Pleione 2012

[monocotman]

On another note, you can really increase the size of bulbils growing on the apex of the bulb by encouraging them to root into the compost.
I do this by carefully piling up compost to the base of the bulbils so the main bulb is buried.
It doesn't seem to harm the normal new growths but the bulbils are 2-3 times the size of the usual ones.
David

[SteveC2]

Question to David and anyone else who grows the "winter" flowering pleione.  Are they really late this year?  My Wharfedale Pine Warbler is just about to open, compared with a normal flowering time of November.  Barcena is much the same, with colour just appearing in the buds, though normally they open well before Christmas.  As for Tarawera I think some of the "spring" flowering types such as humilis might beat it.  I know that the flowering times of these crosses are all variable depending on the clone, but my bulbs are all from a single individual so it's not genetics causing this.

[Maggi Young]

Hi Steve, interesting that you bring up the late flowering of your pleiones- we are seeing very late development in narcissus and so on  this year - there are a lot of anxious growers around it seems.

The weather patterns of late are confusing a lot of plants, I think.

[Alex]

My praecox are just going over and some clones of maculata are putting up buds only now!

Alex

[SteveC2]

That's late!
Only thing is my autumn flowerers were very early this year which I put down to the rotten summer and early onset of autumn, at least cold nights.  Just goes to prove that the plants will do what they want when they want and try as we might we'll never really understand them.

[monocotman]

Steve,

I cannot really say.
This is only my 2nd year with winter flowering pleiones.
I avoided them for a few years as I thought they'd be tricky to
keep over winter but they've proved to be quite easy.
It is a shame that there aren't more of them.

Regards,

David