PBS Forum

This is a very interesting discussion.
In Portugal where I live winter temperatures do not get below freezing but the greenhouse gets quite cold at night. To buffer this, I use a lot of 5-7 litre plastic water bottles which are used by many people for drinking water. I get them for free. In autumn these bottles are filled with rain water and placed inside the greenhouse on sun exposed sides. They warm up quite well on sunny days and release the warmth at night. It does not work on dull days but it's the bright sunny weather that has the cold nights. In spring I use the water for the plants in the greenhouse and store the empty bottles because otherwise the greenhouse would become too hot in summer. I have not measured the effects but I think it will reduce temperature fluctuations inside the greenhouse to some extent. The more bottles there are the better.
Very simple at no cost.

Pictures ?

Could this be Calostemma?
Both foliage and germinating seed do correspond to the pictures in the Wiki 
https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Calostemma

That is a very good form of Lachenalia viridiflora! I recommend hand pollination....

Hello,

If you have several pots with seed I would leave some outside and some indoors and compare the results. I have sown Ferraria seed in Portugal several times outdoors and found it easy to germinate. The temperature can go down near freezing occasionally. It may take some more time. The question is if the seed quality was really good. I do not understand what you mean by ,,fruit attached to the seed" normally Ferraria seed falls out of the seed pod without anything being attached to it.
Yes covering the seed with a good layer of sand is a good idea. The seed is large and the seedlings will be able to push through. Covering prevents drying out of the seed which would be very bad.

Hello Carlos,

I have one pot of Paramongaia which is outdoors all year. It is winter growing and kept in full sun in winter, the dormant pot is kept in the shade of our cork oaks, it would become too hot otherwise. The plant is very healthy looking. We have temperatures down to near freezing but still just frost free during a few early mornings in winter with temperatures rising well above 10 degrees during the day. I keep it constantly moist during growth and dry in summer. So far the plant seems happy with this treatment.

Bye for now 

Dear All,

Does anybody know of the whereabouts of Christian van Schalkwyk in South Africa? I have tried to contact him some time ago using the email address from his contributions about the Genus Oxalis to the email list but no reply. Christian, are you reading this?

If you prefer, you can reply privately to me.

Thank you very much 

Uli 

Hello Jane,
Very impressive collection! Thank you for sharing. It looks as if the plunge is on the ground kept in place with concrete blocks, right?
Do you have a kind of path in the middle of the pots? And the sides of the bulb house are covered with mesh to keep animals out, right?

This is very interesting indeed.
But I do not understand the wire mesh placed on top of the pots. Will the plants grow through it? Will you remove it before the bulbs start to grow? It will not be possible to remove the mesh during growth and there will be no access to the pots.
I also cover my seed trays with a similar mesh to keep the birds out. But I once had a whole tray of Cyclamen seed covered with mesh and I forgot to remove it when the seed was sprouting before the leaves would be growing through the mesh. Some leaves got caught in the mesh and remained crippled. Impossible to do some weeding and no access to the tubers during growth. Only after the foliage had died down I could remove the mesh.

First time in my life I can see this amazing flower with my own eyes.... Paramongaia.

Have you seen this?
http://pza.sanbi.org/lanaria-lanata
They recommend smoke treatment. I have never tried either of your plants in question.
The difficulty in growing these plants makes me think of a Gesneriad which does exactly the same: the seeds germinate (poorly) and never get beyond the cotyledons and take about a year to die. Sinningia canastrensis. Maddening. 
I was in the habitat of many Velloziaceae in Brazil but not in South Africa. They grow in pure quartz which is extremely poor in nutrients.
Maybe the seedlings need a symbiosis with bacteria or fungi? Have you tried mycorrhiza?
The highly specialized growing plants in the poorest of soils are often the most difficult to grow. We simply do not seem to understand the mechanism which delivers the necessary nutrients to them.
I recently spoke to a Brazilian orchid grower about that and he said that magnesium is the critical element for plants from very poor soils, he recommended perlite as a source for magnesium. I was not aware that perlite delivers magnesium.
I have recently read an article on a zeolite based orchid substrate called colomi. No personal experience with it. I suspect that the article was more of an advertisement for the product so wondrous were the effects described, even converting air nitrogen into plant accessible nitrogen. But maybe there is truth in it?
Just thoughts....
Uli 

Hello Gastil,

As you know, I am not in California but my Mediterranean climate may be comparable.
I stopped growing Colchicum because I found my spring is too short to maintain the massive foliage for long enough without irrigation. So they went dormant too early and bulb size decreased and there were no flowers. So I recommend to plant your bulb in the open ground in a place with sun but shaded from hot midday sun. And make sure it gets plenty of water until the foliage yellows, not from thirst like mine did but naturally. I would not worry about frost, Colchicums are hardy plants. I am pretty sure that a large Colchicum will not be happy in a pot. The bulbs naturally sit quite deep in the ground, the foliage is massive so there must be a lot of roots which probably prefer a free root run. 

Uli 

I just got an email from Silverhill mailing list, here is an extract for international customers.

2023 Christmas Closure – International

We will be applying for the last Phytosanitary Certificates on the 20^th of November and the latest postage will be on the 5^th of December.  Please make sure you have placed your order and paid before these dates.
 If your payment hasn't reached us by the cut off date, your parcel will be kept in our air-conditioned room until the New Year. We will start sending parcels again from 8th of January 2024.

Just a few hints for ordering from Silverhill: if you manage to get a joint order set up you can save on the number of packets. When Martin did the EU joint order Silverhill made bigger portions of seed instead of several envelopes when several people ordered the same seed. For Martin it meant that he had to split the one big portion into several ones which was not intended this way. But if the number of packets is an issue because of the permit, this is an advantage. It definitely is a good idea to clearly communicate with Silverhill before you order. But even doing so has not avoided some minor issues like for example the multiple packets for the EU. To me it looks as if several people are working on the orders and communication might not always be passed on.
Your thoughts about ordering in our late winter are right, your choice might be wider. On the other hand I never had an issue with dead seed from Silverhill, the quality has been consistently good. If properly stored in a fridge (not freezer) most South African bulb seed is very long lived. Making fire dependent seed germinate is another issue..... they also sell smoke impregnated paper.
I am sowing my winter growers (not only bulbs) every day right now. I had to let mid October pass because it was still hot and very dry. Only now has the balmy moist winter weather arrived. I must say that the portions of Silverhill seed are relatively small, still enough for a not overcrowded seed pot but less than I remember from the past. I think they run more and more into difficulty collecting the seed. Another reason to order from them. I don't think that even multiple portions in one envelope will collide with the permit rules.
By all means do not sow seed of winter growing bulbs in late winter. I had to learn the hard way that anything sown after Christmas will not survive the first dormancy (under my growing conditions) simply because the bulblets do not have enough time to build up reserves before the first dormancy. 
Hope that helps 

I agree with the above opinion. Does not look like a virus infection. Did the leaf rub against something, a spiny plant, cactus for example?
A different point: are you sure that this is albiflos? Only one leaf? My albiflos are evergreen and the leaves always come in pairs. This looks like a fresh leaf of a winter grower. 
Uli