Kwekerij De Schullhorn

[Wim de Goede]

I find that Sternbergia lutea needs great summer heat to induce autumn flowering, maybe more heat than I can supply out in the garden. Is this also true of S. candida? because I had not imagined Holland as being particularly warm in summeer - not like Greece, for instance - yet obviously you have no trouble flowering this beautiful species.

Lesley as I mention to Ian , we lift the bulbs every year and store them by 20-22 C til October and then plant them again but we have the two species in the rockgarden as wel and they flower every year very wel.
What they need is very good suny place and plant them not to deep, (close to surface)
Wim

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks for that note Wim. I have a few new Sternbergia lutea to plant today and will plant them "high" with their necks above ground level. (They are going outside, not into a pot.) This is interesting because in the past I have had very few flowers off Muscari muscarimia and its close relatives but last winter I bought 3 pots (12 bulbs) of forced M. muscarimia and the total flower stems from the 12 bulbs came to 38! It was only after all the foliage had died down that I realized the bulbs were half out of the pots, well above the surface. I've planted them out now, with their tops well up and hope to have better flowering than I've had in the past.

[Janis Ruksans]

Thanks for that note Wim. I have a few new Sternbergia lutea to plant today and will plant them "high" with their necks above ground level. (They are going outside, not into a pot.) This is interesting because in the past I have had very few flowers off Muscari muscarimia and its close relatives but last winter I bought 3 pots (12 bulbs) of forced M. muscarimia and the total flower stems from the 12 bulbs came to 38! It was only after all the foliage had died down that I realized the bulbs were half out of the pots, well above the surface. I've planted them out now, with their tops well up and hope to have better flowering than I've had in the past.

No, no Lesley. Don't plant so shallow!!!! I'm covering top of all my Sternbergia bulbs at least with 5 cm of soil! I can't grow those which makes leaves in autum outside as leaves are killed by winter frosts. Even in greenhouse they are slightly damaged, more on lutea, less on others. Only candida and fischeriana I can grow in open garden as they forms leaves in spring, but safer is in greenhouse. Planting with necks at soil level is far too shallow. In nature they are even deeper - i COLLECTED BULBS FROM 10-15-20 CM DEPTH!
Janis

[Tony Willis]

Planting depth seems a dilemma.As Janis says they are quite deep in the wild but grow in areas that are sunbaked in summer(45c+ at times). They seem to need this heat to flower and in our climate it does not get hot enough to flower them even with surface planting. I grow them in pots never having produced a flower in the garden.

[Gerry Webster]

I grow all Sternbergias (autum & spring species) permanently planted out in a covered bulb frame. I presume that under these conditions they find their own depth which is with the neck about 2-3 cm under the surface. After a good summer they  flower well.

[Janis Ruksans]

Sternbergia candida today. I agree - the warm summrer is esential for sternbergias but candida don't need baking.
Janis

[Gail]

That's a lovely picture Janis - on my screen it looks almost 3-dimensional, as if I could reach out and pick the flowers!

[Wim de Goede]

To day we got a Gold Medal for this collection Irissen but I am sorry for sme very bet photo's

[Gail]

Congratulations on the gold medal Wim!  The select forms of Katharine Hodgkin and Sheila Ann Germany - are those sports that have arisen with you?

[mark smyth]

Gail I think Katharine, Sheila Ann Germanay and Frank Elder are from the same seed pod

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you Janis, and others, the notes about too shallow planting of my Sternbergia lutea. I DID plant them yesterday but will replant them today. At least I can see where I put them exactly, with their necks above the surface.

My mother used to grow this in a garden with similar climate to mine (frosts to only about -5C) and it flowered well and regularly. I don't remember frost damage to the leaves.

[Gerry Webster]

I would guess that the fact that these bulbs grow at considerable depths in the wild serves as protection against excessive heat &/or cold. I cannot imagine that they would experience such conditions in either New Zealand or the South of England. While it it may be useful to know how plants grow in the wild I don't think it is necessarily a good idea to attempt to replicate these conditions in cultivation. Not least because it is unlikely that one can replicate all the conditions.

[Wim de Goede]

Congratulations on the gold medal Wim!  The select forms of Katharine Hodgkin and Sheila Ann Germany - are those sports that have arisen with you?

Thank you Gail, yes we fond them a couple of years ago,the Sheila Ann Germaney selection is white with the same fals as Sheila Ann and the Katharine Hodgkin form is pale yellow a nice colour.
Wim

[Wim de Goede]

I like to show you some stoks of variety who are  in bloom now

Anemone blanda
Chionodoxa lucilaea Alba
Fritillaria amana Gokzun Gold
 ,,     ,,  reuteri
Narcis Jeannine
 ,,  ,,  Cordubensis
 ,,  ,,  minor Douglas Bank
Scilla Indra
Pleione formosana
Tulipa schrenkii

[Wim de Goede]

Here some more photo's of bulbs who are in flower

Anemone blanda Radar
Tecophilaea cyanocrocus
                                  Leightlinii
                                  Violacea
                                  Storm cloud
Puschkinia Super form
Plantmaterial of tissue culture,scaling Lily and seed of Calochortus