South African Bulbs 2013

[François Lambert]

A Eucomis with a long lost label.  Flowers in summer.

Hello Arnold,

Your Eucomis looks a lot like one I am growing.  Unfortunately I also don't have a label with it.  I assume it is one of the  E. Comosa hybrids.  I purchased my bulbs something like 20 years ago, when mail order companies sent out printed catalogues with recoloured pictures and no botanical name at all.  Originally I was supposed to have one white & one blue Eucomis.  The white one is really white, the blue one is about as blue as yours.  There is also a difference in the foliage colour, in particular at the start of the growing season, my 'blue' ones have bronze coloured leaves.  As we get later in the growing season they loose this colouration & right now the leaves are about the same green as my other Eucomis.  I also have one Eucomis with somewhat 'wavy' leaves.  The White Eucomis blooms a few weeks later than my 'blue one'

Do you grow your Eucomis in the open ?  In fall 2011 I had an impressive seed crop and several seeds fell on the soil.  They survived a winter at -18°C, germinated in 2012, the seedlings survived another winter at -8°C and are happily growing further now.  And all this in a really heavy wet clay soil.  E. Comosa looks to be completely hardy where I live.

My Eucomis are starting to bloom, as soon as we have a sunny day I Will post some pictures here.

[ArnoldT]

Francosi:

The one pictured grows during the summer in a pot and spends winters in a unheated attic.

I grow the E. bicolor in the ground for around ten years.

I've had them for around 15 years and this one finally bloomed.  I have others like E. pole-evansii which grow well but haven't flowered.

[Rogan]

Lapeirousia silenoides is actually quite a difficult plant to grow (in my opinion); the seed is difficult to germinate (seems to require a hot summer to mature properly) and when it finally flowers, that's the end of it - I have yet to see one return after flowering. L. oreogena is much more pot-worthy; it flowers regularly and survives!

[wooden shoe]

A few weeks ago I had the first flowering of Dierama dracomontana. A nice surprise! I have sown these in March 2011.
I have tried several Dierama's outside but it's is to cold for most of them. This one seems to perform best. It is situated very close to the eastside of the house, so it is protected.
Furthermore I had several flowering Gladiolus flanaganii. Maybe the most hardy Gladiolus in my experience. I have sown these in March 2010. It found them very easy and they even do well in the open garden. They are till 40 cm high and have a very beatifull dark red colour.

[François Lambert]

Francosi:

The one pictured grows during the summer in a pot and spends winters in a unheated attic.

I grow the E. bicolor in the ground for around ten years.

I've had them for around 15 years and this one finally bloomed.  I have others like E. pole-evansii which grow well but haven't flowered.

Hello Arnold,

Looks like we have about the same Eucomis, I grow E. Bicolor, E. Pole-Evansii & a few different E. Comosa.  Until now I have been growing them all in pots that I put in my cellar for the winter.  4 years ago I have sown seeds of E Pole-Evansii, and a few of these are flowering this year for the first time.  I purchased 100 seeds at that time and I think I have about 100 E. Pole-Evansii (never counted the number of plants actually) growing in something like a dozen of pots.  It are big plants that need a lot of water and benefit of generous application of fertilizer.  All my Eucomis like to grow in full sun, the pots are at the foot of a wall facing East and get direct sunlight untill 3 PM.  It's only recently that I found out that I could grow some of my Eucomis in the ground - however didn't have time this spring to plant them out, so that'w a job for next spring then.

[Rogan]

The sun shone yesterday and Romulea hantamensis obliged: quite a small-flowered species but made up for by the bright iridescent colours. It has a long floral tube and in some ways resembles the long-tubed flowers of Lapeirousia oreogena and L. silenoides discussed previously - do they share a common, long-tongued polinator?

[Darren]

Lovely picture Rogan.

