Jim's Garden Blog - March 2010

Jim Shields' Garden Notes

Blog Home : March 2010

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Tuesday, March 02, 2010, 10:00 AM EST - More Clivia Blooms

Color Chart Comment

Annalee wrote as follows: "Thanks for posting these color charts on PBS [Pacific Bulb Society]. In my experience, going back to the first RHS about 50 years ago and the colors on many other references, one of the main reasons that the charts don't "work" is that the colors on the tepals of most flowers are blends--and also that the blends do not always reside in a single layer of the flower surface, but may be in 2 or 3 layers, both water soluble and not water-soluble, with different refraction values. A simple example is bearded iris which may be visually blue but photographing purple. In the Oncocyclus (aril hybrids included) the signal spot which is visually black -- turns out to be a deep red, either when dissolved in various alcohol/ acetone/water/ oil mixes or looked at through the signal spot on the falls when pointed directly at the sun.
However, these colors for clivia do seem to allow for specifing blends of colos to a degree not possible before. Neat! Thanks."

So kudos to the guys in the Cape Clivia Club, South Africa, who put this color chart together!

How Tough Are Clivia?

Garry wrote that his offset of Conway's 'Sara' has beens struggling just to survive. My response: I have found that the Conway plants are the weakest in my collection, while the Solomone are probably the strongest. I think it is because Dave Conway selected plants solely for their interesting flowers and then propagated them vegetatively. Joe Solomone propagated by seeds rather than vegetatively and selected plants first on their ability to survive and only later for flower colors.

Victorian Peach plants (another seed strain) seem to be intermediate in their vigor. They mostly offset freely, but are more susceptible than Solomone plants to fungi and rots.

I think that there are lessons for us here.

More Clivia Blooming

More Clivia flowers are opening every day. This is a wonderful time of year in the Clivia greenhouse.

Clivia ['Abigail' x 'Doris']
First flowers to open

I had hoped for a deep, rich red color. I fear the climate in Indiana is not conducive to development of strong red colors in Clivia.

Clivia 'Chubb Peach'

The Chubb Peach plants are a selected line grown from seed.

Clivia "Ita's Pastel Spider"

This came from a yard in an older residential neighborhood in Los Angeles. The homeowner's name was Ita. The narrow petals and sepals earn it the name "spider." The light salmon orange color warrants the description "pastel."

Clivia [Solomone Pinks #2014 x #2010]
Seedling No. 2182.A

The two parents of this seedling were both light pink with very little yellow underneath. This is a nice medium peach color, clearer and lighter than the color of "Ita's Pastel Spider."

There should be lots more pictures of Clivia flowers coming in the next couple of weeks. I also have a couple more new Hippeastrum in bud, so they are coming along too. My trusty old Nikon D70 died on me, so I bought a new Nikon D90 camera body over the weekend. Today's images were all taken yesterday with the old lenses on the new D90 body.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Sunday, March 07, 2010, 9:30 AM EST - Clivia Bloom Continues

Clivia Flowers

One of my favorite Clivia plants is starting to bloom: Conway's 'Tessa'. As far as I'm concerned, I consider 'Tessa' the archetypal peach clivia.

Clivia Conway's 'Tessa' with flowers just starting to open

'Tessa' is thought to be in the "European Peach" genetic group. I suppose this gene arose in the Belgian clivia greenhouses. It is very similar to Solomone's large peach called 'Apricot', which is also starting to bloom. The flowers of 'Apricot' at this early stage in blooming appear to be larger than 'Tessa' flowers, nearly the same shade of pink-peach, and perhaps a bit more tulip-shaped. I should have a picture in a couple more days.

The "Star" Red in the greenhouse this year is a seedling from Keith Hammett's cross 82065.

Keith Hammett's seed produced this rich red flower.

Conway's 'Sara' is blooming, and the flowers seem to be a light rose pink color with hints of yellow. This plant is still recovering from the trauma of arriving here in mid-winter several years ago, and this is its first attempt at blooming. I'll try to document the colors as best I can.

Here is a Solomone Pink that is impressive in its pinkness. I don't see a lot of pink in most pink clivias.

Clivia Solomone Pink #2013

Chubb 'Pretty Pink' is blooming. This one is very pale, not much different from my ['Sunrise Sunset' x 'Tessa'] #2539.A. The colors are so delicate that it is hard to say whether they are peach or pink.

