Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Amaryllidaceae => Topic started by: Heinie on November 26, 2008, 11:43:13 AM
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Here is my first of 8 mature Sprekelia formosissima bulbs flowering. The photo is from this morning with a fully open flower.
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o149/loevenstein/IMG_0853.jpg)
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Hi Heinie ,
Great pics of a great grower from South Africa ;D
I'm really envy for your growing conditions :'(
Best wishes
Hans
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Thank you Hans. There is something about this flower that I like it so much. It may be that bright red colour.
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What a great plant :)
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They're in flower here at the moment as well. Such a striking colour to them, and almost velvety as it is so rich. Thrives on total neglect too!! 8)
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It really an amazing flower !
I love it ;)
Fred
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Really amazing!
Alberto
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A second flower has opened fully yesterday. I cross pollinated this flower with one of my very strong red Hippeastrum in flower at the moment. Here is a photo of the Hippie. Lets hold all thumbs for a possible Hippestrelia breeding of my own. This is my first ever attempt.
(http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o149/loevenstein/IMG_0962.jpg)
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Heinie, it will be good to hear if you have succeed with this hybridisation. The parents are both so handsome..... something magical about the reds in the Amaryllidaceae ..... rich, velvety colours.... and those elegant shapes! 8)
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I have a pot of these from a bag of cheap bulbs, end of season sale. Fortunately, they had been stored properly by the seller. I have a few Hippeastrum coming into bloom, but think they are all tetraploids, which means cross pollinating may not work. Selfing doesn't seem to work on Sprekelia. Probably all are the same clone.
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Jamie - Well done. Have given up after several attemps trying to flower these. :P
Eric
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They flower best for me when left as alone as possible. Hot and dry serves them well in my climate.
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They flower best for me when left as alone as possible. Hot and dry serves them well in my climate.
Paul,
I think you have it right, there. I ignore them and let them dry in the late Summer, after having fed them during the growth cycle. My biggest problem is forgetting them outside when the frosts come!
Eric,
give 'em another go, if you can get some on sale, as they are very cheap in this part of Europe. I pick up lots of strange bulbs in Holland, often mislabeled and I have to guess at their growing conditions. Keeps one on their toes.
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They have no problems with our frosts (to -8'C) here, so at least some frost isn't a problem.
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They have no problems with our frosts (to -8'C) here, so at least some frost isn't a problem.
:o :o :o
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They just grow outside here. I take it by your reaction that they aren't supposed to tolerate the cold?
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I, for one, had no notion they might take that much frost, Paul! :o
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Well don't tell mine that then.... please! I've grown them for something like 20 years now. Never been a problem wherever I have grown them. I guess where they've been isn't usually out in the total open, so it isn't maximum cold, but then again I have also had them in pots which would have magnified the cold around the bulbs anyway. Either way, they grow and flower here without a problem. Or.... we have a strain here that has been conditioned over time to take the cold? I have enough to share if needed. 8)
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Likewise, Paul,
ours grow in the open garden but only started flowering when I moved them to where they get water over the summer.
They've survived at least -7oC here and are fully exposed to the elements.
cheers
fermi
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Paul,
When you grow them in the open ground, how deep do they sit and how deep does frost penetrate into your ground. I assume the frost comes when they are dormant.
Göte
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Bulbs sit at the surface with the neck pretty much exposed (that is how they naturally end up if you leave them to themselves). Can't recall when they go dormant, but will check and see what last week's -6'C did to the existing leaves.
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...but would they survive our wet and cold I wonder, I keep them in the greenhouse over the winter, where I forget about them, and invariably start them off far too late!
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A hybrid with an unknown Hippeastrum cultivar. This very 'worthy' plant I grew from seed many years ago, but it seldom flowers.
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I bought two bulbs of Sprekelia formosissima in November 2007 and so far haven't been able to get them to flower. Last year I had good leaf growth but no flowers and Luit advised me to let them dry them off after September under the greenhouse bench and to re-commence watering during March. This I did and again some good leaf growth (see pic) but no flowering stems at all. Now, our last two summers haven't been the best (and that's putting it mildly!) but I wonder if I'm wasting my time trying with these. Does anyone in UK succeed with them?
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Have you given them any food, David?
I am thinking, of course, of regular applications of sulphate of potash..... that staple of all plantlife in our household!!
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Yes I did Maggi, last year and this.
