Trivia Time!!

[Maren]

Paul,
thanks for sharing. Very interesting and entertaining.

[Lesley Cox]

Bet your seedlings get a fright Paul if they get squeezed into the glass of gin.

[Lesley Cox]

Did you know that if you leave a tomato long enough, say since the beginning of March and then poke about in the bowl because you're making a Greek salad, the tomato has turned to a disgusting soggy and smelly mush which has to be scraped onto the compost heap? There are also little white stringy thing which I estimate to be larvae of fruit flies. I do not believe they will germinate, except into fruit flies.

[Anthony Darby]

I was always told that if I ate an apple core a tree would grow through the top of my head, so I have never eaten apple cores. I only found out a few years ago that this wasn't true when I watched a friend eat an entire apple, including the core. His mother had told him the same as mine, but regarded it as a challenge and not a warning! I found out about lemon pips when trying to inhibit germination in an experiment. It failed miserably. Should have picked apple pips!

[Paul T]

Lesley,

Are you sure about the Eucomis?  They are a hard black seed and can last for years, retaining good viability.  To germinate they would have to at least have been thoroughly wet to start the process.  Nerines and many of the fleshy seed Amaryllidaceae have these auto-germination seeds.  Very handy if you lock them away and forget about them.  I have Haemanthus albiflos growing that were seed exchange seed that I lost for 18 months.  All had formed perfect little bulbs and were waiting for better times.  Something else must have happened to the Eucomis to get them to germinate I think..... I've stored them for years without any germination or any significant loss of viability for me, whereas the Amaryllidaceae tend to germinate if left for more than a couple of weeks.  I find most of the fleshy seed ones germinate in the envelope when being sent.

[Anthony Darby]

Did you know that if you leave a tomato long enough, say since the beginning of March and then poke about in the bowl because you're making a Greek salad, the tomato has turned to a disgusting soggy and smelly mush which has to be scraped onto the compost heap? There are also little white stringy thing which I estimate to be larvae of fruit flies. I do not believe they will germinate, except into fruit flies.

Yuk! Fruit fly maggots  are yellowish and miniature versions of blowfly maggots. I have both breeding outside for the geckos. Today I noticed a baby northland gecko in the adults' cage so put a jar of fruit flies into it.

The best place to find tomato plants is the sewage works. The seeds are designed (not intelligently, by the way) to pass through the gut unharmed and be dolloped elsewhere, complete with "compost" (there's that word again).

[Lesley Cox]

I was actually taking the mickey a little Anthony. Still, it has happened here, more than once.

Paul I was told about the Eucomis seeds, I haven't seen it myself. At our OAGG meeting last night a member said she had put Eucomis seeds in a jam jar then forgottten them, to find little bulbs later. I asked was she sure they were not Nerines as per my own experience but she said they had not only been collected off her own Eucomis (she admitted to some dampness in the jar over time) but had subsequently planted the little bulbils and eventually had had them grow and flower as - Eucomis.

I still haven't done Eucomis leaf cuttings of my TPR (much admired last night. The stems of flowers have been very long-lasting) and it may be too late now with shorter, cooler days but I'm off out now, to try some. No sign of seed forming, though honey bees have been gathering large quantities of pollen from it every day.

[Anthony Darby]

We keep our tomatoes in the salad chiller and still some turn to mush if they fall out of their bag and get missed, especially if we have had a glut from our tomato plants. No fruit flies though. We had a bowl of feijoas turn rotten on us before we could work out what to do with them. No-one like the flavour or the texture, which is rather like guava, another fruit we don't eat.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

With Eucomis there would have to have been a fair amount of moisture involved I think.  With moisture, I'm not surprised that they germinated.  And in a jar they may have had enough light to photosynthesise a bit and set bulbs.  Still not a usual occurrence for Eucomis I would think.

I get bees around my Eucomis all the time, but only seem to get seed set when I hand pollinate.  Obviously there is better seed set when cross pollinated with another one, but I have had some seed set by selfing, but only a few seeds.  Where I have been hand pollinating, I keep to a ring of flowers around the stem, so that I have some idea whether they set successfully or not.  It is usually pretty obvious where I have been working, as those pods swell.  Sometimes where are seeds in them, sometimes not.  I've just collected seed from Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy' x vanderwerwei and the reciprocal cross, and my best pink flowered x vandermerwei and the reciprocal cross.  It will be interesting to see in the future what these turn out like. 

[Anthony Darby]

How long do they take from seed to flowering Paul?

[Paul T]

Anthony,

From around 3 years I think.  I think I had the first of a previous batch from seedex seed flower in the third year.  Probably quicker if looked after better, which I am guilty of not doing with my seed pots.

[Anthony Darby]

That's quick! My first seedlings from this year's seed exchange, mostly cyclamen, are sprouting, but I'd be lucky to get them to flower in three years. Narcissi will take even longer. I have a pot of 'grass' labelled Narcissus obsoletus which was sown last April, but there seem to be more seedlings now than appeared last May.

[Lesley Cox]

I love guavas tho' I've only had them canned. They grow and can be bought or picked fresh in the far north of NZ. Feijoas are delicious ripe, peeled and microwaved with some brown sugar until tender, then served for dessert with cream.

Must do a picture at the weekend of my non Colchicum luteum seedlings, the other things that have come up in their pots. They're beginning to look suspiciously like Impatiens glandulifera, the balsam thing that pings and distributes everywhere.

[Paul T]

Anthony,

Narcissus are notoriously long to flower.... I hear 7 years often bandied about.  The exception I think is the bulbocodium/romieuxii types as they are quicker?  Cyclamen I have had flower from 3 years, depending on the species.  I have friends who flowered Veltheimia in 3 years from seed, whereas mine took 5 years I think.  Very variable according to what you're sowing, what your conditions are, and how you look after them.  

[Lesley Cox]

I've not grown the larger Narcissus from seed, the largest is N. nevadensis and that took 4 years to flower but for me all the roughly bulbocodium types, b itself and the romieuxii types etc, any hoop petticoat types, take 2 1/2 to 3 yrears depending on whether they're sown autumn or spring, and cyclamineus takes the same. 2 1/2 from autumn sowing or 3 if sown the following spring. Likewise rupicola which often flowers before I get it out of the seed pot.