A reader has sent me a batch of Clivia seeds, more than I can realistically grow out.1 She also provided instructions for their germination that got me 91% germination, and 88% post-transplant survival.2 If you're in the U.S. and have always wanted to try growing Clivias from seed, this is your chance to try it out.
How many seeds you get will depend on how many other people want them (and how many you want to get). If a lot of people are interested, I may have to ask you to cover the cost of postage, but if it's just 1 or 2 readers wanting them, I don't mind mailing them out for free.
Contact me by e-mail (mrsubjunactive@outalook.com, minus the two a's) if interested to get the addresses / quantities / money straightened out. I don't know how long they'll remain viable, and I was hoping to mail them out on Monday or Tuesday (1 or 2 May), so sooner is better than later.
Also if you have cats, you may want to pass. Clivia are toxic to cats. It sounds like fatalities are rare, but I wouldn't be comfortable taking the risk, personally. Clivia are also toxic to dogs, though I didn't find out how toxic until, like, today, and since Sheba's never shown any interest in the Clivias I assume she's not going to suddenly develop any. Decide for yourself how much of a gamble you want to take, but I figured I should say something.
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2 About half of the first batch, as of 22 April (sown 7 February, so they're about 10 weeks old in the photo):
You were probably expecting to see the germination instructions down here. Sorry. I'll try to get a blog post up about this soonish.
Showing posts with label selling and trading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label selling and trading. Show all posts
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Clivia seeds available
1 Because I got a big batch of seeds in February already. I'm good for Clivias for the foreseeable future.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Schlumbergera seedling no. 200
Surprise!
And this one really was a surprise. Started budding in June, and the flower had fully opened by 21 June. This is very unusual for a Schlumbergera, which need long nights and cool temperatures in order to set buds, but seedling 200 had been living in the basement. The temperature drop requirement was likely met, because in the basement, summer is the cool season.
Night length is harder to figure out, since all the lights down there are on timers. The individual timers are set for around 12 hours a day, I think, but they're staggered, such that there's at least one group of lights1 on down there at any given moment for about 17 hours per day.2 Which should prevent blooming Schlumbergeras, but apparently doesn't. Seedling 200 was in the center of a flat, and had another, taller flat between itself and its primary light source, so my guess is that it effectively only got light from one set of lights, which happened to give it long enough nights for setting buds.
But who knows. I mean, sometimes plants just do unexpected things and there's no explaining it.
In any case. So I have to name one last seedling from the 2015-16 season.
To replace the TinEye naming process, which worked reasonably well for quite a while, but stopped generating new ideas about halfway into the 2015-16 season, I've come up with a big list of words, and then I throw those words randomly together in MS Excel to see whether anything interesting emerges. I did a test run of this in the post for 092A Sparky, and although I didn't wind up using one of those names for that seedling, I felt like it still worked pretty well. So, I've generated something like 150,000 combinations, which I pick through during dull moments to see if anything interesting jumps out at me, and I've been saving the plausible names in a different list. So, from that list of names, the previous list of emergency names, and the list of previously considered but unused names, all thrown together, I got a long list of 30 possibilities, which I reduced to a short list of 8.
They are:
Breakin' The Law, which has been previously considered a number of times, but became more applicable when I had a seedling bloom in June.
Renegade, basically the same thing but about half as long to type.
Vamos A La Playa, Spanish for "let's go to the beach." Partly because I like the Los Lobos song "La Playa" --
-- and partly because going to the beach is seasonally appropriate in June.
14th Anniversary, because as long as we're talking about the timing of things, the husband and I just had ours3 at the end of August.
Clyde, for the orange Pac-Man ghost, previously considered for 058B Buff Orpington.
Sun and Snow, which I like because this one has a lot more white in it than most of the orange blooms have had, but also maybe works for a seedling that can bloom in summer and winter. Not that I'm guaranteed blooms in June ever again, of course. And come to think of it, it might never bloom this white again either.
Miss Emma is one of those semi-opaque personally significant names.4 You'll have to trust me that it works for the person it's intended to reference.
