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Messages - janemcgary

#1
Rebecca, I have a good quantity of this species, grown from wild-collected seed. You can contact me privately through the "Membership" button on the PBS website, since I'm the Membership Coordinator for the society. I could send you bulbs this summer.
#2
General Discussion / Re: Private exchanges
March 06, 2024, 11:02:20 AM
Since there do not seem to be strict objections to this idea, I will post a few species I have grown and no longer have, which I would love to grow again. I would be delighted to show my current inventory to anyone able to exchange these, as bulbs within the USA or as seeds from elsewhere. Several are native to Europe, so perhaps they are more often cultivated there. For reassurance, I formerly grew all these to flowering from seed and lost them when I moved the collection about 12 years ago.
Acis longifolia
Colchicum kesselringii
Erythronium helenae
Fritillaria tubiformis
Iris stenophylla
Ranunculus abnormis
#3
General Discussion / Re: Private exchanges
March 02, 2024, 10:26:45 AM
Some bulb offsets are very small and can be sent as seeds if protected from being smashed. For a long time I had only one clone of Notholirion thomsonianum, so no seed, but several years ago an acquaintance obtained the species' tiny offsets from someone in New Zealand and shared them with me. It's definitely another clone because my original was a seedling via the Scottish RGC. The new one is about a year from flowering size now. Meanwhile, last year viable seed startlingly showed up in the NARGS leftovers, donated by a grower in Oakland, and I obtained good germination from it. Illahe Nursery has some too, so I hope someday this spectacular monocarpic bulb will be common in temperate gardens in the USA. It makes hundreds of offsets.
#4
General Discussion / Re: Private exchanges
February 27, 2024, 06:54:46 PM
To Carlos's question, would it apply to the EU? I think it should, and also to the UK. Those who already share seeds and bulbs to correspondents in other countries will be aware of the barriers to this, and how to deal with them. Individuals may have resources not available to commercial sellers and plant societies, such as bringing material personally through customs while traveling rather than risking shipped items being held up for months awaiting inspection.
#5
General Discussion / Private exchanges
February 25, 2024, 02:10:23 PM
I would like to offer a proposal for privately arranged exchanges via this forum. Individuals could post "want lists" in this topic for others to read. Those who have the desired species to spare could reply, offering their own want list of possible trade items, and the individuals could then email each other privately to arrange shipping. I suggest that the want list be limited to no more than ten species, with subsequent revised posts as wants are met. This would not be an official PBS activity, merely an exchange between individuals. Some of us rarely see anything on the BX that fits with our interests and growing facilities, but we may have extensive collections within which others may find long-sought species. Please reply to this post with your opinions on setting up this function on the Forum. Once we've discussed it, I'll be glad to post my own little want list and to peruse those of others for possible exchanges.
#6
Current Photographs / Re: February 2024
February 10, 2024, 04:15:33 PM
Rimmer, our favorite typing-challenged correspondent, has posted a Hyacinthella. Most species in this genus seem to be among the earliest "spring" bulbs in flower. First one here is H. glabrescens; two more showing color.
#7
Slowly emerging from an ice storm in the Pacific Northwest. Mark at Illahe (60 miles south of me) reports no collapsed greenhouses, but that happened at other nurseries. I crept out to the bulb house (open sided, solid roof) yesterday and found most foliage looking healthy after 100+ hours below freezing. The horrible Oxalis obtusa that infests the raised beds and comes up through the pot drains, however, looks really dead; probably too much to hope that its zillions of bulblets have died, but at least spring won't look so awful without its foliage there. Snowdrops in the open garden standing up again. Still at least a day before the ice is off my steep road, though.
#8
The map Bern shared is a good graphic for understanding the role of high mountain ranges and maritime wind effects on North America. Right now I'm in the blue-to-green zone at around 20 F in western Oregon, and would not be that cold were it not for the presence of the Columbia River Gorge, cutting the Cascade Range, through which continental winds bring deep, sudden cold. The Pacific coastline is about 120 miles west of us, with its mild winter temperatures in spite of the offshore cold Japan Current. The arctic air mass so prominent on the map is able to extend all the way to the Atlantic coast because there are no continuous high mountains east of the Rocky Mountain range. 
