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Great haul PeterS!

Here were my Gloriosa tubers last spring..................


................and this is them last September when the pot got smashed.


I always just lay them horizontally and they do well enough.

The Pleiones should produce lots of offsets too.

 

That's an amazing rate of increase - because they are great fat tubers.

I understand that you can seperate them at the top into individual tubers.

 

Correct.

 

Dunno what length then are? but the one I got from Anglian Bulbs is about 3/4 the length of a standard sized seed tray

 

If it is not properly rooted in the pot I would leave it in the pot until it is. I put a bamboo (only as high as the "trunk") against mine, and tied it securely to the bamboo, so it would not wiggle about.

Don't forget to water the top, as well as the pot - I don't think you can over water the top ... I only use rain water on mine as we have hard water and they prefer an acid soil, and my tap water isn't :(

Conventional advice for the Winter is to stuff a ball made of fleece into the crown which keeps the water off, and the cold out. I have kept my, new, small ones in the unheated conservatory (in pots) their first Winter to give them more time to acclimatise outside for the whole of their first season (I bought them in the Autumns sales and thus I assumed that they might have only just arrived from a warmer climate ...)

New fronds will be damaged by a late frost, so suggest at the least you keep yours under cover until, say, end of May this first season - just in case of late frost - or be ready with some Fleece, or if they are in pots you can just put the in the garage, utility room or similar on cold nights.

 

cheers Kristen, much appreciated!!

 

Here are my new purchases bought in the last couple of weeks, quite pleased with myself they're planted already , usually hang around in pots for ages till I decide where to plant
Phormium 'Moonraker', lost 6 of my phormiums in that cold winter and I really miss them in the borders so this is the first replacement, fingers crossed for no more bad winters for a while.

Euphorbia Characias 'Black Pearl' had to have it didn't I

Erodium Pelargoniflorum

 

I bought a couple of Musa Mekong Giant at the weekend ... hopefully they'll live up to their name and also be as hardy as Basjoo. The leaves so far (they are only nippers) look a bit narrow, like Basjoo, which I find disappointingly slim, but Mekon Giant is a Sikkimensis I think, and my other Sikkimensis (a plain Hookeriana and a Dai Gaint from memory) have proper canoe-paddling leaves

 

I bought this the other day, have quite a few gaps to fill from shrubs that died the winter before last.
Sambucus Nigra 'Madonna'

 

Hi Pete
The Amorphophallus is amazing deff on the wish list who sells this?
I have grown Sandersonia (chinese bells) ? I was told about 4 times hard to get hold of the bulbs and you need at least 4 in a pot to get a good show mine only lasted two years each time , and the tubers would never bulk up I grew these late 80's 1st seen them in flower display in a hotel and I asked the lady what they were , and managed to buy some from a duch bulb supplier I tried in multi then a mix of John innes but still the same outcome , would love to know the secret of how to grow these properley

Spruce

 

Hi Spruce.

I got my bulbs from www.livingcolourbulbs.com . Their site is not helpful, it doesn't seem to work. So I logged in with name address and e-mail (which I don't like doing) because their brochure said the site had a fuller list of bulbs. Having registered the site still didn't list any bulbs. However I suspect that if you register you can order a brochure, which does list Amorphophallus, Sandersonia etc, and a lot of other unusual stuff.

I understand Sandersonia needs a lot of heat and is similar to Gloriosa in its requirements.

 

I have just had a look on the site again and no joy - but there is one part that does work OK and that is the section on how to care for them.

 

There was a plant sale at one of the local village halls this morning and I picked up this Streptocarpus (?) for 50p!!





Also got an Allium bulgaricum for 50p too.

 

Good bargain LongK. I think Streptocarpus are really beautiful, and long flowering too - which I like. But I have always resisted having more plants inside the house. However, when I was at the local flowershow, a week ago, there was a stand manned by the British Streptocarpus society. I always like chatting to these sort of guys - there is so much to learn. The long and the short was that I bought a packet of their mixed seeds. The seeds are tiny, but he showed me a pot sown with one of their packets - and there must have been 200 tiny seedlings. Not bad for £2.

 

Sure beats a tenner in the nurseries!
If they're anything like the Alsobia seeds they will be tiny. Where would you store 200 Streps!!