Crinum Division.

I'll try to get a picture of "the boys" to post too. I'll take one of "the girls" (the round ones) as well, though they're smaller than they are in summer. I don't give any of them any water at all in winter. I keep the boys indoors. I don't know their hardiness and I'm sure at least one isn't hardy here. The girls do fine outdoors on the front porch. Go Girls!

Robert.

Here are some from this morning.

a small totem pole

a couple more, will take more tomorrow of the ones in better shape.

here are some that we had to pull out because there were two palm trees growing in them.. Now I have to replant..

Those girls are tough..
Here is a relatively new area, some Teddy bear Cholla, and Ocotillos..

Very nice pictures!

Beautiful blue agave in back of the San Pedros (?) you're moving, and the group shot (1st pic) is very nice.

That "Totem" is scary looking! Like a bad cactus dream .

The cactus in the center-left is the one that looks like the one I have, that I was wondering about.

I think if mine ever bloom, identification would be *much* easier. In general, (if such a generalization can be made) do columniar types flower at a certain age?

All of the xpoweliis are looking great. They've all turned some shade of rosy-pink to deep rosy red from the sun. Some of the emerging foliage is tinged with red too. Makes me long to see those colors in the blooms.

The C. scabrum are starting to grow a bit but not as quickly. They don't have as much root as the transplants. They're reddening on the bulb too.

I planted all of them high (as one does with Hippis) just "because". I've since topped a couple pots off a bit and some of them are so high I won't be able to (should I want to.) Do you think it will be bad for them to remain exposed like that for the season?

Do you grow any bananas? I have a couple. Rojo, Musella lasiocarpa, and one that is either basjoo or another lasiocarpa (I'm thinking it's Musa basjoo.)

Just a reminder: You *must* post some pix of your crinums when they bloom! ;-))))

Robert.
Ps I'll take a few pix tomorrow, if it isn't too dark or raining.

Here's a few pix of my cacti.

This is the whole gang.

Robert.

Antoinette~

Here's the one I think is like the one in your pic.

Robert.

This one has a nice blue cast to it.

Robert.

The Girls. In summer they mound way up above the pot rim.

Robert.

Good news. The two Crinum bulbs that had lost their basal plates are rooting and growing. Way to go, chil'ren!

Robert.

That is great news Robert! I have some special youngsters I left in the greenhouse over winter, I got them from Florida and were about finger thickness. They were lookin OK until late winter, now I'm holding my breath over a couple of them. One is Crinum x amabile or seedling of, a nice purple, it looked very well even after a lot of frosts but now I think it may be a goner. Should have brought them inside! I have some other lots I started from seed and they are OK. I have so much inside though! We can't get them here, very few crinum at all. I wonder if I should lift it and give it some TLC, but that can sometimes finish them off.

Antoinette do you have the agave americana variegata like mine? I have lots of pups on those if you wanted some later, it looks different to yours.

janet (who has spring warm and will be out gardening soon!)

Our spring was unseasonably warm for two weeks and now it;s unseasonably cold and gray! All my Crinums and Hippis and so on that I had outside have had to come in and are suffering from lack of light! O weather!

If I'm afraid of losing a plant, I always dig it and pot it and pet it. Hope you don't lose yours!

Robert.

This message was edited Mar 25, 2006 12:23 PM

From my post of March 2 (third entry down):

"I also dug up a clump of Agapanthus 'Queen Anne' that was in the wrong type soil. [snip]

It has always stayed very short (8") and has never bloomed in the 5 or more (I guess) years that I've had it. I got four very large bulbs and potted them up in Miracle-Gro soil [snip]

Well, I'm baffled. I never read much about Agapanthus and now that I have, I understand that they are rhizomatous and not bulbous. Can anyone confirm that NO Agas make bulbs?

So, what the heck are the four bulbs I dug up??????

I had two small clumps of what looked like the same thing. I thought both were Agapanthus. One clump has apparrently not made it through the winter or was eaten by voles. Anyway, I just don't have a clue as to what it is! It might be: some other Crinum, a Crinodonna/Amarcrinum, or Amaryllis belladonna.

I have it in the house but growth has been slow. The foliage has perked up and is longer now, but I don't think it's putting on new leaves.

The foliage is straplike and thin, just a scant half inch wide at the base, as is somewhat u-shaped along the length. I'll get a picture tomorrow.

I hope I can get it to bloom this year, I'm dying to know what it is!

Robert.

Robert my agapanthus are bulbous, some don't flower very easily, but I grew some mixed species from seed and 2 of them flowered within 2 years. I have A Purple Cloud in the greenhouse only flowered once with one stem, but it was great! it has grown several more bulbs so they poss needed to mature. They do like to be pot bound to encourage them to flower. Your leaves sound a bit thin but some are minis, I think the species ones were thin.

