HIERONYMIELLA AUREA & amarygia PARKERI 'ALBA'
Alberto Castillo (Sun, 12 Jun 2005 11:29:17 PDT)

Hi Marie-Paule:
X Amarygia (or X Brunsdonna) behaves as summer
dormant-autumn/winter/spring growing bulb. Give it a well drained soil and
use a really big pot leaving in it to grow fat and finally flower. It will
enjoy full sun and warmish conditions. The cooler you grow it the longer it
will take to maturity. Temperatures should be equivalent for Freesia
cultivation (as a winter grower). Yes, it deveops a short thick neck that
protrudes some 5-10 cm from the soil level. Roots ar thick are perennial and
must not be damaged.
All Hyeronimiellas develop long necks that must be
underground, only the leaves protruding from the soil level. H. aurea is an
alpine plant that spends the winter in dormancy under snow. It comes from a
cool droughland plateau high in the Andes where it is never warm. Its soil
in the wild is a mix of several sizes of sand and a sort of silt. The
plants sprout in late spring and receive water during late spring, summer
and early autumn, flowering in mid to late summer. Dormancy is from late
autumn to midspring. The temperatures in the wild can be deceiving as the
bulbs are deep in the soil and under a thick layer of snow. In other words,
the envronment is pretty cold but the bulbs may not. In climates like this
here (say zone 9-10) the plants only produce foliage and although surviving
many years never flower. Alkaline soils and full sun in the wild.
All the best
Alberto

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