Bulbmeister.COM - Discussions

kmirvin · Site Admin Joined: 01 May 2000 Posts: 101

Just a quick comment about my potted Crinums <note to self>...

I finally pulled them out of dark storage. My Crinum americanum had already put out 2 ½ feet of growth. Obviously very chlorotic. It has been in the shade house for a couple of days and seems to be adjusting.

robert · Guest

Bought my C. americanum about eight years ago from a local nursery. Paid $18.00 for it and it had 18 offsets. (lucky?) Upon repotting all offsets proved to be rotten at the base. Dreams dashed, It has spent the years til now as Dr. Traub recommended, in a large container sunken 1/3 in a tub of water....aquatical-ish (!) It has never bloomed but it is healthy with 2-3 mature side-bulbs. My interest in CRINUM abated somewhat though I acquired several other types -until I got this computer. One of the things I always felt bad about was that HERBERTIA was always having interesting articles about CRINUMS but there were rarely any pictures - except postage stamp sized 'in habitat'.

robert · Guest

If there's a CLIVIA forum - LOOK OUT !!!!!

robert · Guest

Now with this computer, I have binders loaded with photos of plants and closeups of the flowers... my new hobby....DOWNLOADING!!! Also it is gratifying to see plants that years ago were 'just found in the Andes' being finally up for sale.

kmirvin · Site Admin Joined: 01 May 2000 Posts: 101

Robert:

In "Genera Haven", one of the topic areas is Clivia, so please feel free to make all the comments and observations about your plants you want. These could be a real benefit to other Clivia enthusiasts when they visit Bulmeister.COM.

What do you think might have caused the basal rotting on the C. americanum bulb offsets? I wonder if they need a few days exposed to air to dry up the wound???

robert · Guest

The C. americanum I bought was very scroungy-looking. The ten-gallon pot was hidden away in the back of the nursery under CLIVIA MINIATA plants and the owner apologized for its condition, explaining it was included in an estate purchase of a landscape architect who had died. Since the only crinums I had at the time were LABELLED: Mooreii - X Powellii album and a wine-red NOT ELLEN BOUSANQUET - the child's-head sized bulb had been purchased at a SCHAS auction -and an unlabelled pretty with a long neck, short (for a crinum) leaves, which sports reddish buds which open with dark maroon tips into pure white flowers - all traces of color vanish after flower opens. I'd like to know which one this is. Last year I purchased from RUST-EN-VREDE in South Africa, a small bulb each of bulbispermum, macowanii and moorei pink.

The reason the offsets of americanum rotted? Couldn't say. All the bases were black and mushy - unrescue-able. The soil was solid riverbank muck - brick-hard when dry, I imagine. And altho that was probably how it was found (in Texas, maybe?) I cleaned up the bulb and put it in my personal mixture. All new plants are planted in SUPERSOIL and sand with occasional amendments particularly suited to the type of plant. And then I cross my fingers. On occasion I ROTHSCHILD the garden - that is to say I take a tour and look at each plant and if it has not done much in the time I've had it, I utter those famous words of Baron Rothschild: "BLOOM OR DIE !!!" - which he was wont to say of uncooperative plants even if he had paid $2,000.00 for the plant and/or $50,000.00 for the expedition he had financed to get it. It could be said that things like that mean that money CAN buy happiness - it just depends on what particular type of happiness one is talking about.

nestor · Member Joined: 15 May 2000 Posts: 13

C. americanum is a native crinum in the SE United States that grows in wet areas around rivers, swamps and lakes. What is commonly sold in the "trade" as C. americanum is quite often C. erubescens, a South American cousin. Americanum will only bloom if grown in water, immersed pots, or a pot with a saucer under it full of water. Erubescens will bloom in "normal" garden soil.
Currently, I grow about 125 different crinum and have many available for sale or trade, occasionally on Ebay.
Like with many plants, crinum can be hard to identify because of all of the manmade and natual hybrids that have been passed around for generations.

mjw1955 · New member Joined: 22 Feb 2003 Posts: 5

All 60 or so are coming back to life after a cold winter here in Zone 9. Lust green growth and lots of new off sets! I got a chance to dig some at an old estate that is now for sale. I can't wait to see what they look like. Some are species and others are hybreds. Some hybreds I have never heard of so I'll wait and see.....