October 2024

[Carlos]

Autumn / fall goes on

Narcissus serotinus, sown on October 26, 2020. They are tiny but slow to reach maturity...

[Too Many Plants!]

Here's a curiosity...unless I'm mistaken. I have some Ferraria leafing out when we're still in full summer mode! We've been around 100°F the last handful of days, with still a few to go. And we've had no days in recent weeks of cool temps. Mostly 80's n 90's.

I do need to (somewhat) correct myself. We did have a short few days a couple weeks ago with somewhat cooler day temps (still not winter cool) with a few nights that got into the low 60's and into the 50's. I wonder if that short cooler nighttime temps blip could have triggered these? I don't see any other Ferraria (of the many I have) leafing out.

[Wylie]

Here's a curiosity...unless I'm mistaken. I have some Ferraria leafing out when we're still in full summer mode! We've been around 100°F the last handful of days, with still a few to go. And we've had no days in recent weeks of cool temps. Mostly 80's n 90's.

I do need to (somewhat) correct myself. We did have a short few days a couple weeks ago with somewhat cooler day temps (still not winter cool) with a few nights that got into the low 60's and into the 50's. I wonder if that short cooler nighttime temps blip could have triggered these? I don't see any others (of the many I have) leafing out.

Mine have started to put up leaves, as well. My temperatures dropped from 29°C to 25-27° and a little bit of rain. I also noticed that the first Nerines have put up flower spikes, practically overnight.

What has put up a flower is Haemanthus albiflos.

[Uli]

In 2017 William Baird sent me a large bag of Amaryllis belladonna hybrid seed. The first ones have reached flowering size. They are all good but different in their own way but I could not believe my eyes when this one opened.

[Too Many Plants!]

Mine have started to put up leaves, as well. My temperatures dropped from 29°C to 25-27° and a little bit of rain. I also noticed that the first Nerines have put up flower spikes, practically overnight.

What has put up a flower is Haemanthus albiflos.

Hmmm... similar odd weather patterns in totally different countries, more than a 1/4 of the way around the globe?

[David Pilling]

Hi Uli, I suppose bloom from 2017 isn't quick, but I have been growing some Amaryllis belladonna seed since 2010 with no flowers. Also of course full size purchased bulbs.

[Martin Bohnet]

@Uli that's a brilliant color - actually, I'd call it worth being professionally cloned. very, very beautiful.

I guess my stuff pales in comparison, but fall in Germany is a completely different world... Actually, we had lot's of rain, and Crocus "autumn fantasy" has visibly suffered, Crocus pulchellus

seems to cope far better.

Also, the nights are getting colder, the FOFF level (fear of first freezing) is slowly rising, yet Kohleria "Strawberry fields" from spring exchange has the first flower after repeatedly being attacked by slugs. It already seems to suffer from non-freezing nights, I'll bring it to a safer place soon.

My two Bomarea types that actually have flowered for me are in very different states now: the orange-ish likely edulis-containing hybrid has a late set of flowers, while the true Bomarea edulis

graces the sitting place with attractive fruits. The hybrid also has set fruit for the first time (due to an unusually timed flower stalk in spring), too, so I might be able to offer seeds of that one in spring exchange - no idea how true to the parent those will end up. The orange form as shown here is the "final" state of those flowers, they open up closer to the edulis color scheme with greenish inner petals and reach the orange form a few days later.

[Too Many Plants!]

Well... unfortunately no seed developed in this Boophone Disticha umbell this season. Have to check my other Boophone umbells.

No flower pics, but for me I love the foliage more than the flowers in this genus.

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Boophone

[Arnold]

i've had this Crinum menehune for at least five years from a BX distribution.  It hasn't flowered and just keeps dividing and dividing.

Any cultural tips for getting it to flower out there?

[CG100]

It is a hybrid, but I can't find what of. Given the leaf colour, maybe it has some of one of the red forms of C. asiaticum in it.
Lots online suggest that it does well as a marginal plant (growing in shallow water), which is a common enough thing amongst Crinum spp.

It is supposed to flower in summer, so maybe a dry winter rest will encourage flowering?

[Arnold]

It rest during our winter on a shelf in the cool greenhouse while the SA bulbs are growing.  Minimal water given.  During the summers it lives outdoors in a shallow pan of water.

Offsets like crazy.

[CG100]

An awful lot of photographs online show dense clumps....................
Maybe being severely pot-bound might make it flower?

If you perform a Google image search, there are obviously either several forms or lots of mis-labelled plants out there as the petal shape, size and colour varies enormously. Leaf colour also varies, but I assume that that is likely to be down to light level where they are grown.

[Arnold]

I must have divided the original plant five or six times already.  The plant is relatively post bound now. One member suggested planting outside for a season and see where it goes.  I may try a small plant and see how it does.

[CG100]

It is not likely to survive frost.

Probably the only UK seller says to treat as you do already and that it flowers OK in summer. I know him slightly, well enough to ask about growing and flowering - I will report back when I have had a chance to speak to him.

I am suspiocious about so much variation in the flowers in online photo's though......

[Robert_Parks]

Two aroids today...

Ulearum donburnsii - stays open for a long time, usually no scent, but tonight? Fruity poop.

Typhonium roxburghii - blooms intermittently during the whole active period. Flowers last barely 24 hours. Stale mothballs, if mothballs actually went bad.

Robert
in warm misty, no blinding blasting fog, no blazing heat, sun, argh. Summer bulbs are going dormant very slowly.