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I have only tried germinating colchicum twice - C. bornmuelleri - in 2000.  One seed germinated in 2008.  It continues to put up a leaf every year but has not flowered yet.

In 2007 I sowed C. boissieri which did not germinate at all.

I decided never to grow any from seed again.

Which ones are growing outside in your garden?

I can't remember what postage I had to pay from Silverhill.

I do know how much I pay from the U.S. to Canada - $15, and that is just for a few packets of seed.

I was puzzled why a nerine flower was sitting on a small pot.  Had someone knocked it off?

Then I found one of my hybrids was growing in the pot and was flowering, right at the surface of the soil.  I hybridize nerines every year and didn't write the date on its label, but it might be from 2018.  I was hoping for a brighter colour.

The pot is 12 cm tall (5 inches).

I just bought two more bowdenii from Phoenix Perennials in Vancouver BC - Elegance and Kashmir.  Oh, maybe they are both hybrids.

Kashmir:  Raised by Tony Norris from a cross between 'Blush Beauty' and 'Solent Swan'. In his catalogue  he says:"The strength of bowdenii with an almost white flower, with a pale pink centre. "



I discovered a nursery in the Netherlands that sells a lot of nerines, including a "Breeders' Mix" of bowdenii.  White, various pinks, salmon, bright red.  Really cheap, too - 85 euros each.  It took a lot of reading of the website to discover they don't sell anywhere except within the EU.  Very disappointing.

Then I found the website of Jacques Amand in the U.K. - not as many nerines as Eurobulb, but they are willing to ship anywhere.  The phyto will cost £75, and the postage will be even more than that.

I guess I'll just have to keep on hybridizing.

Did you grow the Paramongaia from seed, and how long did it take to flower?

I bought several different bowdenii - Blanca Perla, Bicolor, Edelweiss.  I grow them in pots in my cool frost-free greenhouse.  It is well-ventilated so does not get hot in the summer.

They flowered soon after I bought them, but for the last five years have not.

Should I fertilize?  Maybe I will plant one of each outside in the garden where the common pink one flowers regularly.

I haven't seen any dark purple bowdeniis, though I have Quest, a dark purple Nerine sarniensis.

I have crossed it with my pink bowdenii, hoping for a hardy purple.

Nerine bowdenii is the commonly-grown nerine here.  As I drive around the city, I notice patches of its bright pink flowers in many gardens.

Every year my daughter digs some up when they are in bloom and puts four in each pot to sell.

When she pots them, she removes any tiny new bulbs and plants them in a new section of her garden.  She was surprised that these plants are evergreen.  She is going to keep track to see how long it takes before they are leafless over the summer.

Quote from: David Pilling on September 28, 2023, 05:44:30 PMDoes vinegar kill weeds? 

Long ago I went to a garden supply store to get some vinegar to kill weeds.  It wasn't in the main part of the store, but was in a separate room with dangerous chemicals.  I forget whether one needed a permit to buy it.  I didn't get any, and continued my usual routine:  don't let weeds go to seed, and dig them out. 

I've never pollinated my Lachenalia, but I've pollinated lots of other plants, starting about 75 years ago.

I've never used a brush.  I use tweezers to remove a stamen and brush the anther against the stigma.

With a narrow tubular flower like Lachenalia, I might slit the tube or remove most of it to make the procedure easier.

I don't remember when I planted the first bulbs of this fall-blooming colchicum, but each bulb has multiplied into a clump of about 15 flowers.  The stems?  tubes?  are  23 cm long (about 9 inches).

Nerine bowdenii, which is hardy here, has just begun flowering in the garden.

Hybrids of Nerine sarniensis, which are not hardy, grow in pots in my cool greenhouse.  They are putting up leaves and some are almost ready to open their flowers.

I try to remember to follow the advice on the Rothschild website:

Any repotting should be done between May and August.
Soak the pots at the end of July.
In September, begin weekly watering and fertilize lightly every two weeks.

I checked several years' worth of seedlists of the Alpine Garden Society (based in England)  and the Scottish Rock Garden Society.  Each year about a half dozen species of Erodium seeds were offered, but never E chrysanthum.

Diane

That is amazingly fast.
How did you manage it?