Sunday, June 20, 2010

H. Siren, Stanwick, and NOID


I kept a few bulbs chilled in our fridge over the winter months figuring that I could have extended bloomed later on during the gap between Winter and Spring, or when Spring has an identity crisis and acts like Winter, which it so often does here in Colorado. But then I moved and the bulbs had no chilling and suddenly came to life. So I ended up potting them in semi-hydro and letting them grow happily in the new sunroom. One of those bulbs is Siren-- a double flower that is both red and white, witch a lot of shading and speckling in between. She gave me two scapes this year. The first was the typical four per scape. Here is the first round of flowers.


The blooms are beautiful but it was the second scape the surprised me most about this particular bulb. I hope it always does this...




I counted and got 8 full blooms on the second scape. Saweet!!!!!!

Around the same time as Siren's blooming I was lucky to have two others blooming as well. The first is Stanwick, which is an Australian hybrid. This is the first bulb I've ever grown hydroponically and is the second bloom for this particular bulb. I did run into a bit of a problem with this one, though. Its roots turned black while in the hydro. At first I thought maybe the plant lived its useful life in hydro and that the environment simply went toxic or something to that effect. But it is my belief that the roots just got too hot, as not all of them died. I repotted the bulb and hopefully its root system is rebounding now.


And finally, we have a NOID. It was supposed to be Rembrandt von Rijn but looks to me more like a dirty Picotee. It is really nice looking anyway, so it'll just in my collection as Picotee.
































I apologize for the terrible pics-- they were taken on my cell phone and due to the ease of uploading from the phone, that has been the choice method lately, as time just isn't available for more!