A Nerine experience

Matthew Mattus mmattus@charter.net
Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:35:14 PDT
Hi Mary Sue

Yes, when we built our greenhouse three years ago, we thought that we would
be having tomatoes in the winter, but I should have known that we we're in
trouble since when we finished it in January and moved all the plants from
the house into it, we found that we had little room for anything else!

My N. sarniensis get to about 110 F in our greenhouse in the summer, and I
know that I have been told not to let them bake that hot, but as you said,
what works for one, may not work for another. Also, I don't have much
control over this since the glass house is single pane and gets pretty
bright up in the corners where the shade cloth doesn¹t really reach. Also,
there are a lot of fans, and excellent air circulation so that may factor in
also..

In the summer I don't water them, although I cannot guarantee that they
don't get an accidental spray from an errant hose, and here in new England,
it can get quite humid in the summer, so that may help them stay turgid. I
would say that my loss rate is about 5% or less, and they now seem to bloom
in two or three waves, with the first wave (actually in bloom as I write)
the bulbs that we're imported this year from the UK about 30 varieties from
the National collection at Springbank.

Then, a second bloom from my bulbs that spent the summer baking, with a
bloom burst around Halloween (Oct.31), The remaining bloom somewhere between
our Thanksgiving and Christmas 9Late November until December 25.

Matt Mattus
Worcester, Massachusetts
USA
Zone 5


More information about the pbs mailing list