Single digits in Missouri, and it was down to 20 at North Bend, Oregon where I live. Or six miles north and in from the ocean 1 1/2 miles. By 3:30 this afternoon it was 34 and dropping. Yet, I still have Cyclamen intaminatum and purpurascens blooming in the greenhouse, unheated, not covered with Reemay until this afternoon. Coum is just coming into bloom in the same house, and has yet to be bothered by the temperatures we have here What surprised me was that C. intaminatum is still blooming in a trough on the west side of the house. I've never seen it bloom much later than the end of October, and this one has been blooming since September. On the other hand, I may lose some plants, as I did not prepare for 20 degrees last night, although the temps have been in the mid-20s for several nights. I don't have a thermometer in the poly house so I don't know what it went down to, but anything that was dark and drooping, such as C. graecum perked back up by midday. Here on the coast my defense against cold weather is always Reemay over everything in the poly house when the temps stay this low, and I've rarely lost anything, even africanum, persicum, balearicum, etc. I also try never to have plants, especially bulbs, more than damp at this time of year. Consistently, the cyclamen survive such low temps if they are not wet. Robin Hansen Southwest Oregon USA Zone 9, sort of ----- Original Message ----- From: James Waddick To: Pacific Bulb Society Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: [pbs] Cold winter miscellany Dear All, The temps are dropping (single digits in the forecast) and a winter storm warning was just announced with rain turning to sleet and snow. Joy. But a few bright spots: Cyrtanthus brachyscyphus I was lucky enough to get some small bulbs of Cyrtanthus brachyscyphus from BX # 189 10/27/08. Thanks Mary Sue. I was sort of shocked to get a handful of tiny bulbs. I potted them into 2 community gallon pots. Most of them seem to grow and I noticed one showing a bloom spike with bright orange buds. No color was given, but the wiki shows an orange scarlet flower. 2 others are showing just emerging stems with buds. There's a total of 15 growing heads. I anticipate even more flowers and much appreciated in the cold dreary days to come. Moraea polystachya I have tried this in various spots for years. I planted a few outdoors very close to the foundation in a south facing spot and even had a couple survive and bloom in very inopportune times of the year. They were never strong and dwindled. Seedlings in pots seemed weak. I must have recycled the soil in these old pots for two pots in the greenhouse are sporting blooming stems of this species. Both plants are small, but have had numerous flowers over a period of a couple of weeks. Lovely purple iris like flowers with showy yellow signals on each of the falls. Looks more like the first and last pix on the wiki here. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… It is a lovely item and I wish I could grow it better on purpose and get consistently good flowering on healthy looking plants. Drat. I guess I need to appreciate these wayward flowering stems. Clivia miniata A couple plants seems to be showing the first signs of flower stalks. Seems way too early. Cryptostephanus vansonii A recent inquiry reminded me. This summer my 'pink' form bloom. I tried hand pollination - selfing and am glad to seed a good size head of seeds developing. I seem to recall that each capsule can have only 1 or 2 seeds each like Clivia and like Clivia the seeds take months to a year to ripen fully. Any substantiation? It has been a while since I have seeds developing. Narcissus 'Cedric Morris' In full bloom outside, at least a month or 6 weeks earlier than its usual 'early bloom'. We've put a clear plastic bell over it to keep rabbits from enjoying it - or at least chewing stems off. This seems impervious to our tough weather. Oxalis Thanks to the generosity of PBS list members and the BX, I have accumulated a small collection of species and cvs. I won't report in full here, but there are definitely some worth growing under my conditions and some barely worth pot space. A real mix of things. The two most worthy of mention now are the very reliable and charming O. versicolor and O. bowei. This is the third bloom season for O. versicolor and it continues to get better. It has small flowers, but in serious abundance. The pink/red peppermint stripes are not terribly showy, but have a definite charm and the mass is impressive. The foliage is also small and lacy. It has been easy to grow and keep going under my less than devoted care. O. bowei is a new plant here in its first bloom season. It is like any of many weedy pink flowered 'shamrock' Oxalis except on 'steroids'. Both the foliage and flowers are distinctly BIG. It has sent up a lot of flower spikes and the large bright pink flowers make a strong showing. The foliage is big, bright green and almost lettuce-like. I suspect that once the flowers are gone this large foliage may be a bit much, but it sets off the flower spikes that bloom well above the foliage. Of course I am anticipating spring, but realistically expect another 4 months of dark skies and lots of cold, ice and snow. Best 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 + _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internal Virus Database is out of date. 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