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Quote from: David Pilling on October 10, 2023, 07:09:23 AMI've still got a long way to go before I can purchase a botanic garden.

Every botanic garden starts with a packet of seeds.

Unless you have half a billion US$ to play with

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on September 17, 2023, 04:57:58 AM@Wylie I take your xAmarine tubergenii and raise by xAmarcrinum 'Fred Howard' - now I wish I'd ever gotten the "plant in between" back to flower, but Amarillis belladonna only ever give leaves to me besides the first year and, other than the Amarine, which seems perfectly hardy, the Amaryllis leaves suffer from hard frosts.

Easy to get leaves, hard to get flowers with Amaryllis in off conditions. If they are generally healthy, a simulated fire can prompt blooming...weed whacking the leaves near the end of the season, clearing overgrowth in the spring/summer may give sudden results!

But, as you know, a cold winter is a problem, and they perform poorly potted.

I've planted a lot of Amaryllis in the street median, which suits them well, sun, poor soils, and little competing plant growth. Some actually get substantial summer water from fog dripping off the street trees, but it doesn't affect flowering. Among the standard Amaryllis are obvious Brunsvigia hybrids, enormous fast growing bulbs, bigger inflorescences, and broader color ranges. Which is a reminder to stop babying my Brunsvigia seedlings and get them in the ground.

Heh, Root disturbance does the trick! Just like the best Amaryllis bloom is the ones where the leaves were weed-whacked off towards the end of the season (aka "Maybe we just had a wildfire?")

Quote from: Bwosczyna on August 28, 2023, 09:01:04 PMInteresting things to consider. But the leaf on the mother corm was variegated last year and the offset corms from last year are all green as well.

No worries.  I have time and I have room.  I'll cut some stems and see what happens. 
B

Interesting! Glad you have time to experiment...the best I can do is remember to take pictures. Impressive how much the variegation changes from year to year, and from offset to offset...heck, one of the offsets put up a second leaf that is 75% very pale green while the old leaf is less than 10% variegated.

Quote from: Bwosczyna on August 27, 2023, 05:30:18 PMHey Bob:
Just saw this message... yeah, not the optimum way to care for a corm.  It's in a huge pot and I can stand beneath it this year.  Zero variegation.  And every offset from last year has no variegation either.  Interesting.
B

Given that the new tuber is stem tissue which produced the new leaf, and if you look at the petiole, you can see the stripes of variegation, it would make sense that a totally green leaf is likely to produce a tuber with no variegation.

So, would it follow that you should chop off a totally green leaf, and hope that the replacement leaves come from dormant buds with variegation? Once the plant has grown a new tuber it would be too late.

Ditto a totally white leaf?

Robert

Quote from: David Pilling on August 21, 2023, 06:17:49 AMLove amaryllis belladonna - will be interesting to see if any flowers put in an appearance after the cold wet Summer here in the North of England.

Cold and damp, but not wet, however the Amaryllis under tree drip lines (2"/5cm water per month from fog this summer), are also blooming.

From my front yard. All planted in the last 3-4 years.

Quote from: CG100 on August 20, 2023, 12:31:29 AMBottom line - if we stop extracting oil and gas, the world would cease to exist in any form even remotely similar to what we know now.
Imagine, no PVC for electrical insulation - imagine how much tropical jungle would have to be felled to return to rubber insulation - current production is around 14-15 milion tonnes per year produced on 10 million hectares (100,000 square km), PVC is 50-60 million tonnes and is used for pipes for every conceivable use, as well as electrical insulation.

I don't think anyone is seriously pushing the end of oil extraction, just reducing the amount of that production that is burned and turned into CO2. As you point out there are an enormous amount of useful stuff made from extracted crude...and many of those products sequester carbon in a more or less long term way.
Also, by the application of heat, pressure, and catalysts, excess production can be converted to other (longer or shorter chain) products, so there isn't likely to be a great excess of mid-chain length petrochemicals.
For myself, I am awaiting the year when my car gets a plug in hybrid option...additional range for the long trips, but the ability to run on batteries for routine town trips...not to mention that my employer encourages charging cars on their dime!

Save the oil for useful high value products!

Quote from: MarcR on August 14, 2023, 12:38:04 PMHere in Oregon's Mid Willamette Valley, we are expecting 103 F (39.4 C) today.  In the 20 years I have lived here, I have never seen anything above the low 90s (32-34 C).  Since most deer resistant plants can take the heat; and all of my beds that are not deer resistant are deer fenced, I need only  drape shade cloth over the fencing.  It will be very nice if this translates to slightly warmer winters. I would be very happy with a change from zone 8a to 9b or even 9a. I certainly do not wish harm to anyone south of me.

Sadly, while the average may rise, the extremes will likely be more extreme...so zone 9 with occasional visits to 8A or 7B...and remarkable heat storms like last year.

Quote from: Bwosczyna on August 04, 2023, 07:05:11 PMThey are a lot of fun to grow.  My largest corm weighed in at 18 lbs. when I potted it this year.  Be prepared.  It only took about 8 years to reach that weight - and that's after I chonked a quarter of it digging out of the ground two years ago. 
Bridget

That's a hard way of propagating them!

It's interesting how the pattern changes from year to year.  And the offsets are always a surprise...this year, from only the tiniest bit of variegation to about 50% white.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 02, 2023, 07:45:14 AMI agree with the above comments by CG100. But going the lab route for growing orchids always appealed to me - I never got there. A friend did and had success with home made equipment.