Clivia 'Chubb Pretty Pink' in its first bloom here in Westfield

The sun has been shining that last two days, so I have not tried to use the color charts. We are due for a week of showers and clouds, perfect weather for applying color charts! Still, I doubt that even under the best of conditions, I would be able to analyze the complex blend of many colors that is evident in this example of Chubb's 'Pretty Pink'.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Saturday, March 21, 2010, 12:05PM EDT - Spring Is Here

Clivia Weekend

It's been a busy two weeks since I posted here the last time, and we had a busy weekend on the 13th and 14th. About 16 people came for the Clivia open House and the Midwest Clivia Club meeting. This in spite of continuous rain all day Saturday.

On Sunday a few of us drove over to Kevin Akins' greenhouse in Plain City, Ohio. Kevin's plants were also in full bloom. It was a neat weekend. I took some pictures of some of Kevn's nicest plants in bloom, which I'll share with you here one of these days soon.

Spring Flowers

My most spectacular spring flower is in the greenhouse -- Hippeastrum brasilianum. It is a white trumpet and fragrant. My form has frilly edges and a maroon band along the midrib on the outside of the sepals. Actually, undulate is the better term for the margins of the tepals.

Hippeastrum brasilianum

Outdoors, the spring flowers are a bit more modest: Trillium nivale and Galanthus nivalis, the former just starting, the latter about finished. Trillium nivale is a dwarf plant, only 3 or 4 inches tall, native to Indiana and adjacent states.

The T. nivale in my garden are from Illinois, and these for some reason do better here than the ones Gene Bush sent me from southern Indiana.

Trillium nivale

Some people recognize the Indiana populations of Trillium nivale as a slightly different ecotype from other populations. The Indiana populations may require more limestone in their environment than some other T. nivale. I don't know what the reason is, but the Indiana nivale barely hang on here, while the Illinois nivale thrive in my little woodland garden.

There are volunteer Crocus coming up and blooming in various places around the garden.

Crocus Volunteers

Can anyone tell me what they might be? Is Crocus tommasinianus a reasonable guess?

Bulbocodium vernum, probably now classified under Colchicum, so Colchicum vernum, is blooming. I think my clump has been gradually dwindling in numbers, so I had better shop around for some more bulbs this summer. This is fairly hardy here, and makes a nice early spring show of pink. Since it's small and close to the ground, plant them close to where you will be walking by.

Bulbocodium vernum or Colchicum vernum

The dwarf Reticulata irises are also blooming now.

Iris reticulata cultivars in bloom.

It looks like I need to re-do my metal labels in this bed. That is a chore for sub-optimal weather conditions, since most of the work can be done inside the house, next to a nice cup of hot tea (Rooibos, preferably) and some music on the hi fi (anyone besides me remember the Kingston Trio?)

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Thursday, March 25, 2010, 8:05 AM EDT - Repotting Amaryllis

Time to Divide Hippeastrum

That's what I'm doing, repotting Hippeastrum. Those that have not made much new growth and have not flowered so far this spring are my targets.

I have three pots of Hippeastrum papilio. One, my #270, is from a bulb I got from I.B.S. or at least from Charlie Gorenstein, in May 1997. To say that I have neglected it is an understatement! It is blooming right now, probably for the very first time in my greenhouse, and its pot contains all of three or four offsets. That is not much to show for 13 years in my care. It is going to look spectacular, so I will repot it after it has finished flowering and its seeds have ripened. I'll also post a picture here once it has fully opened.

The other two pots are my #1147, which came from the IBS Seed Exchange in 1998. Its parentage: [Lee Poulsen's papilio X Boyce Tankersley's papilio]. There seems to be a total of 10 or so bulbs now, and I think all are from separate seeds in that small batch. One of these is about to bloom right now, the largest bulb, and it is probably the one that was the seed or pod parent of my [papilio x mandonii] hybrids.

I plan to cross papilio #270 and papilio #1147 and grow on the seedlings. I think I have ignored papilio far too long! Brent and Becky have them for under $20 per bulb. Tell them I sent you! (That's a joke; I haven't seen Brent in years, and whoever answers their phone would not have a clue who I was.)

Today I repotted the non-flowering pot, seven bulbs, into individual 1-gallon or 1/2-gallon pots. They were just too crowded, and I hope to get them to bloom more this way.

I also repotted my Hippeastrum argentinum, from the Doran Collection. It has never bloomed for me so far, and the one medium sized bulb had split into about five smaller bulbs. I repotted each of them into their own separate pots. Whereas papilio is evergreen and needs little dormancy to flower, argentinum needs 6 to 8 months of dry rest. It is native to a hot, dry region in Argentina. I have probably not been giving it the correct treatment for dormancy.

