that is just now starting to bud in my greenhouse.

Nerine filifolia and others

Still blooming is Nerine filifolia. N. masoniorum finished up a couple weeks ago, and N. filamentosa is just now finished flowering. N. angustifolia "Den's Dwarf" is still going strong.

Nerine filifolia

More Late Flowers

Colchicum atropurpureum came from Robert Potterton in the U.K. in 2001. As far as I can recall, this is the first time it hase bloomed. That doesn't mean it hasn't bloomed till now, since it is small, the bulbs are few, and they are planted a bit off the main track. However, Sternbergia lutea is coming up in bud just a couple of feet away from this Colchicum, so I should have noticed it in past Autumns if it had bloomed. I always watch for the sternbergia to bloom.

Weather has not been cooperating to get a decent photo of this Colchicum. I tried anyway.
Colchicum atropurpureum

This is the very start of the Sternbergia bloom for this Fall. If the sun ever comes out again, I'll get some pictures of them in full bloom.
Sternbergia lutea

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana

Jim

Thursday, October 01, 2009, 10:00 AM EDT - Haemanthus Hybrids

Old Haemanthus Hybrids

Following tips from David Lehmiller of I.B.S., and the PDF file on-line of a paper on this subject, it appears that the various older names for Haemanthus sensu lato hybrids boil down to just two types of crosses: Scadoxus (katherinae X puniceus) and Haemanthus (albiflos X coccineus).

It seems that the plants from Scadoxus (katherinae X puniceus) are fertile, since I received seeds of the F₂ of that cross from South Africa. None have grown large enough to bloom yet, but I am still hoping.

Plants from the old cross Haemanthus (albiflos X coccineus) have recently been re-created. Terry Hatch in New Zealand told me a year ago that he has bloomed numerous seedlings of this cross, and that the flowers come in a wide variety of different colors.

Also in fairly recent years, Aart van Voorst in the Netherlands has converted Haemanthus albiflos to the tetraploid form and has since crossed diploid H. coccineus on the tetraploid albiflos to produce hybrds with various colored flowers and with the additional property of being evergreen. These should have great potential as house plants in the future.

New Haemanthus Hybrids

Besides the Haemanthus 'Burgundy' strain that I have bloomed in the past three years, I have numerous seedlings starting to bloom from Haemanthus (barkerae X coccineus).

This is the second of these hybrids to bloom. The size and shape of the umbel are roughly the same as for barkerae itself, but the color of the bracts is more intense and more orange than for barkerae. The peduncle height is distinctly shorter than for barkerae.
Haemanthus (barkereae x coccineus)
No. 2069.C

I realized just the other day that a cross I though had failed, Haemanthus (albiflos x humilis hirsutus), actually succeeded. I have one surviving seedling from that cross, and it is very similar to albiflos except for one thing: the peduncle is covered with a dense coat of hair, while albiflos has a nude peduncle.

Other than the hairy scape, the hybrid looks very similar to the seed parent, albiflos. When it bloomed for the first time this summer, I even pollinated it with albiflos pollen, thinking it was just another albiflos. I don't know yet whether there will be any seeds from that pollination.
Haemanthus (albiflos X humilis hirsutus)
No. 1539.B

Parent of Haemanthus 'Burgundy'

The pollen parent of Haemanthus 'Burgundy' is in bloom just now. It is Haemanthus coccineus No. 897.A, and its scape this time is fasciated. It has about 15 bracts, compared to 6 bracts on a normal scape. The peduncle is at least twice the width of the normal plant's.

Haemanthus coccineus No. 897.A	Fasciated (rear) vs. normal (front)

Good gardening,

Jim

Monday, September 28, 2009, 3:00 PM EDT - UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Does Mail Order Now

Plants from Berkeley

I recently received an order of plants for the University of California Botaincal Garden at Berkeley. The prices are reasonable, the shipping was fine, and the plants were things I had wanted for a while -- a few Aloe, a couple Agave, a few Arisaema, and two small bulbs of Brunsvigia species. I'm really delighted that the UC Botanical Garden is starting to do mail order sales now.

Check them out at Berkeley Plant Sale and at http://ucbglcs.blogspot.com/. The home page for the garden is at http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu.

An Inquiry

A gentleman in Oregon wrote to ask about Haemanthus humilis, "I have one of these large leaf forms for the past 3 years. It has not flowered but probably is mature enough to flower. I live in Portland, Oregon and have kept it outside in shade during the summer and put in indoors in the winter. It just started to put out new leaves. How low a temperature can these take in a pot?"

My reply: Here in Indiana, I am just putting my humilis humilis (pink) and humilis hirsutus (white) into the greenhouse for the winter. They can take a light frost for a short period of time, but I would not risk them in my zone 5 climate after about October 10th.

Both varieties are kept bone dry over winter in a cool but frost free greenhouse. Once a bulb of humilis humilis gets large enough to bloom, that bulb will then bloom almost every year. In the case of h. hirsutus, the mature bulbs seem to bloom rarely if at all for me. My humilis humilis bloom in early July and leaf out right after blooming. My h. hirsutus bloom in late July and leaf out a couple weeks after that. Two of my hirsutus bloomed this summer, for the first time in probably about 8 or 10 years.

He wrote further, "You mention that you keep them dry during the winter. Should I expect to see leaf dieback as we move into the winter months? In the past, I never really saw what I would call a dormant period perhaps because I kept them in my living room which is too warm to promote dormancy. If the leaves do die off I could move into my garage for the winter. It drops to around 40 degrees and never below."

I would suggest that he let them stay green for at least 3 or 4 month. After that, dry them off completely and do move them to the cool garage. I don't know that Haemanthus humilis requires an enforced dormancy to trigger flowering; but I suspect so, as it is true of most plants in the Amaryllis Family. Haemanthus are of course in the Amaryllis Family.

Burgundy Haemanthus

One of my seedling bulbs of Haemanthus [humilis hirsutus x coccineus] -- all of which bloom with burgundy bracts surrounding scarlet flowers -- is putting up twin scapes this year. This bulb first bloomed in 2007; it was in fact the very first from this cross to bloom for me.

