Glad to see so many familiar faces here. For those who do not know me I will
give a brief synopsis. There is more detail on my web page about my
background.
Right now I am a garden and floral designer in the Los Angeles area. I grow
many varieties of plants such as (cover your ears Cathy) palms (love them,
all my clients have them), gesneriads (mainly Sinningias and close
relatives), orchids (only a few now but in college it was over 200 in my
dorm room on a light cart but most were donated to my college at graduation
before going to Europe), bulbs (like. Duh..mainly amaryllids - Griffinia,
Worsleya, Hippeastrum spp., rain lilies, Crocosmias, Crinum, Cyrtanthus,
Canna, misc. "things"), aroids (mostly anthuriums, some Amorphophallus,
Alocasia/Colocasia/Xanthosoma, and misc.), tropical foliage plants,
flowering tropical trees, and just plain anything not found at most
nurseries and overall hard to find plants (as if I'm the only one, right?)
I also go to Ohio (Akron/Canton area) twice a year to do the landscaping for
my aunt and uncle there. So, I also have a great interest in "tropical"
things that just might work there as well. I have added quite a few plants
that I have left in the ground last year just to try and see what happened.
Granted it was a very mild winter but some things that are still there (with
no winter protection at all) are; needle palms, Sabal minor (another native
palm), callas ('Green Goddess', aethiopica, and I think the orange one is
'Flame' both flowering at the present time I am told), Acidanthera, Dahlias
('Karma Fuchsiana', 'Bishop of Llandoff', and 'CafŽ au Lait' - first and
last have been in the ground for 3 winters now), Ipheion uniflora, Lycoris
(6 spp. from Kelly Irwin's Bulbmeister), Agapanthus (common blue CA
varieties, 5 plants survived), Crinum powellii and C. p. alba (not a hard
one to figure out but I have planted two from Plant Delights - 'Olene' and
'Regina's Disco Lounge' as my nieces name is Regina and it is now her garden
to "care for"), Tritonia (from Brent and Becky's I don't remember which
varieties off the top of my head), and there are more but I am too blond to
remember. Anyway.
I also do the Keukenhof type planting. Several years ago I
planted 5000 bulbs. Mostly hybrid tulips but also a few crocus (300),
Nectoscordum (50), Chinodoxus (1000), Daffs (800 for naturalizing), grape
hyacinths M. armeniacum - gotta love that weed - 500), and I think that is
about it except for my intense love of peonies. As I can not grow these in
SoCa (even though I have told I can and I will try them - let me tell you -
in the near future, I only have 6 right now that are new to me), I plant
every one that I can get. I must have now 30-35 ones some are duplicates. I
love the tree peonies and thanks to a very late spring (or rather a very
screwy spring) I got to see all of the tree peonies bloom. They are normally
finished before I get there. Many are too young to really flower well yet
but a few put out one to three flowers just to show off. The herbaceous ones
were not quite ready to pop before I left. I also have planted a whole heck
of a lot of different iris. And I will be increasing that planting this fall
with more Japanese hybrids and more species (sources are welcome).
Well, I think that I have blabbed on here enough for now.
OHHHH one more thing. I have a question for Dave - you mentioned about depth
of planting increasing hardiness. The two Crinums above that I mentioned I
planted this year are in a raised bed. I really planted them deep in the bed
(2'+) but they are actually at about soil level in the overall scheme of
things. They are about 1-3' in from the edge of the bed (which is merely
piled up and not a made bed out of wood or other material). Would you think
would be sufficient or should they be deeper?
John Ingram
jjingram@adelphia.net
http://www.floralartistry.org/