I used to feel the need to use lab style techniques with some non-orchid seed. There were some species where the seed would take so long to germinate that it would be overtaken by undesirable stuff like moss and liverworts - and it was too small for the kitchen towel approach.

In general there are worthy seed vendors and there are worthless seed vendors. When I started I assumed seeds all came from people with huge gardens where they grew all the seed they sold. Most seed is traded, and at one end of the spectrum there are dealers who have never grown a seed in their life but know two things, seed has an infinite lifetime and the price per seed increases for smaller lots. The end result is people on ebay selling five year old single seeds of cosmos bipinnatus for $1.

I seem to recall one of the UK seed vendors with the biggest range of rare varieties at high prices operated from an inner city tower block.

The English fairy tale "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" (1734) has its base in reality.

If I was giving you some seed of my own I would be unable to avoid embroidering their merits.

Gardeners have to be optimists - perfect market - people who want to believe in your product.

Buyer beware. Look at the seed list and whether there is a likelihood of fresh true seed...maybe buy a few packets and see what happens. In general, the aggregators have unreliable seed, but sometimes you get lucky. Got some mixed Dierama seed from an eBay seller...near 100% germination. Got a number of species this spring, again, near 100% germination. Obviously distinct plants in each pot, but years until they flower. Based on their listings and etc. they appear to be importing from Plant World Seeds in the UK and repackaging. I now have a LOT of small Dierama plants...

Quote from: lpw on July 24, 2023, 10:55:11 PMRobert, I have been trying for years to get my ixia viridifolia bulbs to bloom. I have two pots to which I keep adding more bulbs, with little to no success. I live not far from you, in the Berkeley hills. 

The pots are outside in a mixed sun-shade area, winter and summer.  In winter, I hand water every two weeks or so when there is not rain. I move them to more sun as the stalks grow high. But they don't produce flowers. (This might be the time when I am not watering enough?)  I stop watering them completely as soon as the stalks get dry. Once the winter rains start again (or don't) I start hand watering again. I have not changed the perlite and coir mix in the pots for years.

Other Ixia viridifolia failed to grow when I put the bulbs straight into my SA bed where plants receive only winter rain (and an occasional hand watering when it is very hot).

Could you please describe for me your watering schedule and any other conditions you credit with getting yours to bloom?

Mine get lifted every year. Mix is a more or less standard potting mix (Annies, FWIW) amended with coarse sand, perlite, pumice, fine volcanic debris...under my conditions, all bulbs are in some sort of extreme draining like cactus mix. Slow release fertilizer is mixed in before planting. Usually a couple waterings during the season with fertilizer. With Ixia it seems, the better the foliage, the better the blooms.

Watering is either rain or irrigation when the soil surface gets dry. Overall probably medium to moist. Sun is as much as I can...so a bit more than 1/2 sun.

I did plant some Ixias in the median of my street...so nothing but natural rain...they grow and flower, but not vigorously.

tl;dr: full sun, moist in the winter with fertilization, dry summer (they do not require a warm dormancy).

Quote from: MarcR on June 09, 2023, 01:47:55 AMIf you use 2" chicken wire to build a cage around your potted plants it will protect them from the crows without seriously hampering your enjoyment of them.
Alternatively you could get a motion detector and a sling shot and make them feel unwelcome.

Yeah...there will be a net cover installed...the other thing they do is bite Arisaema & Amorphophallus buds as they come up, presumably because they looks like yummy meat treats.

Today, it was clarified that I have ravens AND crows...the crows were harassing the lone raven hanging out near my back yard, so no destructive play. This while I was potting dumped pots, and writing X## labels, that might get connected to the lost labels in time...in the grand scheme of things, losing the labels on 1.5 percent of my collection is not that bad.

Quote from: MarcR on June 03, 2023, 12:10:49 AMRobert and Judy,

A polycarbonate coldframe with a frame of 1" PVC pipe can be any dimension you need at fairly low cost and it can be lifted off your bed when the weather warms.
The effort to build and move it is a fraction of the effort to lift and store bulbs, or to move pots around.

If I had space...

There is significant overlap of the area covered by summer bulbs and winter bulbs. Someday I'll get the warm summer storage area completed.

Quote from: MarcR on June 02, 2023, 11:52:39 PMOne solution that might work for everyone is to check your markers every 6 mos and replace as needed.  Dynotape plastic labels attached to wooden or metal stakes with small screws (the glue is not reliable) seem to be long lasting.

Growing in pots and lifting almost everything every year lets me keep labels renewed.

It doesn't help when the crows come in and have a fiesta of throwing labels around, or going for the gusto and tossing 2-4 inch pots all over the back patio and playing with the plants thus uprooted.

Hello again-

We have a seed share that may be of interest to you.  Thanks to
Mary Sue Ittner who harvested the seed and brought it to the post office!

Please email me privately at trolleypup@gmail.com by Tuesday night, May 30th,
I will portion seed, invoice and probably ship Wednesday or Thursday.
$6.50 per portion including shipping (Canada will calculate once packaged-usually US$15-20)

Please include your name and shipping address in your email. Shipping is at your risk, weather conditions at the delivery point can affect ephemeral seed viability.

Haemanthus albiflos - some are already sprouting, so be ready to plant them. The minimum portion will be 5 seeds.

Robert