February 2015 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

We're still having good summer weather here, interspersed with almost alternate cooler days. First Colchicum ?byzantinum and first Cyclamen cilicium out at the weekend. Coums are coming through in leaf already and hederifoliums are starting to bloom.

I potted up 25 Iris cycloglassa today, seedlings from a sowing in Nov '13. The little bulbs have their juno roots already and the actual bulbs are about 1.5 x 1cm in size. Not bad for just a single season from germination. That was the harvest from one of 3 pots of seed. The other two I put in larger pots, the whole masses in one go to grow on for another year then I might plant them out to develop in the ground.

Still madly repotting Narcissus, Galanthus, Crocus, Erythronium et al. Irises are done and other smaller genera, dwarf bearded iris divided, some potted for sale in the spring and clumps replaced in the garden. It's taking a long time because I'm planting a lot in the garden instead of repotting so it's many trips between the potting shed and various garden places instead of a straight run at the potting. Then there's a bit of time off to listen to cricket (World Cup). Big game on Saturday between NZ and Australia. England regained some credibility today by beating Scotland comprehensively. Afghanistan (who knew it as a cricketing nation?) came close to beating Sri Lanka yesterday!

Does anyone know when Asteranthera ovata is supposed to flower? I had it at the last place in a cool tunnel and it flowered and seeded well, but it seemed to me not at any particular season, maybe late spring to autumn. Here it's growing well but no flowers in the two years we've been here. I've dosed it with soluble sulphate of potash a couple of times but no buds so far.

[Lesley Cox]

A quick Wikipedia search says summer flowering so my feeding probably is too late for this year. I think I'll try it on a tree trunk and encourage it to climb. I have a large conifer, not sure what it is, in a cool garden and both Mutisia spinosa and M. decurrens are rapidly scrambling up the trunk. The ground underneath is where I have a lot of primulas, meconopsis, podophyllums, hepaticas and my little bit of the precious Hylomecon japonicum, among many other things. So maybe the Asteranther would like it there too.

[fermi de Sousa]

Yes Maggi and Paul, our trees are turning here too, where does the year go.

Indeed, Viv, where does it go?!
Some "autumn flowers" now in bloom:
Sternbergia sicula from seed from Rannweig Wallis from Crete
Colchicum 'Lilac Major' (which actually might be 'Lilac Wonder')
Crossyne flava
white Amaryllis belladonna (probably an inter-generic hybrid)
cheers
fermi

[Paul T]

Crossyne are looking great, as usual, Fermi.

Pretty much none of the south african stuff flowering this year for me.  Almost complete failure on the belladonnas, even the ones that normally flower religiously for me (i.e not the common one that everyone can flower, but I can't).  Decidedly dispiriting.