Sternbergia 2008

[Lesley Cox]

Oh, those are lovely.

[art600]

Gerry
Your Sternbergia are lovely.

Mine are just coming into flower.  This is one collected by Alan Edwards.  It is very floriferous with a minimum of two flowers per bulb.

[Gerry Webster]

Arthur - I have a Sternbergia (?lutea) given to me by Alan Edwards a few years ago. I have never managed to flower it. Your lovely pics remind me of how it looked in Alan's garden. How do you treat it?

[art600]

Gerry

Whether I cosset or neglect it, this Sternbergia always flowers for me.  Not sure why yours does not flower, nor what I can suggest to improve your chances.

Remind me next year and I will send you a couple.

[Gerry Webster]

Arthur - many thanks for the offer. Looking at your pics again I'm not sure that this is the plant that Alan gave me. Yours looks as though it might be S. greuteriana,  just coming into flower with me.

[shelagh]

Gerry you are not alone we grow two types of Sternbergia foliage, sicula and lutea.  Mind you ours have never seen the sun since early May this year, it's now official August in this area saw  60% lesssun this year.  To think I wasted my money on sun block, we are all looking (apologies to all Scots here for spelling mistakes) peelie wallie (which I think equates to pale and interesting).

[Maggi Young]

Since  is you, Shelagh, I will allow the translation of peelie wallie as : pale and interesting, though it is perhaps better as:  pale and sickly!!

Also: you willl notice I have merged the two Sternbergia 2008 topics from different boards of the Forum into this single one 

[art600]

Maggi

I am glad you merged the two threads, as I had missed the earlier one - altho' it did puzzle me until I got to your post.

Has Ian had a chance to look at my post.  Gerry thinks that my Sternbergia might be greuteriana, but they are not like the one in Ian's bulb log, nor like photos on Google.  Would appreciate his thoughts.

[Maggi Young]

I'll draw this to Ian's attention, Art, though since we are working off a laptop at the minute, the quality of the pictures we are seeing is not up to much, so ID may be difficult!

[Gerry Webster]

Art - I wouldn't go to the stake over this identification. My S. greuteriana has quite small flowers & my guess about your plant was based on the size of the flowers in relation to the size of the pot (of course it might be a very big pot!)

Maggi - my apologies, I hadn't noticed the previous posts on Sternbergia

[Maggi Young]

Gerry: not a problem, at all


Ian has had a squint at the pix..about all he can do on this monitor..... looks carefully, murmers about how nice these plants are... then says.... well, they're all sternbergias...and wanders of with a puzzled look on his face......fat lot of use that boy is, half the time

[art600]

Further info - both my pots of greuteriana - just emerging -  show flowers accompanied by leaves.

[Gerry Webster]

Art - so do mine. So my identification is probably  wrong. What size are the flowers on Alan's plant?

[art600]

"What size are the flowers on Alan's plant?"

Gerry

From soil to top of flower 8.0 cms   Flower is approx 3.5 cms from the bottom of the ovary to the top of the flower.   Flower width of course varies with the amount of opening, but is generally not more than 3.0cms.

[Maggi Young]

Hmmm.....we have S. greuteriana which comes up without leaves.......confused? oh, yes!