#9
General Discussion / Re: Colchicum candidissimum
January 09, 2024, 04:21:25 PM
The color of the anthers is confusing. They are yellow at first, but then they open to dark bluish gray. It depends at what stage you see them. It does seem closer to C. trigynum than anything else. My plants received as seed under the name C. trigynum are much smaller than the candidissimum, but they also flower in midwinter.
#10
General Discussion / Re: Colchicum candidissimum
January 07, 2024, 06:37:21 PM
Not helpful. I know what they look like, I just want to know if I should call them something else when distributing them. Some of Zubov's contributions on SRGC are names recognized in the Kew monograph, others are not. In fact, I probably saw this in flower in Azerbaijan when I was there in spring; will have to look back at my photos from the field. It is a snowmelt plant at higher elevation, but earlier here near sea level.
#11
Current Photographs / Re: January 2024
January 06, 2024, 06:17:29 PM
Carlos posted a photo labeled Sternbergia vernalis. Is this the same thing as S. fischeriana? That's the yellow-flowered, midwinter-blooming species I have. For another, white this time, here is Sternbergia candida, photographed today.
#12
Bern asked where I grew Carlina acaulis. I sowed it when the Halda seed arrived, probably late fall. The seed pots were outdoors in winter, including exposure to moderate frost. The plants were growing outdoors in a bed of pure sand, not irrigated, where I also had cacti.
#13
General Discussion / Colchicum candidissimum
January 06, 2024, 01:00:21 PM
Attached is a photo of plants grown from seed received from V. Pilous under the name Colchicum candidissimum. That name does not appear in the synonymy in the new Colchicum volume by Grey-Wilson, Leeds & Rolfe. The present Colchicum is clearly in the section formerly known as Merendera, and it has some affinity to Colchicum trigynum (M. t.). Its flowers are mostly white, some pink-flushed, and the three-part style is filiform and very slender. The anthers are versatile, yellow at first but opening to blackish. It is a small plant and as shown, the leaves are present at flowering. Do any of you know anything about this plant? It is a vigorous increaser and I'd like to share it, but don't want to send it out under an unverifiable name. I don't have access to any Soviet-era floras, which may be where "candidissimum" exists.Colchicum candidissimum 24-2.jpg
#14
I've grown unusual plants (mostly bulbs and alpines) from seed since the mid-1980s and have almost never used artificial cooling. I think temperature fluctuation has an effect on germination. Tried the toilet-tank washing technique on Iris and noticed no particular advantage. If you acquire seeds of species that would ordinarily begin their germination phase in autumn, and you don't get them until midwinter, you can sow them on arrival and they are likely to germinate the following winter/spring. Josef Halda advised letting ungerminated seed pots with species from summer-dry regions dry out during summer, and I do this with some kinds. Re. Carlina acaulis, I grew it from a Halda collection, and the most interesting thing about it is that the dry inflorescence closes during damp weather and opens back up on sunny days, even when removed from the plant! Must be an adaptation to seed dispersal.
#15
General Discussion / Re: Plants in the News
December 29, 2023, 01:41:35 PM
In my former garden, Crocus sativus did well in a sandy, somewhat acidic raised bed, until the voles got to it. The current crop came to me after a researcher sent a large quantity of surplus corms to Mark Akimoff (Illahe nursery), which Mark shared with me. They were already in flower on arrival here, and I quickly stuck them in the raised bed where I grow vegetables in a mix of native clay soil, coarse sand, and organic compost, occasionally limed but still a bit acidic. They flowered well the second year and are now in leaf, which they'll be through winter. Some growers believe that plants from alkaline-soil habitats do well without high pH as long as they have adequate fertility. I don't add lime to my bulb soil mix, but I do use soluble complete fertilizer on the bulbs grown under cover, and a cool-season slow-release fertilizer on the open garden. The veg garden stays "chemical" free; it's really chemicals all the way down, of course, but nice to reassure friends who get the surplus zucchini.