One of the species

Wallaby, I did read that they like to be pot bound. How big a pot do you think to start; 6"? Haven't a clue how big the ones I ordered will be.

Raydio,
If you ever wanna trade some of that crinum, please let me know.
Thanks!
Deb

I posted this pic under a different thread http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/586259/ , but will add here.

These are the bulbs In question and going on past purchases, these are prolly Amaryllis belladonna.

Robert.

beaker it will depend on how big your 'bulb' is. If it comes with roots you need to be able to fit them in. Choose a very deep pot rather than wide, but if the bulb is young it will still need to be potted on in order to have room to mature. I give my Purple Cloud the occasional tomato feed, but not strict about it! I grow them in my organic mix. I'm thinking of repotting it to give it a boost, it has been in the same pot for a few years, a deep plastic bucket that they use for cut flowers in the supermarket. I buy them cheap, as they don't return them.

The species are still quite small plants, just throwing up some new shoots, and in 4" pots, but I will pot them on so they can grow. They flowered with no real special treatment, just grew them in my magic mix.


Robert your bulbs have no hairy bits on them like mine, not sure but it could be because they have been underground. The small white ones I grew have a whitish 'leek' stem.

Robert,
Those are great pics.. I need to learn more of your lingo, don't know what a Hippis is. It's been raining here again...

Just found three tubs of A. belladonna (naked ladies)... which I need advise on. I also have some in the ground. The question I have is why have mine not bloomed, they've been in tubs these tubs (neglected of course).. which side of my home should I put them into the ground? Going to move all my bulbs closer to home this year if I find them all.

Love all you cactus pics.

The criniums are starting to grow here also. MAn, I must be going nuts, i ordered 800 crocus bulbs (pre-ordered for the fall) from the site up there that (vanengelen), they had an earlybird special. Now I have to plan where they will go.

This forum is too enabling. But, I think bulbs are getting into my blood.. now have to find some of those veltheimia bulbs.. do you have any of those.. they are neat looking. Hard to find though.

Will write more later.

Wallaby1, will check on the type of Agave I have there. I sure don't know the names on most of my stuff, but in the past two years am trying to keep a log of each plant so that at least I have some idea. Those baby medio pictas are looking good with these rains.


A.
A.

Great guns Gourd! You will have fun burying all those. Crocus are so much cheaper on your side, but you will enjoy them! I tried growing Veltheimia viridiflora from seed, 4 germinated late autumn and looked really good, then rotted They were in a propogator below an open vent, perhaps just difficult.. It is gorgeous, but not hardy here. Could be OK in a greenhouse though, now I must look for some ready grown! We are getting showers off and on with sun, great for growing.

Gourd~

Sorry to have confused you. Hippi is short for Hippiastrum, what is commonly called an 'Amaryllis' .

Robert.

I think what makes A. belladonna is that it has to dry off completely when it rests in the summer. I have kept them watered, not knowing they should be deprived and they never lost all the foliage. They just didn't grow at all. AFAIK, they should lose all foliage as they rest.

Being well-established or pot-bound is said to help.

Haven't tried Veltheima but I've been tempted. Would like to try the purple-foliaged Eucomis.

Enabling. plant -lovers will always do that! This list can make you buy, buy, buy just reading and looking at the pix!

After all the Crinum talk, I ordered a C.x powelii alba, and (another?) Amarcrinum just to be sure also got an H. x johnsonii "St. Joseph's Lily".

Robert.

Okay, I'm learning alot here, I figured out what a basal plate is and may have some bulbs growing from one large basal plate, will take photos later on. Don't remember which bulb it is, but it certainly did multiply, it is in a one gallon pot for now. May dig it out to take a photo. Should I take them off the basal plate and replant them? They look like they have no roots at all.

A.

Generally you should have a little piece of basal plate with a bulb for it to successfully root. If you move Crinums I think they can take a while to settle down.

Robert I love H. x johnsonii! I got a hardy Hippi last year, 'san Antonio Rose'. Very limited here, T&M were offering a similar mix of colours.

http://www.cgf.net/mail.php?letter=H

Oh wow, I've seen a picture (not a very good one-colors a bit too staurated) of 'San Antonio Rose' and it's an unusual beauty. The form is a bit like striatum. You're lucky to find it!

Was T&M offering seed or bulbs? They only ship seed to the US. :-(

Plant Delights has it, but the bloom looks different from the Broadleigh specimen.

http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/03490.html

Looking at the four bulbs I dug, I noticed a bit of rosy-red coloration on one of them, near the neck, maybe from a bit of sun, but that indicates to me that it is likely a rose-red flowering bulb, so that goes toward it being A. belladonna more than Amarcrinum. But the plant is evergreen, so that make it more like Amarcrinum. I'm going with Amarcrinum because of that.