Hippeastrum aulicum should not bloom this time of year anyway, so this is as good a time as any to repot it. I have one pot of the regular form of aulicum, originally from Dash in Australia, that has stopped blooming in recent years. I'm sure it needs to be repotted, and I will separate and pot up the offsets at the same time.

My Hippeastrum [aglaiae Clone A x aglaiae Clone C] seedlings have reached bloom size now, and some are already in flower. The two parents have not bloomed in recent years, so they definitely need to be repotted. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

I think I should cross my Hippeastrum brasilianum with papilio, too. Both are almost evergreen, and brasilianum is fragrant. Who knows what we'll get? (Well, I'm pretty sure Alan Meerow knows exactly what we'll get, but I haven't seen pictures of his diploid Hippeastrum breeding results, so they'll still be new to me.)

If you have an old Dutch amaryllis sitting around not blooming, try repotting it in fresh potting mix. Clean away all the old dead roots to give the new healthy roots room to grow. Pot any loose offsets up in their own pots; leave smaller offsets attached to the mother bulb until they are about half the mother's diameter. Remember to start feeding each bulb after it starts growing again, and feed it regularly thereafter (see my discussion of fertilizer, Feb. 2010.)

Your bulbs in pots really need to be repotted occasionally. I don't repot mine often enough, mostly because I have too many to keep up with them all the time. I actually enjoy repotting, and I'm missing out on a lot of potential bloom by not keeping up with the repotting.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Saturday, March 27, 2010, 1:15 PM EDT - Hippeastrum Pictures

Blooming Hippeastrum

Hippeastrum aglaiae is native to Argentina. It occurs in nature in two forms, a pink flowered form and this cream form. This is one of several plants grown from seed that are starting to bloom right now. The parents were two plants collected in the wild by Len Doran, his Clone A and his Clone C.

Hippeastrum aglaiae

Hippeastrum papilio is in bloom, too. H. papilio is native to Brazil, and this bulb came from Charles Gorenstein in about 1997.

Hippeastrum papilio

For comparison, here is one last seedling of Hippeastrum [papilio x mandonii] in bloom:

Hippeastrum [papilio x mandonii]

If you compare this flower to the others of Hippeastrum [papilio x mandonii], you will see the striking similarity between the siblings. This illustrates the relative uniformity in the offspring when two distinct species are crossed. You can expect much greater variability in the progeny when two hybrids are crossed.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology

Tuesday, March 30, 2010, 9:15 AM EDT - Hippeastrum Species. I.

Hippeastrum parodii in Habitat

Mariano Saviello is a microbiologist in Argentina who is very interested in Hippeastrum. He is kindly sharing with us pictures and information about some of the species he has seen in cultivation and in nature.

Mariano writes about H. parodii:

"The existence of H. parodii was proved in the provinces of Salta, Tucumán and Catamarca as a wild plant, and in Tucumán, Catamarca, and Córdoba in ornamental culture. There would be reported two different ecotypes in the wild: a boreal H. parodii in the North of Tucumán and in the South of Salta (700-800 masl) which flowers before its leaves grow, or when they have not developed completely, and a southern H. parodii (1000-2600 masl), which flowers when the leaves are well developed. In both cases the color varies from a greenish white to a creamy white (also pure white is accepted). Taking this into account, many people also think that one of these forms could be the H. euryphylla described by Piero Ravenna; as it is not acceptable that a same unicoloured species has so many variations in its main color (green, creamy, white and yellow). H. euryphylla can be distinguished from the other Argentinian species from the Macropodastrum sub-genus (white flowers with long tubes), by the light yellow-creme flowers, and the very short style arms.

"In late 2009 it was also reported in Bolivia , but I am pretty sure these might be new populations of the almost extinguished H. viridiflorum more than a Bolivian population of H. parodii. The pictures sent were taken in the province of Tucumán." -- Mariano Saviello, Buenos Aires

Hippeastrum parodii
© copyright 2010 by Mariano Saviello. All rights reserved.

Hippeastrum parodii
© copyright 2010 by Mariano Saviello. All rights reserved.

My database of Hippeastrum species has the following information: It is a vigorous species with 6 to 10 flowers in the umbel. It's habitat climate is hot, dry desert. It is dormant for 5 to 6 months in winter. Note that it is in subgenus Macropodastrum, as Mariano mentions above.

Good gardening, from here in central Indiana
Jim

Look up technical terms in the Glossary of Plant Biology