Dear David: It would be interesting to know the temperature in the pots after a cold night, any way you can find out just how cold the soil mix was in the pots? Cheers, John E. Bryan David Victor wrote: > > Dear all, > > I was away most of last week and have only just caught up on this > topic. As Ferraria are one of the genera with which I have a love affair, > I thought that I might add a few comments, even if they are very late. > > I grow around ten collections of Ferraria, mainly ones collected by Rod and > Rachel Saunders, though some come from other sources. F. crispa flowers > regularly for me, normally around February. A strong perfume, which I find > the ladies particularly dislike. It has a smell somewhere between musk and > cat, with sweet overtones and fills the whole greenhouse. I have two > collections of F. ferrariola in bud at present and two others that I just > have as F. species. I have yet to see the latter flower. > > I grow all of my Ferraria in one litre pots. These are deep plastic pots, > with a 4 inch diameter top. They live in a cold greenhouse, as do most of > my South African bulbs, which drops to minus five Centigrade on really cold > nights. They sit on the plunge and on the cold nights I raise a canopy of > fleece over them to protect them from the worst. > > This question of temperature is an interesting one. Its been cold the last > few nights and I recorded minus three in the greenhouse. Whilst some of > the bulbs had the extra protection, I have lots of pots of Oxalis, Nerine, > Haemanthus and seedlings of Leucoryne and Tristagma on unprotected metal > staging that are undamaged. The books would suggest that such plants would > not come through this regime, yet they do year after year with me. I feel > that my practice of only watering at the start of mild periods helps the > situation. Also, day-time temperatures normally rise above freezing so that > the plants only have such cold for short periods. Any thoughts? > > Best regards, > David Victor > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php