Ken Redshaw and Shantung clones - an appeal.

[Darren]

Hi folks,

Last week I was approached by Norman Cummins of White Cottage Alpines who told me that Ken Redshaw of Springwood Pleiones had lost the bulk of his plants last winter due to the cold managing to penetrate the garage where they had been stored pending construction of a new greenhouse.

Unfortunately among the losses were Ken's stock of the Shantung clones which he was pivotal in raising and distributing from his friend David Harberd's crosses. Dr Harberd himself no longer grows them and his former collection, now in the hands of his son Tim, unbelievably suffered a similar fate. Norman knew I often have spare Pleione and asked if I could help Ken out as Ken wishes to rebuild his Shantung collection in his retirement as they obviously have great sentimental value to him.

Luckily I was able to send Ken some Ducat and Muriel Harberd today as some of mine had not quite started to root yet. These are the only two I currently grow.  Ken has asked if I know anyone else who could help so, with his permission, I am posting this appeal here. If you can help please contact Ken (his details are on the Springwood Pleiones website) or me and I can put you in touch.

Thanks in advance.

[Maren]

Hi,
I've written to Ken Redshaw, to find out if I can help. He is not the only one who lost lots of pleiones last winter. I ran into a problem with Calor Gas not delivering for 2 weeks when we had a bit of snow on the ground. But if we can help we should.

[Darren]

Thank you Maren - Ken will be delighted.

I'm beginning to think I must have been unusually lucky this winter.

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Folks,
      I can confirm that I had a fairly disastrous winter. My garage, referred to above, is built onto the side of the house, it’s constructed from brick, has a cavity wall, double glazing AND 3 or 4 tons of gravel on the roof. IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE FROST FREE!! What we suffered round here was not frost, but a prolonged period of very very low temperature.
      My losses are running at about 90%, but I don't think I've been completely wiped out of anything important. Smaller bulbs seem to have survived better than flowering sized specimens. For example I have a solitary flower on Ducat, I'd hope for 20.

       It does make me wonder (again) about the 'Alpine' credentials of Pleione. When I was photographing bulbocodioides in the wild I was very careful to keep the Coelogyne out of view!!

       On the subject of Shantungs, the origonal formosana parent must have had a recessive white gene. I know my father re-made the cross at least once, but as far as I'm aware all of the successful clones came from that first pod. In Dad's own catalogue they were all prefixed R6. The highest surviving number I have is R6.40 ('Natasha')


Tim DH