Hardy Nerine bowdenii
J.E. Shields (Sat, 07 May 2011 06:57:11 PDT)

Ellen,

Good luck with the bowdenii! I've mentioned before that I played with
bowdenii in the garden several years back. Partial, limited, success.

I got 40 bulbs of a clone that survives the winter outdoors in the ground
in Aad Koen's nursery in the Netherlands. His other clones of bowdenii did
not survive outdoors over winter in his nursery. I lined them out here in
the open field, and mulched them pretty well -- several inches of dead
leaves and wood chips, as far as I can recall. We did not have much snow
cover, but it was a wet winter. (This recitation is off the top of my
head; I didn't try to find my old notes on the trial.)

In the spring I found only a half-dozen bulbs still alive. I put those
into pots and have kept them in a greenhouse over winter since then. These
are the ones I call "Koen's Hardy" and they are much more reliable bloomers
than most other strains of bowdenii I have tried. They are just not
reliably hardy here, unfortunately -- 15% survival is not very good.

Jim Shields
in central Indiana

At 07:43 AM 5/7/2011 -0400, you wrote:

*************************************************
Jim Shields USDA Zone 5
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
Tel. ++1-317-867-3344