Bulbs from South Africa - 2010

[Lesley Cox]

Fermi da Sousa in one of the Southern Hemisphere threads posted some pictures of M. echinata. As I remember them, they were closer to pink or reddish pink while all the depressas I've seen are close to white, with only creamy-white stamens not pinkish as in the picture above from Tomas.

[fermi de Sousa]

Lesley, I don't grow M. echinata! 
Maybe it was Paul T?
cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

At the end of the 2009 thread James and Darren were talking about Pelargonium incrassatum.
I just re-potted mine so thought it might be of interest to someone to see what it looks like in summer.
Pelargonium incrassatum rootstock as unpotted:


and cleaned up before re-potting into a gritty mix and topped with 2cm of grit,


cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Your photos have just provided a good start to my lessons for today  fermi: if I had been presented with that second photo un-named, I would not have had any idea what it might be.    
I knew I didn't know much about perlargoniums but I didn' know how much I didn't know......

[Darren]

Hi Tomas - Looking at the flowers I'm pretty sure your plant is depressa too.

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Tomas,
I agree with the others that your plants are M. depressa - the flowers are quite distinct. The leaves are not always relaible in identification with regard to pustules. M. depressa usually has smooth leaves but rarely can be pustulate. M. echinata can have smooth or hairy or pustulate leaves - the ones we have at Wisley happen to all be smooth leaved.

Cheers

Paul

[pel1]

Hi all,
Has anyone out there ordered from d'oblong nursery? I just came accross their website and some of it is very tempting, are they a good source? Also, how would I go about acclimatising winter growing bulbs if I bought any from them right now?
Many thanks, James

[Lesley Cox]

Sorry Fermi, must have got my wires crossed - again.

[Tomas]

James, Darren, Paul - thank you. So I'll change labels...
T.

[Hristo]

This will be either the last or second to last of my Lachenalias to flower;
Lachenalia mutabalis

[cohan]

some of you will remember my sad story of a seed shipment from SA last year which seemed to be mostly stale seed that didnt germinate
i didnt ask for replacement, but did mention to them the results (not must mine, but several friends with various species/genera simultaneously) and they offered to send replacements-but then the issue was figuring out what would be worth getting since they said their field collector was working on a book this year..
after a rather long dragged out period of slow/no replies,delays,  odd reasons, the seeds suddenly arrived in the mail in december (including those for my friends in the u.s., so i had to send those on)..
and i eventually got them sown-even though most are things that probably should have been sown in fall, waiting til next year didnt seem a great choice with seeds that dont have much of  a shelf life..
so now i have germination on 2 ledebourias (galpinii and luteola), bulbine favosa (a miniature succulent sp), 2 haworthias (koelmaniorum and limifolia-not bulbs, succulents) and an Ornithogalum sp nova (dont know much about it, should be miniature, with 'beautiful leaves', perhaps one of the dark one leaf types)..so, 6 out of 9--much better than last year, and still early on, i still hope at least for germination on Lachenalia trichophylla..

so, a question about the Ornithogalum--it came up within 2 days! about 20 seedlings (outnumbering all the other species put together), which look like tiny, thin thin single leaves, now a couple of inches tall, all bent near the end, with the seed coat at the end.. it is going under lights in daytime-trying to keep hours below 12 for a winter grower, but i dont have a dedicated short day light set for these yet..does this very fragile growth (imagine alfalfa sprouts without the leaves) sound normal, or should i be putting it even closer to the lights (the distance has been fine for cyclamen, ledebouria, sempervivum, townsendia, etc..)

[Darren]

Hi Cohan,

Glad you got some resolution to your seed issue.

I have no experience of growing under lights but I tend not to worry too much about etiolation in seedlings - due to space constraints mine usualy live under the bench in shade until they approach flowering size. Your biggest problem might be vulnerability to damping off or other fungal problems so I think a fan might be useful.

Two days is remarkable for a bulb seed. Some albuca are very quick (a week or so) but two days is amazing. (I'm not counting those amaryllids which germinate almost before they fall off the plant!)

[cohan]

Hi Cohan,

Glad you got some resolution to your seed issue.

I have no experience of growing under lights but I tend not to worry too much about etiolation in seedlings - due to space constraints mine usualy live under the bench in shade until they approach flowering size. Your biggest problem might be vulnerability to damping off or other fungal problems so I think a fan might be useful.

Two days is remarkable for a bulb seed. Some albuca are very quick (a week or so) but two days is amazing. (I'm not counting those amaryllids which germinate almost before they fall off the plant!)

thanks for the reassurance darren..
so far, knock on wood, i have had no damping off on any seedlings; this is a rather dry climate, especially in winter (no central heating in use, but we keep it pretty warm in here with the wood heater, and of course warm under the lights in the daytime; i usually keep a pot of water on the wood heater to add a bit of moisture to the air)...so any kind of fungus or rot is not common; of course its wet inside the baggies, but still have not had any fungus..
i did prop the pot on something today to put it nearer the lights, and opened the bag just for reasons of heat build up..
i just checked the packets, and the ornitho that is up says it was collected in nov/dec of 08, and the one that has not yet, is from oct 09!

[BULBISSIME]

Fermides, I'm very surprised seeing your Pelargonium incrassatum dormant now !!!
Mines are in full growth, and I wonder if I could change their growing season as I'd prefer to have them growing here in our sunny summer than in our cloudy winter !
Has anyone some experience with 'seasons inverting' ??

[Hristo]

Sown 2009, this Freesia laxa originates from seed from Michael and comes from his 'Pink Hybrids'
Looks very much like the pictures of 'Joan Evans' that I can find on the internet.