Bloom in the Greenhouse

J.E. Shields jshields@indy.net
Sat, 29 Oct 2005 06:28:50 PDT
Hi all,

I've enjoyed a nice Haemanthus bloom season the past month or so. Besides 
the drop-dead easy Haemanthus albiflos, I've had blooms on some Haemanthus 
barkerae, and first blooms on several H. coccineus. There was even a bloom 
on one H. crispus.

The H. barkerae are unique in that only one of my three separate batches of 
barkerae seedlings has bloomed so far. One bulb of the oldest batch of 
barkerae is now showing signs of trying to bloom, even though it is barely 
one inch in diameter.

I crossed barkerae and coccineus both ways. The berries are still only a 
few, and I'm not sure how many seeds I'll get. I've seen that blooms that I 
did not hand-pollinate have not formed berries, so I'm pretty comfortable 
with my crosses.

Cyclamen are blooming, and should continue for another month or two.

Three bulbs of Nerine bowdenii "Koen's Hardy" are ready to bloom. My 
bowdenii usually do not flower until December, but they are relatively 
early this year. I hear from others that they usually get bowdenii 
flowering in October. That makes me wonder why mine usually bloom so much 
later.

Nerine platypetala is also blooming now. It usually blooms this time of 
year, so I winter it over in the greenhouse rather than stored under a 
bench like most of my summer-growing Nerine.

My first fall-blooming daffodil of the season this year is Narcissus 
serotinus, which appears to have set a couple seed pods. The other 
Narcissus in the greenhouse are still mostly dormant.

Moraea polystachya is blooming after a long summer dormancy. It's pot was 
set outdoors in the spring, since it didn't grow last winter. Even though 
we had plenty of rain here during the summer, it did not start to grow 
until the weather finally cooled off a bit a few weeks ago.

My few surviving seed-grown Androcymbium melanthoides finally bloomed this 
summer, but I've tried three separate times to grow Androcymbium pulchellum 
from seed. The first b athc produced Massonia depressa. The second batch, 
Polyxena ensata. The most recent batch, Lapierousa pyramidalis. I'm still 
waiting to see a real Androcymbium pulchellum.

What else is new in the bulb world?

Jim Shields
in central Indiana

*************************************************
Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5             Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92              WWW:    http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
Tel. ++1-317-867-3344     or      toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA



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