I hope this means it is going to divide. The seed parent (hirsutus) does make offsets, while the pollen parent, coccineus, does not seem to ever offset.
Haemanthus [humilis hirsutus x coccineus]
No. 1534.A

Good gardening,

Jim

Monday, September 21, 2009, 2:00 PM EDT - Some Cacti Sources; Fall is Here

Sources of Hardy Cacti and Succulents

Here are some places that have been recommended to me as sources of cold hardy cacti and succulents. I have not done business with all of these firms, so please let me know your experiences with them. Send comments to <blog@shieldsgardens.com>

• Cold Hardy Cactus http://www.coldhardycactus.com/index.htm
     
  
• High Country Gardens http://www.highcountrygardens.com/
     
  
• Mesa Garden http://www.mesagarden.com/index.html
     
  
• Plant Delights http://www.plantdelights.com/
     
  

From what I am reading, winter cold is not so dangerous as winter wet, especially wet snow. The plants I already have growing have done fine here, but if I get some hardy Agave, it appears that I may need to cover them in winter with buckets or a low poly tunnel.

Chestnuts Ripening

The first tree of Chinese Chestnuts has suddenly started dropping ripe nuts, almost overnight. The nuts on this tree are always smaller than the other two trees' nuts, but the dry summer we are having seems to have made all the nuts smaller than usual.

We have six Chinese Chestnut trees. Three were free or cheap from the National Arbor Day Foundation (it was almost 30 years ago, so that name may not be correct) and the other three I bought, probably from Miller Nursery (mail order fruit trees, etc.) The first three have very small nuts with poor flavor; even the squirrels will not eat them. The three trees from Miller have excellent nuts, sometimes fully as good as the Italian chestnuts we can buy in the fancier food markets. The squirrels love them!

Twenty years ago, I bought a couple seedlings of the hybrid Chinese x American chestnuts trees. Both died within a year of planting. I decided not to try again. It took at least ten years for our Chinese chestnut trees to bear their very first nuts, if I recall correctly. I don't have time to wait for new trees to grow to bearing size.

Chinese chestnut trees are multi-trunk trees of medium size. The leaves are simple with toothed edges. The fruits are a large spiny burr containing one to three nuts. The burrs split open when the nuts are ripe, allowing them to fall to the ground. The nuts shown are about 1.37 inches wide (35 mm.). The leaves are single; this image shows a twig with 7 individual leaves on it.

Chestnuts, including Chinese Chestnuts, are very good to eat. They can be roasted or boiled. In either case, cut through the tough outer skin before heating. Freshly roasted chestnuts are best eaten from the hand on a frosty autumn day, when they go very nicely with a big glass of fresh apple cider. Boiled and peeled chestnuts can be added to sauerkraut, red cabbage, and turkey dressing. Vermicelli made from roasted or boiled chestnuts is good as a dessert, and it's even better topped with whipped cream.

Good gardening,

Jim

Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 6:20 PM EDT - Some Cacti Are Tough

Hardy Cacti and Succulents

We have several hardy cacti growing here. Opuntia humifusa is native to the Midwest, including Indiana. I have some O. humifusa ex hort, from the Indianapolis Zoo. Opuntia phaeacantha is hardy in Colorado, and I have some of this species collected in the wild southeast of Denver. These are very tough cacti. They can even survive a year on top of a fencepost.

A number of others have survived at least one winter outdoors in a sheltered bed. This bed is raised about 6 inches to a foot, filled with gravel, sand, and pea gravel. These include Echinocereus, Escobaria, Pediocactus, and Opuntia:

Echinocereus coccineus Echinocereus reichenbachii caespitosus Echinocereus viridiflorus Escobaria sanbergii Escobaria sneedii Escobaria vivipara bisbeana Pediocactus simpsonii

Opuntia arenaria Opuntia fragilis Opuntia imbricate Opuntia polyacantha 'Crystal Tide' Opuntia viridiflora Opuntia whipplei

   
Pediocactus simpsonii (left) and Opuntia phaeacantha (right). The diameter of the entire Pediocactus plant is smaller than the diameter of the flower on the opuntia.

Yucca filamentosa is of course also hardy here. Visit almost any old cemetery and you'll find Yucca growing there.

Succulents like Sempervivum are on my list. I am interested in trying Agave parryi here for its hardiness as well. I'm not sure what else I might try for hardiness, but I'm open to suggestions.

Time to Refresh your Markers

This is a good time to replace old, faded, and broken markers with new ones. By next Spring, you won't be able to find or read the markers that are marginal this Fall. Do it now!

I am partial to metal markers and I use a Brother PT-2700 label maker for the labels. The TZ line of label tapes have a UV-resistant clear lamination layer which greatly improves the lasting power of these labels outdoors. Highly recommended!

Plastic markers come out of the ground over winter and blow away. You could switch to metal markers, or you could make duplicate plastic markers for each plant and bury one under the soil or under a rock.

Good gardening,

Jim

Monday, September 14, 2009, 12:15 PM EDT - Time to Repot Winter-growing Plants

I'm in the middle of repotting my winter-growing bulbs. Plants grown in containers usually do better if they are repotted every few years. If they are already as big as you want them to mget, put them back into the same size container, even back into the same one you took them out of. Just replace as much of the potting mix as you can without damaging the roots.

They should be replanted just as they are starting to come out of dormancy but before they have a lot of new, tender leaves. This way, they continue growing without suffering a big setback from shock. In fact, I remove very little of the old potting mix. In my case, almost all my repotting is to put the bulbs into larger pots. I want them to get bigger, as many plants cannpt flower until they have built up a certain minimum mass of healthy tissue. They may need to have plenty of carbohydrates stored up to provide the energy needed to manufacture a flower.

To get many bulbs to grow to a big enough size to bloom, you will have to work them up till they are growing in very large containers. David Lehmiller grows his Crinum in 24-inch diameter pots. I have some Crinum growing in 7-gal. pots, but I can't move any pots larger than that so 7-gallon size is my limit. My Zantedeschia aethiopica are moving toward 3-gal. pots and a couple are in 5-gal. pots. I am working my Haemanthus bulbs gradually into individual 2-gallon (9-inch) pots.

Lots of these plants need extensive roots systems as well as big, fat, healthy bulbs. Clivia plants have only their root systems. Growing bulbs in larger pots will get large root systems on your plants faster than crowding them into small pots can ever accomplish.

The corollary to this for summer growing plants is to divide and repot them in spring, just as they are starting to grow again.

