Bloom in the Greenhouse
J.E. Shields (Sat, 29 Oct 2005 06:28:50 PDT)

Hi all,

I've enjoyed a nice Haemanthus bloom season the past month or so. Besides
the drop-dead easy Haemanthus albiflos, I've had blooms on some Haemanthus
barkerae, and first blooms on several H. coccineus. There was even a bloom
on one H. crispus.

The H. barkerae are unique in that only one of my three separate batches of
barkerae seedlings has bloomed so far. One bulb of the oldest batch of
barkerae is now showing signs of trying to bloom, even though it is barely
one inch in diameter.

I crossed barkerae and coccineus both ways. The berries are still only a
few, and I'm not sure how many seeds I'll get. I've seen that blooms that I
did not hand-pollinate have not formed berries, so I'm pretty comfortable
with my crosses.

Cyclamen are blooming, and should continue for another month or two.

Three bulbs of Nerine bowdenii "Koen's Hardy" are ready to bloom. My
bowdenii usually do not flower until December, but they are relatively
early this year. I hear from others that they usually get bowdenii
flowering in October. That makes me wonder why mine usually bloom so much
later.

Nerine platypetala is also blooming now. It usually blooms this time of
year, so I winter it over in the greenhouse rather than stored under a
bench like most of my summer-growing Nerine.

My first fall-blooming daffodil of the season this year is Narcissus
serotinus, which appears to have set a couple seed pods. The other
Narcissus in the greenhouse are still mostly dormant.

Moraea polystachya is blooming after a long summer dormancy. It's pot was
set outdoors in the spring, since it didn't grow last winter. Even though
we had plenty of rain here during the summer, it did not start to grow
until the weather finally cooled off a bit a few weeks ago.

My few surviving seed-grown Androcymbium melanthoides finally bloomed this
summer, but I've tried three separate times to grow Androcymbium pulchellum
from seed. The first b athc produced Massonia depressa. The second batch,
Polyxena ensata. The most recent batch, Lapierousa pyramidalis. I'm still
waiting to see a real Androcymbium pulchellum.

What else is new in the bulb world?

Jim Shields
in central Indiana

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA