[BULBS-L] Morea huttonia
J.E. Shields (Wed, 09 Apr 2003 06:23:37 PDT)

Hi all,

I am trying to grow Moraea huttonii outdoors here. It has survived one
winter outdoors (2001-2002) and I'm waiting to see what it did this past
winter (2002-2003). That is not long enough for it to have bloomed
outdoors. Grown in a 2-gal pot in the greenhouse, it blooms at about 12
inches height and has a small flower.

Panayoti Kelaidas grows it and some other Moraea successfully outdoors in
the Denver Botanic Garden, but it is a lot drier there in winter than
here! The winters in Denver may also not be cold for so long at a time as
they sometimes are here.

I've tried Moraea alticola, M. huttonii, M. galpinii, and M. huttonii in
the greenhouse and outdoors. I suspect that M. galpinii is going to turn
out to be better suited to my climate than the others, but I'm still trying
various methods and locations.

Transplanting M. alticola from its seedling container to anywhere is
generally a nearly fatal operation. Separating a pot of Moraea seedlings
has so far been 100% fatal in my hands.

More later.

Jim Shields
in central Indiana (USA)

At 08:29 PM 4/8/03 -0500, you wrote:

*************************************************
Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. +1-317-896-3925
Member of INTERNATIONAL CLIVIA CO-OP