When you don't know anything specific to contradict these rules, follow them! A specific exception is Trillium. Experts have found that Trillium survive transplanting and dividing better when it is done immediately after they finish blooming. Trillium produce new roots and new growth eyes on the rhizomes in summer, so the start of summer is the best time to divide them.

Another exception would be Colchicum and Lycoris (at least in colder climates). Dig the bulbs as soon as the leaves die down in mid-summer and replant immediatgely. Don't allow the roots of Lycoris to dry out and die; the Colchicum probably wopn't have any roots.

Good gardening,

Jim

Saturday, September 12, 2009, 3:00 PM EDT - Positive Side of Autumn Coming

I find several positive aspects to autumn coming: The Colchicum start to bloom; the Chinese chestnuts will soon ripen; several of the Nerine species bloom; and this time at least, some Cyrtanthus are blooming!

Colchicum cilicicum 'Purpureum' is blooming in one of the beds. This year it is the first to flower.

The substance colchicine is isolated from plants in the genus Colchicum. Colchicine is used by plant scientists to induce chromosome doubling. It does this by interfering with the function of tubulin inside the cell. At one time it was used to treat gout, but it is generally considered too dangerous to use in human medicine now.
Colchicum cilicicum 'Purpureum'
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Colchicum 'The Giant' has also started to bloom, followed by C. byzantinum. We also have a large group of Colchicum speciosum naturalized in the front lawn.

The genus Colchicum is native to the Mediterranean region and extends west as far as Great Britain and east to Iran and Turkistan. Many of the species are hardy in USDA zone 5.

Among the potted plants, Cyrtanthus montanus, C. sanguineus, and C. [elatus x montanus] have been blooming. These varieties have full, flaring flowers.

This species has only a single flower per scape, and in my greenhouse it flowers only occasionally. I was luck to get two blooms at one with this 6-inch pot.
Cyrtanthus sanguineus
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Cyrtanthus montanus has large erect flared flowers but they differ from sanguineus in having multiple flowers in the umbel and the tepal segments (petals and sepals) are narrower.

My attempt to cross sanguineus with montanus pollen did not yield a seed pod. C. montanus itself occasionally produces a small seed pod, but I have not checked the spontaneous seeds for viability. Even C. [elatus x montanus] sometimes produces a seed pod.
Cyrtanthus montanus
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Nerine [filamentosa x krigei] is a hybrid that I made some years back. The plants seem to be completely sterile, and they are intermediate between the two parent species. I had hopped for some enhanced hardiness -- the filifloia plants supposedly originated near the crest of the Drakensberg Escarpement.

These flowers are blooming late this year, perhaps because I was slow getting them out of the greenhouse and watering them in early summer. The individual blooms are about 2 inches across.
Nerine [filamentosa x krigei]
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Nerine masoniorum is blooming for me for the first time this year. I have the clump in a 2-gal. pot now. Always before, I grew them in a 6-inch azalea pot (only 4 or 5 inches deep).

These flowers are tiny -- only 3/4 inch across.
Nerine masoniorum
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Finally, Nerine platypetala is in bloom. Thus species normally occurs in seasonal marshes where it blooms in standing water. In the past I have grown it in pots sitting in a tray of water all summer long.

This flower is 1¼ inch across. The peduncle (stem) is 12 to 15 inches tall.
Nerine platypetala
© 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

These Nerine species and hybrids are all summer growing plants that are kept bone dry in winter. They sit in their pots on the floor under benches in the greenhouses during the cold weather. They are very easy to grow, since they don't need any care at all in winter.

Good gardening,

Jim

Sunday, September 6, 2009, 1:00 PM EDT - Outdoor Bloom Season Nearing its End

With the flowering of the Colchicum bulbs, the outdoor bloom season is about at its end for 2009.

Colchicum is a genus traditionally lumped into the Lily Family (Liliaceae), but that conglomeration of monocot flowers has been separated into two groups, the Order Asparagales with families like Asparagaceae (asparagus), Alliaceae (onions), Iridaceae (irises), Orchidaceae (orchids), and others, while the true lilies are in the Order Liliales with families like Liliaceae, Trilliaceae, Melanthiaceae, Colchicaceae, and others.

Other plants in the Colchicaceae besides Colchicum include Androcymbium and Gloriosa. I have a couple of species of Androcymbium in the greenhouse, but I've never grown Gloriosa. The Androcymbium may need more sunlight in winter than we get here. I also have a pot of Oxinotis triqueta.

The hardy Hymenocallis occidentalis is also starting to bloom now. The petals span 8 inches, tip to tip.
Hymenocallis occidentalis.

Also in pots, we have blooms on Haemanthus albiflos. This is the commonest Haemanthus in cultivation, and is quite easy to grow in a pot. It would be a fine windowsill plant; leaves are evergreen; and it blooms in autumn. It is not terribly sensitive to moisture, and does not have a dormant period when it must be kept absolutely dry.

I had a bloom on Brunsvigia litoralis this summer. Native to the Southern and Eastern Cape area of South Africa, it is somewhat smaller than the largest members of this genus. This bulb is from seed I planted in 1999, so it took 10 years to reach bloom size! The bulb is currently growing in a 2-gal. pot (about 9 inches in diameter by 9 inches deep) in gritty mix. The individual florets opened one at a time over a period of a couple weeks.
Brunsvigia litoralis.

Also blooming now is one pot of Scadoxus membranaceus. I find this one very hard to get to flower, and this is only the second time I've had one of these to bloom.
Scadoxus membranaceus

The last Lycoris blooming are L. caldwellii, a very hard sterile triploid that should grow anywhere that Lycoris squamigera grows well.
Lycoris caldwellii

An interesting new on-line plant forum is Xeric World at http://www.xericworld.com/forums/featured-discussion-forums/. Take a look at it sometime. Discussion topic include Aloaceae, Cactaceae, Geophytes, and Palms among others. The Amaryllidaceae are in the Geophytes section.

Good gardening,

Jim

Thursday, September 3, 2009, 8:00 PM EST - It's Been a Long Spring and Summer!

Garden Blog for May - September, 2009

I've been a long time getting back to the blog. In fact, it has been over 5 months. My apologies!

Trillium in the Smokies

In early April, I spent four days in Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park area, looking at Trillium in bloom and collecting a few specimens for possible breeding work next year. For the record, I have a research permit for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to study Trillium species there. The permit allows collection of a few plants for the study. Most of the plants I collected came from roadsides outside the park boundaries.