Robert.

This message was edited Apr 3, 2006 1:48 AM

T&M were offering bare root bulbs, but they were one of these mixed colours photos, pale oranges etc, I haven't seen them lately. They keep sending me all the catalogues but I haven't bought much from them lately, their plants are not always that well grown.

The Cotswold Garden Flowers (not Broadleigh) specimen does look very different to Plant Delights, I wouldn't think they were the same plant. cgf does trial all their plants before they sell them, and they do grow their own, not sure if this one was bought in as a bulb then grown on, but it was in a pot so I would expect to get one like their pic. It wasn't huge but has started to grow a couple of offsets, and there has been a bit of green leaf stuck out all winter. It might be a while before I get flowers. Their pic does look realistic.

I rescued a clump of Crinum (unknown variety) from a vacant lot today. One big bulb and four others, med to small. They have been uncared for since last year and due to the drought we've been having, the roots were a bit dried out, though the foliage looked ok. The soil around them was very sandy and was bone dry. I potted them up and will plant them out in the fall.

Robert.

Fancy finding crinum like that! They are like gold dust here, although an ebay seller has just put some different ones on at reasonable prices, he's into the unusual and now offering some Sth African bulbs..

My purple leaved crinum and 3 others are total mush, oh well live and learn once again! 2 are fine and starting to grow, Ellen Bosanquet and Submersum. I also managed to get a mature C amoenum cheap last year, it hardly grew but is alive and looks like it will burst into life soon, they need time to establish. Also potted up a large C powelli I got for £2 from my local. I had got some seed of C asiaticum from ebay, a Floridian, they are not doing much at all, only one may grow now but it looks like it has rust. Have pink asiaticum also not too bad, 1 out of 3, also slightly rusty looking from same seller. Do they get rust from seed? I don't want it to travel to the others.

The other seed I begged an ebay seller to send me as he didn't normally send overseas, got loads of C bulbispermum, macowanii, 3 each of C bulb. Spotty (kept inside) and either stuhlmanii or polyphyllum, they look like polyp. but he thought they were stuhlmanii which I love, was uncertain about ID though as a little pale. They have all overwintered in the cold greenhouse and most are growing, didn't actually completely die back! They were only started last year fairly late. He has around 200 varieties! Many crosses I think, filled his yard up, but they are healthy.

I also have about 12 of an unknow species from Dash of mainly Amaryllids in Australia, from seed and they are growing again but I kept them inside, and 4 C lugardiae dwarf. So even though I lost 4 (grumbling over the purple!) I have quite a few!

Sorry about the purple-leaved Crinum--they are gorgeous without flowers!

Who was the seller of the Crinum seed? I might go shopping.......for some asiaticum and bulbispermum, etc.

Don't know about rust on seedlings, but if it was growing on the seedcoat, it would take the plant too.

Crinum is pretty plentiful in the deep south US.They're passed along right and left. Many old, old homesteads have them--they were once 8very* popular. They go in the yard without any protection and grow year-round.

They're not terribly common here where I live, but they're around. I think a lot of people don't want them (or get rid of them) because they grow into such space-hogging clumps. There's one business I pass by occasionally that has a *huge* clump of white Crinum and it really is too big for the space now. I might just go offer to divide it for them in return for the extras....but what a chore it is to dig up a nice stand of them. Whew! Especially in the heat and humidity which has already arrived here.

Robert.

Got all the Crinum x powelii planted out along with the 5 rescued bulbs of unknown type (I'm thinking it's gonna be white, but that's just a thought based on the look of the foliage).

Also planted a C.x powellii 'album' I got from Brent and Becky's. Can't wait for them to get growing again!

Robert.

Well done! My C x powellii is pushing up leaves now, but it's in a pot in the greenhouse, Ellen Bosenquet and Submersum have a few inches of growth now, it looks like they will be hardy! Very few people grow crinum here, perhaps they will become more popular but the cooler weather here hardiness issues and unpredictability of performance possibly makes it one the suppliers don't want to bother with. I am also excited at the prospect of success, but may have to wait some time for flowers on most of them.

janet

Here's a picture of the re-planted Crinum.

Gee they look healthy! Surprising how you are a colder zone but get that daytime heat that is mostly elusive here........

Oh, we have plenty of heat and humidity here and the sun is pretty strong in summer. You don't want to be outdoors in August. Not really. ;-)

Robert.

Oh I'm so happy!

Two scapes on a transplanted powellii are in the works! And it's not even the largest bulb.

Oh it looks a good'un! Looks big to me, mine is growing but not that big!

It's coming on fast. Here's a pic of it today. Amazing what 24 hours will do!

Robert.

Beauty continues.