Intro and questions

Nicholas plummer nickplummer@gmail.com
Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:20:01 PDT
Hi all,
I recently joined the society, and this is my first post to the list.  I
grow a mixed collection of tropicals, primarily orchids and succulents, in
my greenhouse in North Carolina.  For many years, I have had Haemanthus
albiflos and Cyrtanthus sanguineus lurking among my orchids, but I didn't
give much thought to bulbs.  Then, I discovered the wonderful PBS wiki and
bulb maven blog. Needless to say, I have now started a small collection of
African and South American bulbs with some plants from Telos and Steven
Hammer and some seed from Silverhill.  Since I grow in a greenhouse, heat
tolerance is more important to me than cold hardiness.   I'm interested in
summer growers that can take a North Carolina summer or winter growers that
are happy with temperatures that don't go much below 60 F (thermostat is
set for lowland tropical orchids).

I love the look of amaryllids with tubular flowers and am trying out a
Phaedranassa tunguraguae and seedling Cyrtanthus herrei from Telos.  So,
two specific questions:

1.  Can anyone comment on heat tolerance of Clinanthus species?  I see that
Clinanthus variegatus 'Apricot' can be grown in Hawaii, so that goes on my
wishlist, but how about the various color forms of Clinanthus incarnatus,
particularly the red-flowered form?  (I'm using the labels on the PBS
wiki.  Other websites seem to reverse the species epithets.)

2.  Is Cyrtanthus obliquus available in the U.S.?  I'm hesitant to order
seed from South Africa, because of the difficulty of storing amaryllid seed
until the appropriate growing season in the northern hemisphere.

Regards,
Nick Plummer
Durham, NC, Zone 7



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