There is a terrific bit of footage on Youtube somewhere of pollination in action with L. oreogena. I'll see if I can find it - I think someone posted a link on here once. No Idea if R. hantamensis has the same pollinator. I bet Peter Goldblatt would know as this is his area of expertise.

I just got some seed of R.hantamensis and I'm told it is quite tricky to germinate and some authors suggest it 'probably needs cold stratification' - do you have any advice regarding this?

Your observation regarding germination of L. silenoides is interesting. When I saw it in the wild it was growing in sands and in shallow rock crevices which must get extremely hot during the summer. This is also the worst species I've tried for remaining dormant after the first season even if it germinates! I have never managed to get one to flowering size - they always dwindle away long before that.

[Darren]

A quick literature search revealed two papers by Goldblatt, one on pollination of Romulea and one on pollination of Lapeirousia.

As you suspected, Rogan, the L. silenoides group is pollinated by long-proboscis flies of the genus Prosoeca. This is also true of R. hantamensis, which is the only member of the genus in this pollination group (and, not coincidentally, produces the most nectar of any Romulea).


I have both papers as pdf,  if interested I can e-mail them.

[johnw]

Can anyone recommend a soil mix ffor Massonia seeds?  Am I to avoid phosphorus in the mix?  I'm a bit slow getting to this job!

Meanwhile this delightful little Glad is in flower, a gift from a kind forumist. 

johnw

[Maggi Young]

Wonderful colour of Gladiolus x primulinus Miss Prim series 'Victoria', John.

Paul Cumbleton suggests the same mix for Massonia seeds as for the bulbs - see this Wisley Log from 2008  -  http://www.srgc.org.uk/wisley/2007/221107/log.html   

[johnw]

Wonderful colour of Gladiolus x primulinus Miss Prim series 'Victoria', John.

Paul Cumbleton suggests the same mix for Massonia seeds as for the bulbs - see this Wisley Log from 2008  -  http://www.srgc.org.uk/wisley/2007/221107/log.html   

Thanks Maggi, the seeds are planted and the waiting begins.  The Glad is a real charmer; pity there is so little information on this series on the net.

johnw

[Ezeiza]

Massonias are seen in herbarium vouchers as quite shallow growers but in a gritty mix the bulbs bury themselves at a surprising depth.  They are droughtland bubs in the wild.

Lapeirousias are better treated almost like succulents. Corms are very deep in the sandy/gritty ground not only to obtain some extra moisture but also as a protection of the heat Darren mentions.

[Ezeiza]

and John, years ago we made an experiment to know how true it was that phosphorous was poisonous to South African bulbs. We added a minute dose of superphosphate at the bottom of 80 pots with different species of them. By the end of the season (late spring) all were dead.

On the other hand, fertilzers containing phosphorus like Phostrogen, Chempak 4 or Tomorite used as a foliar feeding in minute doses are evidently beneficial. Paul Tyerman mentioned years ago that the same was true with Australian plants: the effect was a lot more harmful to roots but he also mentioned that  such roots could become gradually accostumed to phosphorus presence with less harm to plants. If I remember well.

[François Lambert]

Summer is when Eucomis is flowering.  So at last, summer has arrived 

I have been growing Eucomis for more than 20 years.  For the first time my Eucomis pallidiflora ssp. pole-evansii seedlings are flowering.  Eucomis bicolor is a very reliable plant flowering each year without exception, not very prolific by making offsets, but each year I have a few seeds.  Seedlings need 4 to 5 years to reach flowering size, but this may be because I have neglected my seedlings in the past.  Eucomis comosa - or what i believe to be Eucomis comosa offsets nicely but prefers not to be too crowded in the pots otherwise they don't flower.  But with some extra fertilizing I get them do an extra effort to flower.  I have different hybrids of Eucomis comosa, one with rather bronze leaves and another with green leaves.  The flowers are also somewhat different, the one with bronze leaves has white flowers.  My third variety of Eucomis Comosa is not yet flowering.

[François Lambert]

this post with the two different flower colours of my Eucomis comosa.