I hope this gets to all the PBS list- I haven't worked out if by sending it to one of you whether everyone gets it to all as well- if not can someone send it round- I’ve been reading all the nerine posts with great interest- I was especially interested in Michael Homick’s list- We have lost most of the ‘Old Exburys' that my grandfather bred- I can just remember vaguely the story of the sale to Mrs Mennanger and I’m glad the collection continues to thrive- though how many originals survive….? We, too, have a few Zinkowski hybrids, though we never got much of note so I cannot rate them. Firstly: re flowering: our success rate is now very high- up in the upper 90%s (per pot not per bulb) – we attribute this to 1) The late summer watering. Indeed root maintenance is critical and an end of July soak works wonders. 2) we feed with a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer- but I will try dropping all the nitrogen this year- I don’t think the ‘virus’ that develops with nitrogen is a virus- though I had noticed this yellow tracery appears on occasion- we thought it was insect induced. 3) we like our soil mix 5 parts John Innes 3, 1 part coarse sand, 1 part washed grit, 1 part bulb fibre, ½ part pasteurised manure. Friable, easy draining- nerines love it. 4) Equally critical for good flowering are plastic pots with no crock in the bottom! Clay pots draw the roots to form wads of fibrous root material and our impression is that this creates a weaker bulb. Dutch research, backed up with our dissection of bulbs show that n. sarniensis holds two buds at a time- this year’s and next year’s – some growers say that you need 5-6 leaves to produce the flower bud.- and remember that is for the year after next… we aim for big fat bulbs, the bigger the better. 5) we don’t let our bulbs get too hot in the summer if we can help it- we keep 50% shade over them throughout most of the year with only short bursts of full sun in winter and spring. 6) Re Jim McKenny’s official verion of the nerine story: I’m not a fully paid up subscriber to the Guernsey shipwreck- there are too many holes in it for my liking – for example: there is no record of the wreck in the island records and they were scrupulous record keepers- Dutch records too are equally lacking and they too are scrupulous- especially with such a dramatic rescue story . There is however strong circumstantial evidence of skulduggery! Nerines were recorded in the collection of General John Lambert who was imprisoned on the island after the Restoration and his collection of plants went with him. The Jurat (of the shipwreck tale) subsequently sent him to a far less salubrious prison sans bulbs…. Lambert’s daughters sought to have his collection returned without success… I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to how possession of bulbs of a similar variety was explained away (Oh a passing ship dropped them off… didah didah your honour) (but then the Jurat was the law on the island) 7) The truth is this- there are so many variables within the genus and so many delightful hybrid combinations that one needs to have an obsessive personality and a fairly deep pocket… I see one of you accuses me of being expensive!!! Ha!!!! But then the expensive bulbs are the very, very finest and we are not commercial producers- only off-sets are sold when we re-pot. Not many people have the space for an extensive collection- we are lucky that I don’t look for an economic return on my glasshouse space- if I did we wouldn’t have nerines. 8) Old Sir Peter Smithers name cropped up: what a fabulous fellow he was- and what an amazing job he did to my Grandfather’s collection. Interestingly he dumped all but 4 of the originals from that so they are lost to us. His approach was “scientific” and he developed this “breeding programme”- basically he loved his computer, but this was in the 1980’s when databases on pc’s were not very good. It all worked OK for him because he made sure he kept his plants in numerical order ( a feat in itself) – what resulted however was a dog’s breakfast- firstly he stopped giving his quality progeny names so 25776b x 28541c = 31180 (a,b,c,d,e etc) though to begin with it was Virgo x Argonaut = 28456 (a,b,c,d, etc) as different genes shone through. However when we collected the plants from Switzerland we packed everything into one small truck that then travelled through 5 countries to get back to UK. We unloaded the truck into a greenhouse, not realising that the numbering system once out of order, could never be unscrambled….. three greenhouse moves later….So we have renumbered them after sorting them by quality and we give anything worthwhile a new name- we still have the original database and can track 80% of them to the original Smithers numbers. Now to the sales pitch: I have completed our first full colour catalogue of all our named varieties in a lovely little book hardback and paperback and you can find it on blurb.com at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1483610/ please buy it to make me happy. It’s nice to know there are nerine lover’s out there… not many people have them it is true- they are rare in the wild and rare in cultivation too- their only commercialisation in Europe is by the Dutch who use them as a cut flower crop. And also, as observed by many of you, they are really a greenhouse or polytunnel plant- unless you live in Cape Town! Best wishes Nikko