Nerine 'Zeal Giant'

Johannes-Ulrich Urban johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de
Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:09:00 PDT
Dear All,

After some years of patience my small pot of Nerine 'Zeal Giant' now has
two scapes of magnificent flowers. I think it is a hybrid between N.
bowdenii and N. sarniensis and the flowers have that fascinating
crystalline glitter in them, from the sarniensis parent, the colour is
an intense purplish pink. My Nerine bowdenii next door looks very small
and pale right now......
I followed the comments on this list on virus activation following
fertilization, this happened to that plant last year to a worrying
extent and I considered to throw the pot away to prevent infection to
other plants. Of course I gave it a lot of balanced liquid feed thecause
I thought this bulb might be greedy and of course I was impatient to see
flowers. I kept it, could not throw it away, no fertilizer whatsoever
this year, and here she is..... The leaves still look a bit mottled but
much greener than last year.
My first sight of this beauty was a very big pot in full bloom with at
least 10 scapes in the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, and I could not
rest until I found a source (Broadleigh Gardens, but they do not sell it
every year)
I self pollinated the flowers today, does anybody know if these hybrids
come true from seed? Nerine can be apomictic (setting seed without
pollination which is genetically identical to the seed parent) but I do
not know if this also applies to complex hybrids.

greetings from Germany, very nice sunny mild late summer weather


Uli



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