April 2008 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Paul T]

Wow Otto.  Thank You!!  I'll email or PM you either later this evening or tomorrow.

[Paul T]

This has just opened it's first flower for the year...... Colchicum cupanii I think was what people said it was last year.  I received it as C. psaridis.

[t00lie]

Quote"A little - very little - snow here overnight. Distinctly chilly!'.

No snow here Lesley but as you say rather chilly so before the frosts start thought i'd show a couple non alpines.

A couple of years ago some of you might remember i posted pics of a trip to the top of the West Coast NZ.While up there i dug up a rhizome of a ginger sps that was growing wild a few meters above the high tide mark .
Flowering for the first time ----Hedychium gardnerianum ,strongly scented .A terrible weed further up country so i've grown it in a pot out in the open all year round.Although frosts kill the top growth it is surprisingly hardy down here and reshoots late spring.(I moved the pot temporarily under cover to obtain clearer pics). 

Also grown in a pot and hardy here is the Japanese banana --Musa basjoo .It is starting to send up small suckers, (5 so far),so in the spring i'll plant one or two out in the garden proper to try and obtain far larger specimens.

Cheers dave.

[Paul T]

Dave,

The Hedychium can be a problem over here too, being a bit too rampant.  Mainly coastal areas rather than up here in the colder areas.  I grow H. greenei quite happily here, although in pots a bit protected just to be safe.  Lovely orange flowers, although nothing like the great spray of flowers on yours.  Congrats on the Musa too..... never tried any Musa here as figure won't survive.  Then again I think I've read that some species can survive quite a lot of frost?

[t00lie]

Paul

From what i understand the Musa is grown in far colder winter conditions than our zones ,(i read somewhere that in it's type location it receives frost and snow), and with your summer heat i'm sure you would get impressive plants.

A google' under Musa garden forums gains one an appreciation of how tough it really is.

Cheers
Dave from the banana belt.

[David Lyttle]

Hi Dave

If global warming continues you might be able to grow real bananas in a couple of years time ( or pineapples). Today I was quite pleased to find a clematis you had given me that I thought I had lost was still surviving.

It was a bit on the wintery side here Friday and yesterday but a nice day today.

[fermi de Sousa]

My pot with Crocus asumaniae burst into flower yesterday - AS KOTSCHYANUS, 2 quite widely separated flowers so not the same corm.  Don't know how this happened. The other was in there last year, maybe still to come through. But where did kotschyanus come from?

Probably the same place my "Not nudiflorus" one came from!
cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

We have quite a few Oxalis in the garden but these we planted deliberately!
Oxalis flava yellow form.


And in its mauve/pink form, in bud,


And open the next day,


And hiding under an artemesia mat!


Oxalis hirta "Rosea"


And finally the rather sweet little yellow Oxalis lobata, which flowers in Autumn and Spring.


cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

I promised to show some more nerine pics last week and finally have some to show!
These were grown by Peter Genat, a cutflower grower in the Dandenongs, East of Melbourne.
A Pale pink hybrid,


A pure white hybrid,


and a pale red with a white centre,


In the Sandbed one of the Moraea polystachya is already in flower!


Also in flower for us is the yellow starflower, previously known as Ipheion hirtellum, but now a Nothoscordum, I think!


cheers
fermi

[Paul T]

Fermi,

Does that mean that the bulbs you sent me of the Ipheion/Nothoscordum should already be up?  Should I be getting paranoid if they aren't already?  Of course they may already be up but I haven't noticed them after work, but I would have thought I'd notice the yellow bud anyway.    Hopefully they're just biding their time. 

great Nerine pics as well.  Lovely!

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely plants Fermi. My own little nerines are a bit frustrating because I can't seem to get any seed from them. They were all raised from seed in the first place of course and their breeder, June Keeley of Timaru, hand-pollinated every year and was able to raise new shades each time. I've been hand-pollinating for the last five years or more and though they SEEM to make seeds, they shrivel and dry up before they're even half matured. I've sown the better ones on the off chance, but nothing.

[Lesley Cox]

Here's a lesson in what NOT to do.





Yesterday I went looking for a tray of young Cyclamen libanoticum, which I knew were around somewhere but couldn't find for a couple of days. In the summer I had stacked several trays of potted bulbs/corms, all thoroughly dormant, with a mental note to myself to get them properly lined out before the autumn. Frits are OK, they're still well underground; narcissus are OK, the early romieuxii and bulbocodium types were on the tops of the stacks. BUT, the cyclamen is well into growth and desperate for some air and light. They'll be OK in the long run but look a right mess for now. They're in bud already.

A lesson learned - I hope.

[Paul T]

Howdy All,

Assorted bits in flower at the moment, but I wanted to post this pic I took last week or a lovely little Cyclamen coum grown from seed of 'Tilebarn Elisabeth' that came from our own Anne Wright.  This one has the silverest leaves of the lot, as most of the rest have the green edge to them, but there is a lot of variability.  I really must check up one of these days what the parent actually looked like and therefore which is "true" and which isn't.  Please excuse the brown sheen on the leaves as we had a bit of a dust and mud rain a while back (strong winds mixed with light rain meant a brown coating on everything.  It still hasn't washed off properly).  It's a beauty of a plant I must say.  Thanks Anne!!!!

[fermi de Sousa]

More Oxalis are in bloom,
the first is a little yellow one whose name I probably have mispelt! Oxalis kaajvoensis:


The second is flowering for the second year in a row! The rather pale lilac (pink?) bloom of Oxalis palmifrons which is grown more for its foliage than its floral effects!


The first flower on galanthus peshmenii,




This Wahlenbergia "Porcelain Stars" has been in flower in dribs and drabs over the summer but looks happier now in the cooler weather.


cheers
fermi

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely Oxalis Fermi. I don't have the first one (does that look like a seed pod on it near the bottom of the pic?) and O. palmifrons has NEVER had a flower for me. But where are the leaves? Mine are in full leaf now, 2 huge potsful, no sign of any flowers, as usual.


Here is O. lobata again. It's better than ever this year and has been in flower now for about 6 weeks.


Another nice little bulb at this time of year is Polyxena longituba. This is a pot of seedlings which hasn't been divided up yet. The flowers are very highly scented and though they seem white here, are actually very pale pink, with a bluish green line from the tip of each lobe, down the tube, on the outside. I sent some seed away recently and will have plenty more next sumer if anyone is interested.