There are two species in the pedicellate group listed that seem to intergrade: Trillium erectum album, the white flowered form of a species that ranges from the Smokies along higher elevations in the Appalachian Mountains northward to Canada, where it spreads out over Quebec and Ontario. Then there is Trillium simile, also white flowered but localized in the lower elevations and limited to the area immediately around Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and eastward to the type locality near Tryon, North Carolina.

Susan Farmer in her publication based on her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Tennessee, finds that erectum and simile are not immediate neighbors in the molecular phylogenetic trees she calculated based on DNA sequences of a few genes. None the less, there appears to be a cline (a gradient) from simile around Gatlinburg at about 1200 ft. elevation, with intermediates up to pure erectum album at high elevations, the top being at Newfound Gap (elevation 5000 ft.) and Clingman's Dome (el. 6000 ft.).

The research project is devoted to studying the possibly intimate relationship between these two species.

Another interesting pair of species is T. luetum, with yellow flowers, and T. cunneatum, with red/brown flowers. The plants are both in the sessile group, both grow to be about the same size, look remarkably similar aside from the flower petals, and while the yellow luteum occasionally has a plant with brown petals, the brown cuneatum occasionally has a plant with yellow petals.

Again, Susan Farmer's article does not show them being particularly closely related to one another. And yet, populations of yellow luteum seem to be found occasionally inserted between populations of cuneatum. This is another pair of species whose DNA sequences could probably tell us a great deal.

Albino Flowers?

An interesting discussion erupted in the Spring in the Trillium-L list about the question, just what constitutes an albino flower in the Trillium?

I have my own set of definitions, and I reproduce some of my comments to that list herewith:

What I mean by "albino" is an individual plant or animal that has a mutation that blocks the biosynthesis of a particular class of pigment throughout the entire organism. This would be a mutation that inactivated the gene or gene product. Gene products that are enzymes are what I mean, enzymes that carry out one step in the formation of one product on the pathway to a pigment. Let's refer to genes that code for enzymes as "Structural Genes."

There are other kinds of genes as well -- regulatory genes that directly or indirectly control the synthesis or activity of structural genes or their gene products. Regulatory genes can code for proteins, for RNAs, or they may just be gene promoters, sequences that promote or inhibit the activation of another gene. Regulatory genes make up the differences in color pattern in multicolored flowers, e.g., in Dutch amaryllis like 'Apple Blossom'. The red purple ovary in Trillium erectum album is an example of regulatory genes at work, turning the red color (anthocyanin) biosynthesis pathway "ON" in the ovary and "OFF" in the petals.

If a plant has white flowers but has any pink, orange, or red anywhere else in the plant, it is not a "albino" by my definition.

Note that there are numerous ways to use the term "albino" in regard to plants. A seedling that is totally lacking in chlorophyll is termed an albino, but in this case in regard to the synthesis of functional chloroplasts that contain normal chlorophyll. In the absence of human intervention (e.g., putting the seedling into tissue culture) this is an eventually lethal mutation.

I think that a defect in the biosynthetic pathway for carotenes is probably also lethal in plants. The yellow color from carotenoids may be turned off in flower petals, but if the pathway itself is mutated and non-functional, the seedling with such a mutation probably dies quickly. So we can talk about carotene albinos but I don't think we can produce them.

So, where we are talking about flower colors and anthocyanin pigments, we can call it an "albino" if there is a Structural Gene mutation that prevents anthocyanin synthesis.

If we are talking about preventing anthocyanin synthesis in all or parts of the flowers, but not in other places -- stem, bracts (i.e., "leaves"), sepals, or fruit, we are dealing with operation of Regulatory Genes, and we cannot call those "albino."

Summer's End

The summer, especially July, was cooler than usual. There were many chilly nights. The result was that some Haemanthus started blooming in early August. In August, the Lycoris bloomed, pretty much on schedule. Now at the beginning of September, a few Colchicum flowers have started to appear.

This past month saw one of my bulbs of Haemanthus namaquensis bloom for the first time ever. In fact this is my first-ever bloom on Haemanthus namaquensis. This plant was grown from seed provided by Silverhill Seeds and planted here in 1997. The bulb is growing in a 9-in diameter by 9 inches deep pot in a very gritty mix. The inflorescence is about 7.5 inches tall, of which ca. 2.5 inches is the umbel. The leaves on this particular specimen do not have the wavy edges typical of most namaquensis.

The picture was taken on the peak day of the bloom, Aug. 31st. It's now starting to go over somewhat.

Good gardening,

Jim

Saturday, March 7, 2009, 11:00 AM EST - Peach and Pink Clivias

The greenhouse has been full of Clivia flowers (and pollen!) for almost two weeks now. The plants that have drawn my attention are the peaches, including the 'Victorian Peach' ® mother plants and the Solomone "pinks." In addition , my plant of 'Cameron Peach' is blooming for the first time here.

Cameron Peach is from South Africa. Hobbyists tend to muddy the nomenclaturial waters by randomly applying the parental clone's name (e.g., 'Cameron Peach') to seed-grown offspring, expecially if they more-or-less resemble the named clonal parent. This particular plant should be a vegetative propagation (offset or division) of the original clone named 'Cameron Peach' and it came from Sean Chubb in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Clivia 'Cameron Peach'
Copyright 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

We have some Solomone pinks that we bought from Solomone in the spring of 2005. What the folks there call "pink" is more of a very light peach color, since it is warmer than baby-ribbon pink. I've never seen a Clivia that looked truly pink to me. Never the less, these are very attractive flowers, to my way of thinking. There are the 'Solomone Pink' types, the 'Solomone Watercolor Washed Pink' types, and the 'Charm Pink' miniatures. The difference between the Solomone Pink and the Solomone Pastel plants seems to be intensity of color. The pastels are more intense in color than the pinks are.

This is my best 'Solomone Pink' in bloom this year. It has more florets in the umbel than the others of this group. The picture was taken before most of the buds had opened. I've saved almost all of its pollen for future breeding. I'll eventually cross it with 'Cameron Pink' and the various 'Victorian Peach' ® plants as well as with Conway's 'Tessa'.
Clivia 'Solomone Pink' No. 2010
Copyright 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Solomone's 'Watercolor Washed' series may or may not have the watercolor effect every time they bloom. A few of our examples do show the watercolor washed effect.

