PBS Forum

(Now considered to be Colchicum.)

I have sown several species, from 2-3 suppliers, over the past 18 months or so, sown late summer-early autumn to cycle cool to warm, in the greenhouse. Having a very minor sort of the greenhouse, I now realise that nothing has germinated, so far.

I am now collecting the several pots to try some experiments in a heated propagator.

Does anyone have any experience from seed?

I suspect that they aren't very popular, but I like several species and ssp.. I don't believe that I have ever seen bulbs for sale anywhere, or as part of society bulb X, so it must be at least uncommon.

Does anyone grow a few pots/different species of Ferraria?

I have one pot of F. crispa (around 6 plants) which looks to have rust, based purely on appearance - slight yellowing and drying-out of the leaves in patches, which slowly spread. Oddly, a second pot of the same species, a few feet away, seems as though it may have early signs. Nothing so far on any of the other 3? 4? species that I have.

I first thought that I may have over-watered, but that looks all but impossible now.

I did spray once, with a copper fungicide, but it didn't appear to make any difference, but I was far from thorough.

Thoughts, anyone?

Same question as with my other post about Xerophyta.

I have yet to see any germination, but has anyone succeeded from seed?

There is a very old conversation here where the same results as with me are mentioned, but has anyone tried this plant from seed recently?

I have sown it twice with the same result, so far - rapid germination, they make 2 leaves around 2mm or so long and then do nothing. One was using a gritty slightly alkaline compost, the other using ericaceous compost plus sand, both kept very damp.

The first sowing just petered-out over several months. The current seedling are only several weeks old so far, but haven't grown since very shortly after germination.

I have searched, but cannot find....................

I have never bothered to try previously, with any plant (unless shaking some Philadelphus flowers from one plant, against flowers on another, counts), but last year I decided to try on some Lachenalia aloides (pollinated by a vaiety of creatures in habitat but particularly sunbirds); not one seed was set.
I used a reasonably large, fine-bristled paint brush several times, pushing the brush as far inside the flower as reasonably possible.
I suppose that it is possible that the whole potful is just one clone that has offset innumerable times over years in cultivation in the UK.

So, what are the rules?

There is a very brief and old thread here on the website, but has anyone grown the plant beyond seedling?
Growing Rare Plants by Geoff Nichols implies that growing the plant once established is relatively straight-forward, but makes no mention of early growth from seed and transition to a normal cycle of "wet" summers and dry winters.

I have several seedlings from seed sown as suggested both in the archive here, and elsewhere online - surface-sown onto saturated compost, the pot half-submerged in a pan of (rain) water. (To reduce evaporation, I have used my usual method of fitting a cheap shower cap over the whole lot, so the seedlings will be sitting in water and in air near 100% RH.)

The supplier of this to me, in the UK, has never flowered this plant. 
Another UK source of information suggests that it is a pink form of R. bagnoldii, in which case it would probably be from very sandy habitat with infrequent heavy rains, and winter-growing.

Does anyone know the plant, or even better, has anyone flowered it? Better yet, would they care to share?

I recently bought some seed and had expected it to have produced shoots before it arrived, but not so.

The seed had obviously originally been roughly spherical, around an inch diameter, but the seed arrived as what look like large segments from an orange - maybe 3-4-5 per whole. As the segments are covered in the same seed-coat all over, the seeds appear to be whole, even though the few online pic's of Crinum seeds show whole, spherical seeds of varying sizes.

Is anyone familiar with the seed able to comment?

Unfortunately, both the EU and UK have no allowances for anything - in the case of plants and seeds all imports require a phyto' and are subject to import charges (in at least Germany, things are even worse as there are charges for import inspection to add as well).

The scale of gardening is also very different compared to the US - the number of people who have room for and might want more than 3-5 of these plants will be tiny. Modern housing in the UK is built with around 8 dwellings per acre, and that includes the roads, everything. A plot with an older house of something like an eigth of an acre would be regarded by most people as huge, verging on vast. Indeed, older houses with very large gardens are a disappearing beast in much of the UK as they are frequently redeveloped to something approaching 8 dwellings per acre, and sometimes more if in an area of high property values.

I asked for some advice about a year ago, about aquatic Crinums. Thanks for the conversations that resulted.
As I bought some bulbs, I thought that I would provide some feedback.
I bought two small bulbs of both C. thaianum and C. natans from aquarium supply outlets, mostly because they were the cheapest and the whole thing would be an experiment.
They were potted into 3 inch porous clay pots using a very gritty/sandy compost, and then the pots were put into 1 litre plastic laboratory beakers (also very cheap), sitting on a shallow layer of large pebbles. The beakers were then filled with rain water so that the bulb necks were clear of the water, and placed on indoor window sills. They were/are fed totally randomly by adding fertiliser (Miracle-Gro) to the top-up water.
All bulbs grew well in 2021, making good leaf growth. During last winter they probably routinely saw lows of around 10C, maybe slightly lower. C. t. lost all leaf although C. n. just stopped growth. I let the water drop so that just the base of the clay pots remained wet.
Once the plants showed the beginning of growth this spring, 2022, the beakers were filled again.
C. thaianum each have 4 very deep green, glossy and very lax leaves 12-15 inches long that lie "in a heap" beside the beakers, so do not touch water.
C. natans isn't C. natans!!
For some reason it did not occur to me until this spring, but the leaves are narrow and the edges are not puckered. The leaf growths are rather like a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). It is anyone's guess where the plants originated from, but Crinum sp. or not, it will be very interesting to discover the species – all I have to do is flower at least one of them!!!!!!
The supposed C. natans came with European labels and if sourced from NL, may be wild-collected, as the country is well-known for some level of below the radar trading in lots of plant species.
One of the unknown Crinums has made two small offsets, although one is dormant, but still firm. It may be the aspect of the window sill – unshaded, west-facing – but both are a less deep green than I would like, so they have been moved to an unshaded position on a north-facing sill.
The C. thaianum are on a south-facing sill in dappled light as a consequence of outdoor trees and shrubs casting diffuse shadows.
Another challenge will be deciding if and when they need repotting and then finding some acceptable and suitably sized outer water-tight vessels.