Pro Lycoris versus nothing

James Waddick jwaddick@kc.rr.com
Mon, 16 Aug 2004 06:25:35 PDT
>You don't mention how you are growing the Amaryllis. Are you growing them
>outside in the ground? I wouldn't expect them to have much of a chance in
>your area treated that way.

Dear Jim et al;
	Over the last couple of years various people in my sort of 
climate have reported their near total lack of success in growing 
Amaryllis belladonna to bloom  ANY WAY. I have tried many suggestions 
offered on this list and had NO BLOOM. On the contrary, most Lycoris 
are easy here. This is not due to a defect in the bulb, just stating 
climatic givens. My preference is for plants that perform in my 
climate with a minimum of extreme or special care.



>don't forget, most of us would have trouble assembling a Lycoris collection
>with a third or a fourth of the ones you have.

	It continues to be a frustration that over some 13 years I 
imported and resold well over 20,000 (yes thousand, maybe closer to 
30K) Lycoris species and selections-over 30 different forms. I sold 
hundreds, probably thousands to "bulb growers"/ nurseries. For the 
most part, these bulbs were potted, prices tripled or pentupled (sp?) 
and resold with almost no effort to establish these in a nursery. 
There have been a very few exceptions.
	Even now I think you can fairly easily obtain upwards of half 
dozen Chinese Lycoris, almost that many Japanese species and 
selections. Unfortunately few of these are raised in the US. I think 
this may say more about the nature of American 'nurseries', than the 
lack of Lycoris propagating materials.
	Although a few nursery people actually talked to me about 
growing and establishing various species (and I uniformly encouraged 
and helped each one), I have yet to see much results. I don't want to 
name these nurseries as some are on this list and others you would 
know. And I fully understand that it is easier and cheaper to simply 
buy bulbs and resell them, than actually grow your own nursery stock, 
but it is short sighted. And it takes a long time and much effort to 
actually establish a plant in number suited to an annual harvest.
	And in 2002 I sold over 2,000 Chinese Lycoris bulbs (23 
varieties) Were you not interested less than 2 years ago?

	I don't want to complain about American nursery habits, but 
it seems to be a disheartening trend that more and more mom and pop 
growers have disappeared, been bought by big conglomerates or gone to 
being brokers of plants grown cheaply 'somewhere else' and not 
actually growing their own plants. We should encourage specialty 
'growers' to actually grow specialty plants. I am not, nor have I 
ever claimed to be commercial bulb grower. I even warned buyers hat 
imports could stop any time. They appear to have stopped now, but 
that's another story.

	Best	Jim W.
-- 
Dr. James W. Waddick
8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
USA
Ph.    816-746-1949
E-fax  419-781-8594

Zone 5 Record low -23F
	Summer 100F +


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