This one is almost pink, but regardless of what you call the color, it is a gorgeous flower when in bloom!I intend to use its pollen extensively in future breeding. Click on the image at left and see how it looks under different lighting.
Solomone Watercolor Washed Pink
No. 2005 at full bloom
Copyright 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

This one is what Solomone calls "pastel." The color is usually more intense than the "pink" but is otherwise the same. This one is producing several offsets.
Solomone Watercolor Washed Pastel
No. 2015
Copyright 2009 by Shields Gardens Ltd.
All rights reserved.

These all look to me like "peach" in color. Although cool pink is widely sought after, becvause it is hard to produce in flowers, the peach colors are every bit as pleasing as the pink would be.

Since the late winter lack of bloom in the greenhouses left me with nothing to talk about for over a month, I'd best get this posted today.

Good gardening,

Jim

Thursday, January 29, 2009, 03:30 PM EST - Snow Outside, Flowers Inside

We had 8 inches (20 cm) of snow fall from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning. There was little wind, so there was relatively little drifting (except across our driveway in front of the garage door.) I dug out a path to one of the nearby greenhouses, but I'll leave access to the big greenhouse out back until our commercial snowplow guy gets to us.

Looking out over the deck toward the big greenhouse.

There is a strain or probably a clone of yellow Cyrtanthus in commerce now. It looks like a more vigorous version of Cyrtanthus maakenii cooperi, but I don't really know what it is. I like it, it blooms at a good time of year, and seems to bloom much more prolifically than any of the Cyrtanthus species do.

Yellow Cyrtanthus.

Lachenalia bulbifera is a big, robust, vigorous species, but it gets lanky and tends to flop over. The flowers look like a red hot poker (Kniphofia) but they are not even in the same family.

Lachenalia bulbifera, with the scape leaning toward the sun.

Haemanthus pauculifolius is an evergreen species from the Drakensberg. It is also one of the smallest Haemanthus I have seen. It is a close relative of H. albiflos and H. deformis, but its inflorescence is a much narrower version of the White Paintbrush.

Haemanthus pauculifolius.

You can get an idea of the scale in the picture above from the pot the pauculifolius is growing in -- it is 5½ inches (12.5 cm) square. The new foliage of H. pauculifolius tends to be replacing the old growth at the same time it flowers, so there are always a few dying leaves in sight unless you groom the plant drastically.

I have an interesting Massonia (family Hyacinthaceae, from South Africa) in bloom just now.

Massonia echinata (?)
Giant form from Theronsberg Pass.

The foliage is quite smooth, and I would have innocently called it M. depressa because of that feature alone. The leaves are large, perhaps 10-14 cm wide by 12-16 cm long. However, now that it is in bloom, I see that the flowers are very remarkable. They are filled to overflowing with nectar, and each flower is clasped in a large green bract.

Massonia echinate (?) Flowers Close Up.

This plant is blooming two months later than the other bulbs of Massonia depressa/echinata did. So what is this one really? Is it echinata, or deperessa, or something new? I'd sure like to know!

There are a few other things in bloom or recently in bloom as well. Nerine undulata just finished flowering. Tulbaghia simmerli is in bloom. Lachenalia reflexa's yellow upright tubular flowers are starting to develop their color. Many more Lachenalia have buds showing. Several Clivia are showing new scapes down in the heart of the leaves as well.

Spring should come eventually. Finally, here is geriatric old Homer, using his custom-built ramp to come back up to the door.

Homer coming up his ramp.

Good gardening,

Jim

Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 03:30 PM EST - Depths of Winter

Things are very quiet here in January. Things are slow. Thanks to snow that started falling around 5 AM this morning, what is usually a ten minute drive down to my favorite breakfast place, Cafe Patechou, took 20 minutes driving down at 7:15 AM. An hour later, the drive back home took 30 minutes; but the breakfast was, as always, excellent. The slow drive did give me an opportunity to think about what I might comment on in the blog. And the fine breakfast put me in a mellow mood before I started writing.

Politics

A lot of people, both Republicans as well as Democrats, seem to expect Mr. O'Bama to work miracles! If I don't stop and think for a minute, I find myself expecting the same thing. It isn't going to happen that easily. We don't have 25% unemployment, as we did when I was born in the Great Depression. The only reason we don't have that much right now is that the politicians and economists may have learned a bit since then; Keynes once again reigns supreme. Unfortunately, the denizens of Wall Street obviously have not learned.

Weather

We just got the December gas bills for heating the greenhouses. They are up 50% from our highest December gas bills in the last 3 years, and it is only partly due to increasing prices for natural gas. Cold weather arrived with November this year, and has not let up except for the occasional 2- or 3-day blip of unseasonably warm weather. We are heading into two or three days of lows at 0°F to -10°F -- colder than we have had in the last 5 years if not longer. Simultaneously, they are having record high temperatures in Northern California.

How can Global Warming make our winter colder? It's pretty simple if you understand a little physical chemistry or physics. The atmosphere plus the oceans constitute a big heat engine. Think of the gasoline engine in your car, but driven by the heat of the sun rather than by burning gasoline. The more "fuel" (i.e., heat energy) you put into the engine, the more work it can do. Making record heat in one part of the world and near-record cold in another part takes a lot of work. The engine is driving us farther from equilibrium, the nice average of summer and winter, highs and lows, that we all generally prefer, because we are heating the engine up. Global warming.

Homer

My geriatric old dog, Homer, likes this cold weather. He seems to think he is part polar bear! He goes out day or night to lay on the ground for a half hour at a time. Homer is over 15 years old now, and he gets pain pills, thyroid pills, and more, twice a day. Somehow, he just keeps on going. He couldn't walk up the steps from the yard to the deck last year, so we had a handyman build a ramp for him. He uses that now to return from his outings in the yard.

Homer is not alone in reaching a very old age for a large dog (Homer weighs about 55 lb. or about 25 kg.) Thanks to rapidly improving verterinary medical care for domestic animals, many large old dogs like Homer are living far longer than they used to. I suspect that much of this progress in animal health care is fall-out from the dynamic growth of human medicine over the last half centry or so. Thank the N.I.H. for geriatric pets!

Flowers

We will have the annual meeting of the Midwest Clivia Club here at our home and greenhouse on Saturday, March 28th, at roughly noon to 4 PM. Hopefully, we will have a lot of clivias in bloom at that time. In any case, we will have a buffet lunch at around noon for those who RSVP to us by about March 15th.

