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Quote from: Martin Bohnet on November 09, 2023, 07:54:49 PMabsolutely possible - I've never had seeds on the wide crosses like xAmarine and xAmacrinum. To be fair I don't have any other related amaryllids in flower when the Amacrinum is.

I have some bulbs growing that were a result of crossing xAmarine with Amaryllis belladonna. If it would stop raining, I want to try a xAmarine with Nerine sarniensis since both are in flower.

It started growing last month as the temperatures started to drop, around 23°C. The flower spike comes up really fast, then the foliage will start to go dormant in January. It doesn't really get below 10°C or above 27° in the summer in the Azores. After it goes dormant, I take the pot inside so the pot doesn't bake in the sun and everything dries out for the summer. The first couple of years there were no flowers, but it finally bloomed.

I bought the bulb on eBay.co.uk before Brexit happened. It was very small - about the size of a large garbanzo bean. It took 3 years for the first flower. Last year I tried the microwaved pollen method to get a seed, but it failed.

This came up really fast and opened today. Of course it is Paramongaia weberbaueri.

The first of the Nerine bulbs I have from Exbury is opening. It is 'Kalahari Dusk'. I have about 20 flower spikes on various cultivars, but this is the first to open.

I was surprised to see some Crinums blooming again. They had flowered in May, and probably due to the increasing summer rain the Azores has been getting, they are now reblooming.

The first of the xAmarines is blooming. This is supposed to have been developed by the Dutch firm van Tubergen and named after their nursery at Zwanenburg House, so it is xAmarine tubergenii 'Zwanenburg'.

That is the Crinum which has growth during the summer and dies back in the fall. My 'Rose Fonce' looks like this:

My Amaryllis belladonna 'Rose Fonce' is also open and the 'Fred Meyer White' is about to open. What I also have is a Crinum blooming for the first time. I had bought a bulb and kept it in a pot where it didn't do much of anything except put up a few leaves. Then earlier this year I finally put it in the ground and with the wet spring and summer we have had, it finally put up a flower spike. It has been so long that I don't remember its name, but it isn't 'Ellen Bosanquet', which has already flowered.

Quote from: David Pilling on July 21, 2023, 07:42:55 AMBad news, I am sorry for those in the places suffering.

Here on the little island in the middle of the Atlantic, it is unseasonably cool. Mid-afternoon and it is 61.5 F, that's the easy one to convert 16C (along with 82F/28C swop the digits).

Your island isn't that little. On a real small island in the middle of the Atlantic (1,000 miles to Washington, D.C. and 800 miles to Lisbon) summer has finally hit with temperatures at 75°F for a high, and rain is way above normal. The average rain days on Terceira Island for July is 1.8 and we have had some very rainy days. Even set some new records for low temperatures in July. Fortunately T.S. Don didn't affect us except for a few very outer bands of rain. It is getting to rain again and more is expected tomorrow. We grow potatoes during the winter here. 

Quote from: Uli on July 08, 2023, 01:32:41 PMHello Wylie,

That is a very beautiful plant! Are the colours as brilliantly contrasting in reality?

Thank you for sharing!

The red is stronger on the outside than the inside, but not by much. Here is a late opener:

But the buds are also an attraction:

I was thrilled that Crinum 'Stars and Stripes opened today.

I have found that most snails and slugs are clever enough to use pellets as some sort of obstacle course. I will go out at night before going to bed with a salt shaker and it seems to deter others.

In spite of bad weather, wind, rain and more wind, spring is trying to happen in the Azores. The hedychium are sprouting and I have this Moraea elegans:

I find that in the Azores they are a late summer/early fall bloomer. I have them in the ground and let them have a dry summer. Strangely, I bought the original bulbs in Germany at a supermarket.