PBS Forum

Thank you, Martin for the update 

Hello Arnold,

Is the miniature forest of Massonia a bunch of seedlings?

Uli 

Your climate allows you to grow a vast array of temperate plants which would be impossible in a climate with warm summers. All the moisture loving Southern Hemisphere plants...... and you are probably on acid soil?  You may not be able to grow bulbs which require a hot summer baking because that simply will not happen. But if you go through the WIKI you will come across a lot of bulbs which grow in constantly moist conditions. There are gladiolus species which grow in waterfalls, Wachendorfia and Wurmbea grow  in water, many Watsonia like a moist root run all year, so do Crocosmia. You do not state how much or how often you get frost, that may in fact be a more limiting factor than rain. If you have plenty of water: create a large water feature with Iris, Lysichiton, Aponogeton (but the last two may become very invasive) Gunnera may be possible, what about Hedychium? Bletilla? Maybe the more robust Crinum species and hybrids would like your conditions, Hemerocallis for sure.  Agapanthus can take a lot of moisture. I would also try the tropical tuberous waterlilies because you will have high light levels during summer.
My general recommendation is to start from seed as many different bulbs you can get hold of. This way they start under your given conditions. You will be surprised how easy this is. You will have failures, of course, but those which thrive are the rewards. And seed is not expensive. I can see a lush tropical looking very green garden.......and I hope your heart is not leaning towards a desert garden.
Happy experimenting!
Uli 

Hello Mike!

Very impressive pictures! Thank you very much for sharing. Hybrizing plants is a matter of personal preference and taste. I think some of the ones you show are worth to be grown by more people. Do I understand correctly that all seedlings are unique individuals? Or have you managed to create a (relatively) uniform stable hybrid which comes true from seed?

What will you do if you want to propagate a particularly outstanding seedling vegetatively? Do they offset? Are there other propagation techniques like splitting or the like? Or even micropropagation?

Uli 

My first thought was that your plants have a root problem. I agree with Martin, they look very wet.  If you have many it might be worthwhile to tip the rootball out of one of  the pots to check the roots. 
Ferraria is much happier with free root run or at least a large pot. Have you tried them in the open ground in Santa Cruz?
Uli 

Hello Jane,

Personally I am more interested in species with the odd exception. But I do not grow any old cultivars. I would be happy to share if I did.....
I know of a show garden in the Netherlands where they are preserving old cultivars, especially of tulips. 
https://hortus-bulborum.nl/?lang=en
I checked the website to be sure what I write and I saw that you can order bulbs online.
One of the most interesting facts about this garden is that they manage to maintain some of the historical tulips from the tulipomania era in the 17th century. These varieties became popular because of virus induced colour breaks, a reason why I would not want them in my collection for sure.....

Bye for now 
Uli 

So far I have not found any difference between the plants which grow from large or small seeds of Nerine or Amaryllis belladonna. One tends to look at the big ones with preference.....
Seed of the species you mention is much smaller than bowdenii seed. It needs immediate sowing and will produce good plants.

Uli 

Mine never did either 

It is a learning process..... for two meals we have peeled them, cut into roughly one inch pieces and boiled in water with some salt. This is the same way as we would prepare ordinary potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) except that sweet potatoes only need half of the cooking time. The second lot was made into a purée with nutmeg and a little butter, very good.
Yesterday a Portuguese friend told us that they are best prepared in the oven, whole, not peeled, sprinkled with salt, pepper and olive oil. 20-25 minutes at 180 degrees centigrade. Eaten peeled. We will try.

Before yesterday I dug up one row of sweet potatoes, a little late I must admit. I am very impressed with the number of delicious tubers. Here in Portugal they sell unrooted cuttings in May. These are planted in well prepared soil and watered in. Once established they get a deep watering every ten days or so. I felt it was little water but my neighbor instructed me like this. The summer was hot and dry and sometimes the plants looked somewhat unhappy but they always recovered quickly after getting water. 
The result is amazing considering the little effort I put into growing them. It is the much appreciated local variety Lyra, it is the first time I have grown sweet potatoes. The basket was full after all was dug up.

Another picture of a native algarvian plant: Erophaca baetica. A lush herbaceous perennial with a large fleshy rootstock. It springs to life very quickly after the first rain and has started to flower now. It looks like a herbaceous Robinia and will grow to 150cm. It produces a lot of large inflated seed pods but a high percentage of the seed is parasitized. It completely dies down at the end of May.
The picture was taken on my land. I encourage young seedlings but have not succeeded to actively sow it in places I would like it to grow.

Dear All,

Some pictures from my midwinter garden.

Nerine undulata (Hybrid?) is the very last one of the Nerines. The flowers are weather resistant and last very long but have never set seed.

Narcissus bulbocodium another picture in full bloom. The flowers had to stand heavy rain.

Oxalis luteola

Oxalis glabra 

Oxalis namaquana has open flowers even in the rain.

Iris unguicularis 

Try Oxalis namaquana. Bright yellow even open in rain with me. But do not let it escape from the pot in your climate. I found it near Leliefontein. It formed a mat of shallow soil on rocks in a wet place 
Pictures come later...... it is raining too much.....
Uli 

Hello Jane,
That is a brilliant and sustainable idea. This way it would enable anybody to easily access interesting literature. 
Thank you very much for taking the effort and time to do this.

Uli 

Quote from: Diane Whitehead on December 17, 2022, 04:11:10 PMThanks, Uli.

I've just looked on the wiki, which shows some photos of lots of bulbs at the bottom of a leaf cutting.  Have you tried that?

Will any portion of a leaf work, or does one need to use the bottom of the leaf?  Maybe I could cut a leaf into several sections, so I could get bulbs forming on the bottom of each piece.

I've just found excellent instructions on Matt Mattus' blog.

https://growingwithplants.com/2006/04/propagating-lachenalia/

Hello again, 
Yes, I have propagated Lachenalia, Haemanthus and Veltheimia from leaf cuttings. For Lachenalia hybrids there is no choice because they would not come true from seed. But for species like viridiflora I strongly recommend raising offspring from seed and not from leaf cuttings. I find that Lachenalia are prone to degeneration, most likely due to virus infection. The shortest lived in Lachenalia mutabilis. Propagation by means of leaf cuttings or bulbils may maintain and spread the virus, seed grown plants are healthy and much more vigorous. Seedlings need one more season to get to flowering size than bulbs from leaf cuttings. To get seed you may need hand pollination. Large leaves can be cut into sections not smaller than 7 cm approximately. The lower part is less prone to rotting than sections from the upper part, they are softer.