Right now, there are only a couple clivias in bloom, mainly the Belgian hybrids. Because we have had very little sunshine so far this autumn and winter, they are not the advertised dark red-orange, but are a bit paler. There is also one Clivia gardenii in bloom and one interspecific hybrid of uncertain ancestry. In these two cases also, the light colors of the present flowers may not indicate what they would look like grown under the bright sunshine of Southern California or South Africa.

Also in bloom are a couple pots of Yellow Cyrtanthus. These are a vigorous, robust strain or clone of Cyrtanthus maakenii cooperi. I'm not sure whether they have a proper cultivar name or not. They at least bloom reliably every year and at a time when very little else is blooming.

My large pot of Narcissus papyraceus has put up one stem of small white flowers. They bloom at a time of year when any flower is greatly appreciated. Other Narcissus species in the greenhouse are not blooming so far this winter.

Among the little else in bloom are the Lachenalia. The L. rubidum and L. viridiflora are past now, and others such as L. bulbifer are starting. You need a very cool place with lots of bright light to grow these well, and our light is almost strong enough for them. They are in the cool greenhouse, where temperatures run down to about 40°F on cold nights. This house is mostly full of Haemanthus in full leaf and growth this time of winter. The Haemanthus finished blooming in October, and the next won't bloom until H. montanus flowers in this coming June.

We need to focus our thoughts on the coming of Spring. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the days have been getting longer for the last 3 weeks, and in a few more weeks the coldest part of winter will be safely behind us. Think good thoughts about Spring flowers to come.

Good gardening,

Jim

Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 03:30 PM EST - Gardening in a Recession

We are in a full scale economic recession, at least in the U.S.A. Granted, unemployment is only 6.7% so far, compared to the ca. 25% at the peak of the Great Depression of the 1930s. So it is still just a recession, but that's bad enough. The most optimistic estimate I've seen says this will still get worse before it starts to get better again, and it will last at least through the next 18 months. So what can you do in the garden in a situation like this?

If you are working reduced hours or not at all, if money is getting to be in short supply, making a garden to grow some of your own food could ease the pressure on what money you still have. Making a garden is not free, but it does not have to be so expensive that your would be better off just buying your vegetables at the supermarket.

If you stay at home all day, and live in the country, you might start growing some of your own food next spring. If you work full time and live in the city, you might not find it worth the bother. If you garden with lots of pesticides, they will cost you more than the produce you grow would cost at the supermarket.

How Much

If you have the time and the space, remember the rule, "One man, one acre." That is, one person working approximately full time can properly care for a garden of at most one acre. And that is an optimistic estimate, made years ago by a professional German gardener in good physical condition. It will be hard work.

You will need to do your own weeding, mainly by hand but supplemented with mulching. Your composted mulch (start your compost pile now!) will help by replacing much of the fertilizer you might otherwise need to buy. You will need to go after as many insect pests by hand as you can manage. Tomato hornworms, cabbage butterfly larvae, and even to some extent squash/zucchini borers, can be limited by diligent hand picking when they get large enough to see.

What to grow

What to grow? That will depend on geography as much as on your personal preferences in vegetables. Here in central Indiana, in USDA zone 5, where we get 35 to 40 inches of precipitation per year, more or less evenly spread through the twelve months, we can grow spring crops like garden peas, lettuce, and radishes. For summer, green beans, zucchini, sweet corn, and tomatoes are no-brainers, while more exotic things like muskmelons depend very much on microclimate and how far you want to go to ameliorate climate. To extend the growing season, you can try putting polyethylene tunnels over some of the rows and grow the marginal crops in the tunnels.

For a balanced diet, you need carbohydrates from crops like potatoes, garden peas, and sweet corn. You need protein from things like beans of all sorts. You need vitamins and minerals from things like salad greens and fruits. Things like broccoli and brussels sprouts may be growable and are first rate nutritional resources.

Homework

What you can grow in your particular geographical area and climate will vary. Now is the time to start researching things, before the seeds show up in the garden centers in a scant few weeks. Do your homework now, so you don't waste your resources in the growing season. Select those varieties that are timed to mature in periods no longer than your local growing season.

Water is a worry no matter where you garden. Here in the Midwest, we know to expect drought periods as well as flooding. Creek bottom land is great, until you get a solid week or two of rain that floods it and kills all your plants. Be prepared as well to supplement natural rainfall during dry spells, so place your garden within a garden hose length of a well or sillcock. You can buy garden hose in rolls up to at least 100 feet in length, but those long hoses are heavy to move. It's better to get four 50-ft. hoses to string together rather than two 100-ft. hoses. You'll thank me when you try to put those hoses away next autumn.

To Garden or Not to Garden

A "recession" garden, like the Victory Gardens of World War II, is a response to a crisis. Is your crisis condition going to be improved if you devote the time, energy, and money to creating a vegetable garden? Are there better ways to ease the crisis conditions in your personal situation than to make and maintain a garden? The more ambitious your garden project, the more likely you are to end up with surpluses. Are you prepared to preserve the surpluses for use after the garden season ends? If it's a good idea to make a garden, it would probably also be a very good idea to preserve any surpluses you obtain.

Note that we are not addressing questions of the environment, nor of more healthful food for your family, nor of gardening as therapy for your soul. We are just looking at making a garden as a way of dealing with some of the problems associated with living through our current economic situation. Good luck!

Good gardening,

Jim

Monday, December 15, 2008, 03:30 PM EST - Flowers for the Season

The first flowers I think of for the Christmas Season are poinsettias. They are deeply ingrained in my subconscious mind for the time of year. Still, they are not the only flowers we can have in bloom for Christmas. The Dutch hybrid "amaryllis," really Hippeastrum, are also readily available and ready to bloom. Rare in the U.S.A. but common in Europe are the Belgian hybrid clivias, forms of Clivia miniata.

Ubiquitous now wherever flowers are sold are orchids. A few years ago they were considered rare and exotic. They are available year round and in a multitude of colors. Most seem to be phalanopsis, the moth orchids; but you occasionally see oncidium hybrids, the so-called dancing doll or butterfly orchids.

All of the plants are treated as annuals and are discarded as soon as their flowers fade. However, if grown as houseplants or in a greenhouse, all are perennial. All of them can live a very long time and rebloom in later years.

Poinsettias originated in Mexico, and they grow as large bushy shrubs in warm climates. The biggest problem with growing them as perennials is their susceptibility to white flies. These can be controlled by using a systemic insecticide regularly. Getting them to flower requires some attention to day length. In winter, they need to be in an area that does not get artificial light. A few months after being exposed to uninterrupted nights at least 14 hours long, they will produce their tiny flowers surrounded by the characteristic large red bracts. In nature and in your house, they will bloom naturally around Easter rather than at the Christmas season.

The Dutch amaryllis are long lived bulbs. Although their wild ancestors are native to South America, the popular large flowered hybrds were developed in the Netherlands. These days, many are also grown in South Africa; while the least expensive bulbs will come from India in all probability. The amaryllis are dormant in autumn and winter, and they may or may not lose their leaves during their dormant period. Well-grown bulbs will produce two flower stalks per year. They have been selected over the years for that trait.

Orchids are both the easiest and the hardest flowers to carry over.

I have Oncidium orchids that I've had for ten years of pretty bad neglect. They don't look very pretty now, but they survive. On the other hand, it can be a serious challenge to get orchids to bloom again in following years. The oncidiums tolerate strong lightly dappled sunlight and humidity from low to high. They just need to be kept watered at regular intervals and fed occasionally.

The Phalanopsis orchids need moderate light, moderate temperatures, and fairly high humidity. The problem for growing them as house plants will usually be keeping the humidity high enough for them to form and carry a new bloom stalk. They do not tolerate the sort of neglect that oncidiums can endure.

The Cattleya orchids vary widely in ease of bloom. I have one lovely big white cattley that seems to bloom every year about this time with only minimal care during the year. It is certainly worth the little trouble it gives just for the beautiful flowers.

Cymbidiums are terrestrial orchids that not only tolerate but which need some pretty chilly temperatures in autumn in order to produce flowers in winter. Mine are mainly hand-me-downs from friends who otherwise treat them as annuals. I happily accept the bloomed-out plants, divide them, and repot. Several are in scape right now.

Good gardening,

Jim

Monday, November 24, 2008, 05:30 PM EST - Comments on Nerines from John Weagle

We just had our first hard frost this week in Halifax, then Friday night we got clipped by a nor'easter that dumped 30-cm of snow. Hopefully it will be gone in a week but you never know. It certainly put an end to the Nerine bowdenii in bloom against the house as the temperature fell to -4c before the snow started. This bowdenii is the sole survivor of a dozen bulbs I planted maybe 20 years ago. It only started bloom a few years when the city limbed up an old linden street-side.

This may be Pink Triumph but I'm not certain.

A kind fellow in Sweden is sending me seed of var. wellsii which is said to be much hardier, he grows it in the open garden away from the warmth of the house foundation. I'm wondering if you have found var. wellsii significantly hardier than the bowdenii of the trade or, any other Nerine species for that matter? N. krigei is said to be hardy but I know of no one who has it let alone growing outside.

In 1996 I got seed of about 20 hand-pollinated crosses from Sir Peter, some interesting colours have come from the seed. Presently I have about 30 pots of bulbs from those crosses. I dearly wanted to decipher some of the parents listed only by code number in their complex parentages. I emailed Dr. Paul Chapman in the UK and he kindly sent me Sir Peter's spreadsheets listing all the Nerine crosses he had done as well as another file cross-referencing the crosses with his final selections. When I opened the excel file I was shocked me to see that Sir Peter had recorded the male parent first. Now I have to decide if I have to reverse all the crosses in my files, an onerous task requiring great care as these are very complex crosses! I wrote to Nicholas de Rothschild at Exbury Gardens, the repository of Sir Peter's many hybrids. Nicholas thought the whole exercise useless and he may very well be right. It occurred to me we would probably trace everything back to old Nerine cultivars and the original Exbury plants that Sir Peter used, sadly to my knowledge we do not know the parentages of these old hybrids either. So back to square one. One wonders just how many species are involved in these crosses anyway - just sarniensis? - and if so where did the colour range come from? Is there such variation in the wild? Any thoughts?

Attached is a shot of some of the seedling pots as I was cleaning the greenhouse for winter several weeks ago. If I were to plant each bulb separately I would need an acre under glass.

John Weagle's Nerine Seedlings Blooming

I am just back from eastern Newfoundland where they have had Crocosmia aurea in their gardens for years. C. paniculata survived for 10 years here in Halifax against a greenhouse wall but recently disappeared when the ground froze deeply. Only Lucifer survives in Halifax, mainly in others' gardens as I cannot winter it at all. Friends here say it can skip a year after a hard winter and then mysteriously grow back and flower the same year. In extreme southern NS it is very vigorous. I wonder which ones might be hardy for you, realizing, of course, that your soil does not freeze as deeply as it can here on occasion.

I have just given my Crocosmias to a friend in the south of NS and they have now been planted out in 9 long trenches. It will be interesting to see how they fare.

One last question. I have had several large pots of Lycoris radiata since 1976 and have never seen a flower. Perhaps we simply do not have enough summer heat to set buds. Do you think there are any of the Chinese species hardy outside or reliable bloomers?

Best regards,
John Weagle
Halifax, NS
Canada

Thursday, November 20, 2008, 10:30 AM EST - The Future of Plant Societies

For the past week or two, there has been a continuing discussion in Alpine-L, via the Surfnet.NL listserver, of the future of plant societies as we have known them traditionally.

The traditional plant societies are at best holding their own, while most are steadily losing overall membership. The average ages of the members seem to be steadily increasing.

The traditional plant society has had a printed journal and newsletter, has met once a year for a general meeting of officers and members, and held a plant show at the same time and place. Several of them operate seed exchanges at nominal costs to members. Large and successful plant societies have also spawned local chapters, which in turn hold local plant shows as well as have local meetings during the year with slide programs given by visiting speakers.

There have been many suggestions offered as to why plant societies are shrinking: There are many more opportunities for entertainment now. People lead much busier lives now, especially where both adults in most families work outside the home.

I think that all plant societies are going to have to broaden their coverage - interactive web sites with information in depth about the field the society covers; on-line forums to continuously engage the members; members from anywhere and everywhere in the world. These points are in addition to encouraging local chapters where people can meet face to face. Societies still have to distribute printed material to remind straying members to come back to the fold. I would even say that societies need to have telephone committees who phone society members who are in arrears for dues. Personal contact is a critical ingredient in maintaining any kind of community.

On-line sales and auctions of plants are better ways to raise money than are sales of publications and collection of dues. This means cultivating support from commercial growers and hobbyists with big collections, so that they donate plants of interest to the members.

Societies that have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status can offer contributors receipts that allow donations to be deducted from taxable income (in the USA). Societies that do not have this classification should look into getting it. If you generate enough income from plant sales, you cam make you publications and web site available to the general public for free. If your society has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, be sure you send written receipts for all donations, so that donors will repeat their acts of generosity in the future. Remembering your society on income tax filing will help people remember to participate in renew memberships as well.

Matt Mattus (Massachusetts, USA) makes some cogent observations on Alpine-L, article at https://listserv.surfnet.nl/scripts/wa.cgi?A2=ind0811&L=alpine-l&F=&S=&P=8966.

Good gardening,

Jim

Sunday, November 09, 2008, 07:30 PM EST - Haemanthus Developments

While in New Zealand for the Kiwi Clivia 2008 shows and bus tour, I had a chance to chat with legendary nurseryman Terry Hatch. Terry has been making the cross Haemanthus [albiflos X coccineus] and has many blooming hybrids. Terry tells me that the colors of the flowers vary from one seedling to the next, including white, yellow, orange, pink, and red. This sounds like a cross worth repeating! Terry has also recently made the cross Haemanthus [humilis hirsutus x coccineus], but his have not bloomed yet. For mine, see: [October 2007].

Aart van Forst in The Netherlands has been working on converting Haemanthus to tetraploids by treating the germinating seeds with an agent such as Surflan or colchicine. Several years ago, I sent him what I thought were seeds of a hybrid between albiflos and another species. Aart treated the seeds, and one has bloomed now; it is pure albiflos, but now tetraploid. Since Aart had already treated albiflos and produced a tetraploid, he was able to cross the two clones and get pure tetraploid Haemanthus albiflos seeds!

Aart has a terrific breeding program for tetraploid and triploid Haemanthus. He has to use sophisticated methodology to the seeds of some of the complex crosses he is creating. Maybe we will start to see his creations in the Dutch bulb catalogs in a few years.

I'm sure there are other bulb lovers in the world who are hybridizing Haemanthus besides Terry, Aart, and me. Eventually I'll find them. If you are one of them, drop me a line.

Good gardening,

Jim

Friday, October 31, 2008, 09:30 AM EDT - New Zealand Reprise

New Zealand was the greenest country I've ever seen. They get at least as much rain annually as we do here in Indiana - 36 to 40 inches - spread throughout the year. They get no more than brief morning frosts in winter, and their high temperatures in summer were said to average about 76°F. It's no wonder they are green!

The part we saw, the northern half of North Island, reminded me of the coastal regions of southern and central California. There are lots of exotic trees and shrubs, including podocarps, in California. The rhododendrons, azaleas, and camillias were in bloom and seemed to be in every garden.

The central part of the north island has three volcanoes that are currently alive but quiet. The midlands have some geothermal area with geysers, bubbling mud pots, and steam drifting up from fumaroles. The area is similar to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in this respect.

The southwestern-most area we visited, New Plymouth on the west coast, has one volcano. It is variously referred to as Mt. Egmont or Mt. Taranaki. It hasn't erupted since about 250 years ago. We saw it on one of its rare clear days, and the mountain is truly beautiful against a blue sky.

Mt. Taranaki Volcano
New Plymouth, New Zealand

They say you can forecast the weather by looking at the mountain: If you can see the mountain, it's going to rain. If you can't see the mountain, it is raining.

Good gardening,

Jim

Friday, October 17, 2008, 10:30 AM EDT - Auckland

We have returned from New Zealand, and now I'll try to catch up with my narrative of our visit there. Demands of the tour and problems with computer connections in various hotels resulted in my not being able to keep the blog up to date while we were traveling.

Originally Intended for Monday, Oct. 6th:

The first thing I want to do is explain where I've been the last few days. Our tour bus leaves at 8:30 AM each morning and returns us here to the hotel at 6:30 PM. After walking to someplacefor supper,we get home around 9 PM. I have time, most days,to check the e-mail before the bus leaves in the morning and before bedtime in the evening. That has not left time to process the pictures from my digital camera. I've also got a nice cold, probably contracted just before we left home a week ago.

So I'm staying in the hotel today, resting up and catching up.

On Thursday, We visited an Antarctic Adventure(with penguins) and the Auckland Museum in a city park named Auckland Domain. See the picture below in the entry for Oct. 3rd.

On Sunday, we spent most of the day with Dr. Keith Hammett at his 10-acre garden in Massy. Those pictures will not get posted here until later.

Good gardening,

Jim

Friday, October 03, 2008, 11:30 AM NZT - Auckland, New Zealand

We arrived in Auckland At 6:30 AM local time on Wednesday to a cool, cloudy day. In traveling from Indiana to Los Angeles to Auckland, we went from Monday, Sept.29th to Wednesday, Oct. 1st, in 20 hours. We went down to the waterfront for lunch -- fish and chips (french fries). We wandered from the waterfront up the "High Street" (actually, Queens St.), where there were about 3 banks per block.

On Thursday, we took a cab down to the waterfront again to catch the Auckland Explorer bus. This is a "hop on, hop off" type. With a one-day pass, we could ride to any stop, get off, look around, and catch the next bus an hour later. We stopped at the Antarctic Adventure to see some penguins, then rode the bus to the Auckland Museum, and finally took the bus to Parnell Village.

The redeveloped waterfront.

The Maritime Museum.
We haven't visited this yet.

The Auckland Museum has many exhibits, but the one that we spent all our time at was Polynesian Culture. They had a complete ceremonial house, a much smaller storage house,and a full size war canoe.

Polynesian Ceremonial House

Parnell Village in an old stretch of Parnell Road that has been revitallized. It now has lots of restaurants, including some that looked very fine, as well as art galleries, boutiques, etc., but no banks.

Right now, it is 11 AM here in Auckland, on Friday, Oct.3rd; at this same moment, it is 6 PM on Thursday evening in Indiana. At least, that is as close as I can figure it.

I have not yet solved the riddle of how to upload images to my web site from the hotel computer, so the pictures will have to wait a bit.

Good gardening,

Jim