Nerine Hybrids
John Grimshaw (Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:21:50 PST)

Jim Shields asked about Nerine hybrids.

A number of breeders have made hybrids between N. sarniensis and bowdenii,
with the obvious intention of combining the colours of the first with the
hardiness of the latter. The most diligent breeder was the late Terry Jones
of Zeal Monachorum, Devon, who had a breeding programme going back several
decades and numerous generations. Some of his progeny are on the market in
the UK, e.g. the spectacular tall 'Zeal Giant' with big bright pink flowers
and shorter 'Zeal Salmon' and 'Zeal Grilse' with more salmony shades. Terry
died a couple of years ago but left the entire breeding programme and stock
to Matt Bishop (of snowdrop fame), who now works on them at the Garden
House, Buckland Monachorum (lots of monks in Devon, evidently). Some of the
colours are fantastic, including the dark purple of 'Zeal Plum' and various
salmony shades, but none of the Zeal hybrids have scarlet flowers.
'Afterglow' is a commercially available hybrid, I forgot from which breeder,
with quite good red flowers, but it is strongly winter growing. Many of the
Zeal hybrids are fully hardy in southern England, but just not freely enough
available to try widely, yet.

Most of the F1 generation are not very hardy, tending to be winter-growing,
so the aim of the breeding is to work back to N. bowdenii for hardiness, but
finding the right combinations of parents is not so easy. What Matt is
looking for, even in seedlings, is winter dormancy as a good predictor of
probable hardiness. I must pester him to write an article summarising
progress sometime.

John Grimshaw

Dr. John M. Grimshaw
Sycamore Cottage
Colesbourne
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
GL53 9NP

Tel. 01242 870567