Should I bother to save seeds of South African bulbs for trading? They would be from things like chasmanthe, freesia, sparaxis, and ixia. They self sow where I live but I've heard that they can be very difficult to grow in other climates. I don't want to send people seeds that are going to disappoint them.
Should I Bother?
I have grow freesia and sparaxis here with no problems.
Kelli, my experience with Freesia is that you obtain flowers the first year from seed. The bad thing is that if the seeds proceed from a hybrid, they will revert to the parental (which is not bad either). However, the bulbils my hybrid Freesias produce an mass come true. I love them: I love the colour they bring at the end of winter and the scent full of spring promises! Since I do not love the messy plants after flowering, I plant them in containers that can be placed in a discrete location for photosynthesis.
Ursula
By any chance, it the form the freesias revert back to they yellow color? I have more yellow freesias than anything else and a good many pink. The blue, purple, and white don't seem to increase much.
Hi Kelli!
I have two types Freesias: the gold-yellow ones and the coloured (includes purple, reddish, violet, creamish yellow, orangish etc.) with a bit bigger flowers. The coloured ones do not produce seeds at all and are the less fragrant ones (however, still lovely scented). The seeds the gold-yellow ones produce revert to the old-fashioned whitish Freesia with some yellow inside and a bit dusty purple outside. These are the most fragrant ones.
However, all my Freesias reproduce very happily their corms because I take them out of the container after all foliage has dried out, remove the skin, check them carefully and discard damaged or rotten corms, clean them and with a very clean and sharp knife remove the rest of dry roots and a bit of the corm itself (the way you cut out a sprout on a potato before cooking). After soaking them in fungicide (Captan or similar), I store them in a paparbag in a dry/fresh place.
In Fall I replant them in containers. In summer, when you repeat the above procedure, you will not believe how many new corms the Freesias have produced and they all come true to their parental plant.
If I did not explain it clearly enough, please feel free to ask me to clarify any point.
Greetings and sushine from Chile,
Ursula
My freesias produce seeds but I never paid attention if it is just certain colors that produce seeds. Plants will come up in all sorts of strange places, like in gaps in the sidewalk, so I'm sure that some of the seeds are growing. I've never had any revert back to the yellow inside and purple outside that you describe. That is interesting. The ones I have, especially the yellow ones, do produce a lot of corms. Sometimes I will dig up a parent corm that is as big as a walnut. That is huge compared to what is sold in the U.S. I usually leave my bulbs in the ground unless I am wanting to move them or thin them out. I assume that what I have are some sort of hybrids but I don't know where they were bred. Maybe the freesias sold in the U.S. and the ones sold in Chile have different ancestry?
This is the only picture of freesias I have. This is a typical pink one.
Beautiful picture!
Kelli, the Freesias of your picture are the ones I describe as the coloured ones. These do not produce seeds for me.
Today I realized there are a few seeds I forgot to remove from my gold-yellow freesias (I did not mean to keep any). If you want to, you can have them when ripe. I could also send you a few corms of the "old-fashioned" very fragrant Freesia if you want to try them. You would have to wait to some six to 8 weeks befor I can collect them. Let me know.
Ursula
Kelli, I would like to have some of your Chastmantle, freesia, sparaxis and ixia seed/bulbs. Let me know what you would like for them. Thanks
Ursula, I would like to try the seeds but it is probably best to not send the bulbs.
Busybee, I don't have any South African seeds ready yet, in fact the flowers haven't even bloomed yet, but keep an eye on my seed trade list starting in late spring.
You are mostly welcome, Kelli. E-mail me your address privately.