What's Blooming
J.E. Shields (Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:14:29 PDT)

Hi all,

This is a slow time in the garden, as many of the summer flowers start to
fade. The daylilies have mostly finished up for the season. Crinum
bulbispermum have not put up any late season rebloom scapes so
far. Gladiolus x-gandavensis in the garden has finished blooming and is
carrying some nice seed pods.

Scattered Lycoris are coming into bloom. One L. chinensis, one L.
longituba, and several L. sprengeri are in bloom.

The Gladiolus oppositiflorus salmoneus in the garden are starting to
bloom. One garden hybrid glad, with nice purple flowers, that I received
years ago from John Harris as hardy, has come back. It bloomed faithfully
and increased annually for several years, then a very wet winter or two
apparently wiped it out. Now one scape is back and in bloom. I'm very
happy to see it again!

In pots, Gladiolus saundersii is showing the first flowers of that species
I have ever seen. Very nice! G. dalenii 'Primrose' is in bloom (in a pot)
and looks just like the x-gandavensis that bloomed in the garden awhile
back. As this bulb increases, perhaps I'll have one to spare to test
outdoors in the ground.

Nerine bloom is scarce and late this summer. It looks as if I'm neglecting
them. An interesting point is that a small bulb of Nerine laticoma (cerise
color) from the old Croft Wild Bulb Nursery is finally showing one scape,
the first ever of this one in my collection. Much large bulbs of N.
laticoma, with leaves much wider, have never bloomed for me so far.

I received a bulb some years back as Nerine forbesii, and had it bloom at
least two years. Last year I tried crossing it with stored pollen of N.
bowdenii and got no seeds. In past years, I've also crossed N. kreigei,
now blooming here, with N. bowdenii and gotten no seeds.

The Crinum variabile are still blooming, some of my stock plants having
their 4th scape. I'm getting a good crop of seeds form C. variabile too.

Summer isn't over yet.

Regards,
Jim Shields
in central Indiana (USA)

*************************************************
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