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Yes I did Maggi, last year and this.
Hmmmmmmmm....... well, on to the chips and chocolate then.........
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I saw a good potful in Scotland this summer
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Oh well, that's in the banana belt ;D
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David your Sprekelia does not bloom because too much small, since is easy to find in commerce, you had to take a bulb mature
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David,
If your bulb isn't even offsetting yet, I too would hazard that it is not large enough to flower. If you've had it two years and it was mature, then it should have produced offsets by now (they do so very freely here). I don't think that food is necessarily the key to this one.... the best clumps I've ever had for flowering were those that were the most neglected, once particular year I am thinking of it got no water at all in summer except rainfall, and it was beside a fence in full sun, so it wouldn't have got that much rain anyway, and hadn't been fed in any way in a number of years. LOTS of summer heat though.
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David,
I am from Denmark, but I don't think the climate is so different from UK.
Last spring I bought some Sprekelia formosissima. I placed them in the greenhouse and feed them with a little potassium sulphate. The first summer they flowered well with 2 flowers from each bulb.
As I didn't had any experience with these bulbs I consulted one of Else Als' books (she is a famous Danish bulb specialist) She wrote the bulbs should have a dry winter rest. If temperature is too low during winter the consequence will be little or no flowering the following summer. I followed that advice and from October to about April I kept them dry indoor at about 10 - 15 degrees. I started watering in late April and in the end of May I placed the pot outside. In June all of the bulbs flowered, but only one flower per bulb. Apparently they like to be outside. The foliage is short and very healthy and the bulbs have increased in size and there is several offsets.
This spring I bought a few more and placed them in a pot at my office. They flowered nice, and now they had gone to dormancy in contrast to the ones outside which have shown no signs of dormancy until now.
Poul
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Alessandro, the bulb I picured was indeed an offset from one or other of the original two bulbs I bought in November 2007, so perhaps it is yet too small to flower but the original bulbs have not flowered either.
Paul, apart from the offset mentioned above neither of the two more mature bulbs have produced another offset.
Poul, perhaps you have hit the nail on the head and my bulbs have been too cold during their dormant period. Last winter here was one of the coldest on record. This year I shall keep them indoors rather than in the greenhouse.
Thanks all for your help.
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David, I am lead to believe that both warmth and light are important during the rest period.... so on a warm windowsill rather than under the spare bed!
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Thanks Maggi, if I can get away with it the spare bedroom window sill should do a treat.
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David
Also my Sprekelia, has not turned out to be the maximum in blooming, has had less two degrees in greenhouse, however you heal, an other bulb that turns out to be a problem (Chlidanthus fragrans) in flower the first then null year and?
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David et al,
Mine are grown outside unprotected..... they get a lot colder than 2 degrees, believe me!! -6'C this winter, and we've been very mild this year.
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I come back to the same old thing Paul... but are your winters wet and cold like ours?
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They used to be wetter. We don't get the sheer volume of rain I think you guys do, but we did used to get rain or drizzle for days on end. The last few years the winter days have been beautiful.... cold frosty nights and clear sunny days. The last couple of winters we really haven't had extended bad rainy weather, which is of course one of the reasons why our dam levels are so poor. ::) But I don't think we ever got that cold set in constant wet like I think you guys get. But if you're growing in pots that shouldn't be as much of any issue I would imagine, particularly if you keep them cold but cover them from rain, like I imagine you would do with quite a few of the plants you grow?
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I grow my Sprekelias in the greenhouse because of the wet. On the last published figures the annual rainfall for my area is 945mm. Today has been fairly typical. Most of southern England, and perhaps as far as the southern parts of northern England, has had a warm and reasonably sunny day. Here the sky has been grey with a drizzle on and off all day and the temperature has struggled to get to 16C.
I shall try Maggi's idea of over wintering them in the house and if they refuse to flower next year the compost bin will threaten :(
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David ,
A nice plantfriend of me gave me following suggestion :
Move the Sprekelia in winter in the house - than let the bulb dry without any potting soil !!!
If they are in pots so they have to long a wet soil - the best is to do the bulbs in a net (the air can better circulate ) - than in february or march the bulbs fresh potting and bring it in the greenhouse .
I have like you the same problems with flowering this bulbs and I will also try this method in this fall -it sounds for me logical
Good luck
Hans
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That is well worth a try Hans, thank you.