Veltheimia and TOW
Mary Sue Ittner (Mon, 09 Dec 2002 21:52:49 PST)

Dear All,

Everyone who took the time to vote said they wanted a topic of the week.
That is something we can talk about in addition to anything anyone else
wants to talk about. We are not limited to talking about the topic of the
week. I hope some of you will talk about your favorite books, but it is
impossible to know which topics will be favorites.

Veltheimia is not the topic of the week but we can talk about it. I brought
it up because I was offering seeds and wanted to report that I found late
winter a better time to start them. My Veltheimia bracteata usually starts
into growth just like my South Africa bulbs from winter rainfall areas. It
goes dormant in summer and in September or October the beautiful leaves
appear. So that led me to think I should start seeds then. When we
discussed this on the IBS forum some people reported theirs were evergreen.
There were a few who felt they bloomed better if allowed to have a dormant
period and if watered too much in a hot humid summer some reported they had
lost theirs to rot. Maybe Rhoda will repeat what it is like for them in
their native habitat. I have some great Veltheimia saved files from the IBS
forum for anyone who is new to this genus and would like to have them.

Doug gave me another Veltheimia capensis this year. He has been most
generous. It looks just like my Sil seedlings except it is much bigger and
has more leaves. So I expect finally to be able to compare it to V.
bracteata. I may get more rain than it is happy with since they are always
described as coming from dry areas. I am experimenting with some sheltered
from the rain and some that are not. So far we haven't had much rain so
they haven't really been put to the test. And the birds are leaving them
alone this year so far.

We set our forum up not to allow attachments of any kind. But Doug you can
send your images to one of the images lists and tell us where to look at them.

Mary Sue