I am forcing a few alpines for a hort. trade show that will be taking place in 2 weeks. My Soldanella alpina wasted no time blooming once it was exposed to a little hear. I'll have to put it back out in the cold frame to slow it down!
Soldanella alpina
A front-on view.
What a beauty!
Care to elaborate on your forcing schedule? I have forced things for our March chapter NARGS banquet before. Although I usually do quite well, additional information is always helpful.
Rick
No schedule as such..mostly hit and miss. I brought them into heat about 3 weeks ago. I just brought some Draba in yesterday...hoping they will be open in the next 2 weeks. They were in bud outside so it should not take too long.
Todd - those photographs are just perfect as is the Soldanella alpina.
I have not tried forcing alpines. Do you need intense light to get them
to bloom? Or just heat and fluorescents?
Tam
I just put them in a greenhouse under normal light levels and temp about 60 F
Baa
Apr 20, 2006
Soldanella are hit and miss for flowering here recently, the winters have been too warm and often too wet which finally put paid to the few I had in a pot. Typical, since this winter just gone was cold and dry enough for them to have given us a show!
Still nice to see someone else is growing these little treasures.
Baa, they are hit or miss outside here as well. I find they do better when grown in pots kept overwinter in a cold frame that keeps out the excess wet. However, this winter at last I have one outside (S. montana) that looks good and appears to be just starting to produce buds.
Baa
Apr 20, 2006
We used to bring them into the (cold) greenhouse but there is a tendancy for the humidity to rise even further if heavy rains are followed by a a warm sunny spell. We had S. alpina, minima, villosa, carpatica & carpatica Alba, the one which survived the longest was S. minima but we did have a reasonable show of pretty leaves for a few years *G*.
I've not given up yet, I'm just rethinking my culture methods!
I've just remembered I did take a photo of one of them flowering a few years ago.
Very nice...I've never seen a white flowered form...must see if I can find one. I've had S. montana, alpina, hungarica and villosa. Lost villosa...other three just hanging on.
That is a beauty Todd and good luck at the show. That front of view is a peach! I have soldanella pindicola and it is rampant - I've had to confine it to a pot!
My Soldanella hungarica was the first to bloom. The others are nowhere near ready yet. I posted a photo of it already in another thread, but here's how it's progressing. Oddly enough, this is the only one I didn't protect from the rain, and you probably know that Northern California had five times as much rain as Seattle this winter and spring. I expected everything in this trough to turn to mush, but it all survived.