The Darb is 1920s hipster slang for a person or thing that is excellent / valuable / attractive / etc.
How to narrow it down? Well, I suppose we can skip 14th Anniversary, because the traditional 14th-anniversary gift is ivory. Not sure that many people know this or try to follow that tradition, but a 14th-anniversary Schlumbergera really ought to be white.
And I do really like this seedling, so The Darb seems appropriate, but there will be other pretty seedlings that don't have the unusual timing going for them, so maybe we'll skip that. Miss Emma and Clyde have the same problem: the names are appropriate for an orange/white seedling, but I'm pretty sure there will be others.
Renegade reminds me of that Lorenzo Lamas show. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, but Breakin' The Law has the same basic meaning and doesn't come with Lorenzo Lamas (now Lorenzo Lamas-Craig5) baggage, so I can drop Renegade without losing anything.
So that leaves us with Breakin' The Law, Vamos A La Playa, and Sun and Snow. Vamos A La Playa is longer to say (six syllables, to Breakin' The Law's four), and however appropriate the colors might be for Sun and Snow, I've wanted a Breakin' The Law for a long time now,6 plus it satisfies my long-standing desire to have a Beavis and Butthead-related name, so seedling 200A is going to be Breakin' The Law.
The Anthuriums have the blog booked up through mid-October, so there's no telling when the next Schlumbergera post might appear, but this might be the year we start seeing blooms from parents other than 'Caribbean Dancer.' So perhaps the ongoing nightmare of orangeness will end.7
As a side note, I've been trying to figure out how many seedlings to pot up from each of the many batches of seeds I've started, because if I've learned anything from the 'Caribbean Dancer' seedlings, it's that there's a point of diminishing returns, where potting up additional seedlings from the same batch winds up giving you more of the same thing.8 In an effort to have a reasonable guess as to where that diminishing-returns line is, I wound up in unfamiliar mathematical territory and wound up having to ask MetaFilter for help. I'm making all kinds of assumptions -- genetic, aesthetic, mathematical -- and some of them are almost certainly not valid assumptions to be making, but, if I assume that all the seedlings from the first 114 pots are from the same 'Caribbean Dancer' x NOID peach cross, and that this resulted in 13 distinct categories of seedling colors,9 and that every subsequent batch of seedlings will be exactly as variable and in the same proportions, I wind up with this:
If I want ____ unique colorations, I have to pot up _____ seedlings
1; 1Based on the amount of space I have, and that math, I'm planning on trying to do 16 seedlings from each group. That works out to a nice even half-flat per cross, and ought to give me eight distinct colors. Two seedlings per new color combination (on average) doesn't seem like an unreasonable effort-to-reward ratio, and sixteen seedlings is still enough to reveal how far off my assumptions actually are. I'll have to be pretty selective, still, about which fruits I harvest seeds from, but . . . it's a place to start. And in 2019, I'll be able to tell you how that worked out for me, I guess.
2; 2
3; 3 or 4
4; 5 or 6
5; 7 or 8
6; 9 to 11
7; 12 to 14
8; 15 to 18
9; 19 to 23
10; 24 to 29
11; 30 to 38
12; 39 to 55
13; 56+
Also: I said earlier this year that I was going to be starting cuttings from various seedlings and maybe offering them for sale later. This is technically true, in that I did start cuttings of some of them, and if you want to buy any, I'll let you, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of offering them, and it's late enough in the year that the mailing window is pretty short. So your reward for making it to the end of the post is that you get to find this out. Prices are as previously: one plant (usually but not always three rooted cuttings in a 2" x 2" pot10) for $7, two for $11, four for $22, six for $33, odd numbers discouraged but allowable.
E-mail me to find out which plants are available and make arrangements to receive them.11 Continental U.S. only, first come first serve, limited numbers available, if you have questions then ask, etc.
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1 I have multiple shop lights plugged into surge suppressors, and the surge suppressors are on timers, so about 5 shop lights go on and off as a unit. I think there are seven timers. