Slightly OT Serapias

Rand Nicholson writserv@nbnet.nb.ca
Sun, 19 Jun 2005 07:25:29 PDT
Hi Jim:

I have been growing this little beauty for a couple of seasons now 
and , although  I have yet to have blooms, the psuedobulbs have 
multiplied. Outdoors, I grow it in a pot with a very porous mix with 
the addition of some clay chips you can get for water plants and some 
ground limestone. After the weather gets cool in the fall, I bring 
them indoors to a sunny, cool windowsill where they sit until they go 
down and I then stop watering them, almost. They do get an occasional 
watering throughout the winter just to keep the mix from totally 
drying out. You may well be able to grow these in outdoors in MO. I 
quote Warren Stoutamire, of the University of Akron, Ohio Biology 
Dept., who successfully grows these and was so helpful in getting me 
on the right track with S. lingua:

"Rand:  I have grown Serapias lingua here for several years and the 
species is easy to manage.  They are potted in fast-draining 
sand-soil mixtures with chunks of  calcareous tufa in the mix and 
around the tuberoids.   You can add ground limestone or marble chips 
to the mix if you do not have tufa.  The clay pots are kept in a 
bright position and watered lightly through the winter.  They flower 
after the other Mediterranean terrestrials have finished, when the 
days are long, warm, bright and pots dry quickly.  They grow well in 
groups and withstand occasional drying out.  If you grow Orchis, 
Ophrys and other such terrestrials you should have no problems.  They 
tolerate temperatures  from 35 to 45F at night without any problems."

Best Regards,

Rand



>Dear Friends;
>	I just unpotted a Serapias lingua from Fausto Cen and found 
>about a dozen 'bulbs'- small sausage shaped pseudobulbs with a 
>pointed end still showing a 'string' of fiber from this year's 
>growth.
>	Does anyone have experience growing this terrestrial orchid outdoors?
>
>	It is Mediterranean and I wonder if I keep it dry will it 
>grow outdoors?
>
>	It has survived in my unheated cold frame over winter.
>
>	Help?	Jim W.
>--
>Dr. James W. Waddick
>8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
>Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
>USA
>Ph.    816-746-1949
>Zone 5 Record low -23F
>	Summer 100F +
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