PBS Forum

Hello Ken,

First of all: I have never done pollen storage for longer than a few days.
But looking at your picture I would worry about too much moisture in the zip lock bag. Personally I would prefer to store pollen on a swab and not the whole stamens. But if you ever leave part of the stalks attached to the stamens I would bet that the juicy tissue will attract mold. Have you checked the wiki for pollen storage techniques?

Dear members living in the EU,
Spring is on its way.... So please think of your fellow gardeners when you do your seasonal repotting and sowing.... the next seed and bulb exchange for all those items which need sowing and planting in spring will soon be announced. You will be informed about the details and dates shortly.
Please do not hesitate to come back to me if you have questions



Happy gardening,


Uli

First of all: thank you very much for your kind words, @Beth. It was a pleasure to have met you and both of us enjoyed our conversation very much.
And for all of you: yes, you are welcome to visit! As I stated in the membership directory I am happy to receive visitors. As we do travel from time to time, prior notice would be a good idea.

Doesn't Arum maculatum have black spots and not white ones as seen on the pictures?
I grow quite a few Arums but without flowers most of them are lookalikes.

I have not detected any scent, neither good nor bad in this hybrid Arum.

A fantastic Arum hybrid has opened its first flower.
Arum creticum x palaestinum 

I don't think that a heated propagator will help with winter growing seed. Normally heat stops germination. I will ask an experienced friend and will come back to you 

My idea would be to store them in a plastic bag with peat moss or coir (doesn't matter which) and keep it just barely moist and then put it into the vegetable drawer of the fridge. If you live in Texas it would probably sprout before the next BX and thus become much more fragile to handle. Storage in the fridge might delay it. I would check for mildew and rot from time to time.
Hope that helps 

Flowers with apparently no pollen can happen, but I have no explanation for this phenomenon.

The encircled flower is open and the arrow points at the stigma.
Sorry about the low quality of the design.

Quote from: Too Many Plants! on January 11, 2024, 02:42:07 PMUpdate on my L. Lachenalia Viridiflora.

Uli, you had recommended hand pollination. Well these flowers aren't opening up at all to give access to pollen! Any thoughts on this?

I can see the stigma on your pictures. You need a fine thin paintbrush to go inside the flower. The flowers are open, Lachenalia viridiflora flowers do not open wider than that. If you look at the flowers there are some which have a small opening in the middle. If you carefully get the paintbrush inside you will have visible yellow pollen on it. You can then stroke the stigma which is the fine white pin in the middle of the mouth of the flower with the pollen laden paintbrush. You can use the pollen of one flower for several others but it is also good to collect pollen from several flowers. If it works you will find a swelling seed pod after the flowers have faded 

I ike the tradition Carlos is writing about. If it is still done to-day it must be working as it stood the test of time.....

Carlina acaulis is also a native of the German Alps and called Silberdistel which means silver thistle.

When I was still a boy, I had sown seed of this plant in a wooden box outdoors in autumn and it was my very first experience with ,,frost or cold germination" as we call it in German. I remember that I had a lot of seedlings but not knowing better in those days I lost most of them. One thing I can say is that Carlina is an extremely tough plant forming a big and very deep tap root. So for sure it will not be happy in a pot and therefore I recommend planting seedlings into their permanent position as soon as possible. The foliage forms a large flat rosette which will choke everything too close. If you have enough seed it might be a good idea to sow some seed right where you want it to grow and label and protect the site. I still use this technique with plants that hate to be transplanted.

Okay, if you live in Canada, the cultivation of winter growing bulbs will remain a challenge. Much attention to detail is needed. I would assume that the mold is caused by constant high humidity in the propagator. You mention ventilation, though which should reduce humidity. Does water condense on the lid of the propagator? I did not really understand how you ventilate the propagator with outside air.
Apart from perhaps reducing the humidity if it is really too high, my idea is to use a systemic fungicide in intervals according to the manufacturer.
I do not have mould on the pots outdoors but my climate is frost free which allows me to sow winter growing bulbs outdoors. There can be mould on plants inside the greenhouse but that is definitely related to too high humidity in winter. I only very rarely use fungicides.
Another aspect: Janis Ruksans writes in his book ,,buried treasures"that he got much more diseases when he started to sterilize his soil. I never sterilize anything. But probably the commercial compost I use is treated in some way as it is totally weed free. But I also use my own compost from the compost pile (not for seed) for precious plants and never had a problem. Sometimes even small mushrooms appear in a pot without damage to the plant.
I do encourage you to experiment with different approaches.

I received a reply from Viveroscar: he writes that the Paramongaia starts to flower with the beginning of the rainy season which is in December, January or February.

As for the discussion on Paramongaia winter vs summer growing forms, I have just received the attached pictures on Facebook from viveroscar from Peru. If it is a recent picture (I will ask) it shows a summer growing plant as in our northern hemisphere midwinter it is midsummer now in the southern hemisphere. 
Looking at the picture I think that this is not Paramongaia weberbaueri which has more glaucous leaves and a wide open flower. The pictured flowers are more funnel shaped. Does this possibly mean that we are discussing about two different species?