PBS Forum

I love snowdrops, but I want the bloom season throughout the winter, rather than collecting distinct types. Currently, these Galanthus reginae-olgae from the PBS bulb exchange are blooming now. I don't know when they would bloom when they get into the ground (here in zone 7/8 near Seattle), but probably with a variety of species and accessions from the species, one could have an extended season of blooms, weather permitting.

I'm also interested in growing Hippeastrums outdoors. I live in a zone 7b/8a climate east of Seattle. I did grow Sonatinis outdoors, and the very old hybrid "St. Joseph's Lily" (Hippeastrum x johnsonii).  They did survive the winter, buried under several inches of garden soil, but they are not exactly well-adapted to the open garden. The soil here stays very cold for a long time, so they emerge very late. Slugs found them and did some damage in the wet spring weather after they finally emerged.  I think I had them outdoors for about two winters, and they had declined so much that I dug up the whole bed and took all those bulbs indoors, where they still survive.

I suspect it will be up to small, independent breeders to try to breed good "hardy amaryllis" for the garden, maybe using the hardiest species from mountainous areas that get frost, the Sonatinis, and the ones that already persist and multiply outdoors in zone 7 and 8 in the South, like Hippeastrum x johnsonii.