October 2024

[Rdevries]

Spectacular Gladiolus watsonii from Rimmer de Vries, BX 481.

I never had Glad watsonii. Bit i did have Glad carmineus

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

[Maxine Cass]

Mea culpa, Rimmer, and everyone. It's what I had on my label (I'm chiding my label-writing skills). The flower is beautiful.

[Wylie]

'Shaka Zulu' is more of a dark purple that ages darker. The other Exbury Nerines I have are finally starting to open.

The first attached photo is 'Nell Gwyn'. I was trying to take a photo, but Krull just had to get in there and attack it. 

This is a hard color to photograph because what I see is a bright orange, and the photo looks red.

Also open is 'North Pole', a white with pink edge.

Then a xAmarine belladiva is also open.

[Emanuele Mura]

A strange season here in Sardinia. While my sternbergias are getting closer to the end of their flowering, my bearded Irises "dreamed of spring", and started to bud. 

[Diane Whitehead]

Some bearded iris are classified as "rebloomers".  Did yours bloom in the spring?

[Too Many Plants!]

Well, I believe this is the FIFTH flowering this season for this Crinum Macowanii!
We have cooler weather coming tomorrow, so maybe these flowers will stick around for more than a day or two.

UPDATED flower pics!

[Emanuele Mura]

Some bearded iris are classified as "rebloomers".  Did yours bloom in the spring?

It did, as it did last year, with no reblooming. They could very well be a rebloomer tough, even if we had peaks of 28°C in late October.

[Too Many Plants!]

I planted 3 Albuca Concordiana bulbs. It appears one has split, or maybe an offset. The main head is very small which leads me to speculate the bulb split.

Any thoughts?

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

[Mikent]

Large Nerine finally started blooming a few days ago. The inflorescence appeared in late August, I thought it would be blooming early September, but it just hung out until a few days ago when it started to develop some color, then got a few inches longer, and bloomed.

I bought a bag of somewhat desiccated bulbs at a local garden center (well, a handful of bags, but only 1 bag of Nerine bulbs) maybe a month before Covid struck. The bulbs were identified as 'Nerine sarniensis Red,' but who knows if those bagged bulbs are accurately labeled. Anyway, this is the first blooming. They took a few years to recover, then started getting big enough that I was sort of expecting blooms last year. Maybe I'll try moving the pot to our glass (door) enclosed porch for a while at the end of season next year.

The first picture is from a few days ago, it was the second day of flowering. It's a bit deeper pink color in the picture than is accurate, because the sun was shining on the petals, and all I was getting was a white glare instead of pink. I had to block the sunshine with my body while taking the picture which caused the pink to look a few shades darker. The second picture is from today, and is fairly close to the actual color (more gray than sunny today).

[Wylie]

The first picture is from a few days ago, it was the second day of flowering. It's a bit deeper pink color in the picture than is accurate, because the sun was shining on the petals, and all I was getting was a white glare instead of pink. I had to block the sunshine with my body while taking the picture which caused the pink to look a few shades darker. The second picture is from today, and is fairly close to the actual color (more gray than sunny today).

Trying to photograph Nerines is very difficult for me. They tend to over saturate the image and since I don't a photoshop type program, just keep fiddling with camera settings. The first photo is 'Prince Valient', which is supposed to be a Barbie pink. The second is just a group photo.

[Arnold]

Freesia  caryophyllacea
Strumaria truncata

[David Pilling]

Trying to photograph Nerines is very difficult for me. They tend to over saturate the image

Turn down the exposure setting - negative value. Photoshop cannot get back what is not recorded. Although RAW format can capture a bit more. Getting the exposure right is the key.

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

[Uli]

Large Nerine finally started blooming a few days ago. The inflorescence appeared in late August, I thought it would be blooming early September, but it just hung out until a few days ago when it started to develop some color, then got a few inches longer, and bloomed.

I bought a bag of somewhat desiccated bulbs at a local garden center (well, a handful of bags, but only 1 bag of Nerine bulbs) maybe a month before Covid struck. The bulbs were identified as 'Nerine sarniensis Red,' but who knows if those bagged bulbs are accurately labeled. Anyway, this is the first blooming. They took a few years to recover, then started getting big enough that I was sort of expecting blooms last year. Maybe I'll try moving the pot to our glass (door) enclosed porch for a while at the end of season next year.

The first picture is from a few days ago, it was the second day of flowering. It's a bit deeper pink color in the picture than is accurate, because the sun was shining on the petals, and all I was getting was a white glare instead of pink. I had to block the sunshine with my body while taking the picture which caused the pink to look a few shades darker. The second picture is from today, and is fairly close to the actual color (more gray than sunny today).

To me the flowers look more like Nerine bowdenii. They are easy to distinguish from Nerine sarniensis which has foliage in winter. Nerine bowdenii has summer foliage which dies down with or before flowering and the foliage is green. Nerine sarniensis flowers before the leaves emerge and the foliage has a grayish/bluish color.

[Diane Whitehead]

I don't think the flowers look like bowdenii which does not have regularly spaced petals.  Instead, there is a gap with no petal, just the stamens and pistil.  Here is a photo of a white bowdenii which shows that.

[NOTLbelladonna]

Hi Diane,
Nerine bowdenii are blooming in my Niagara garden now.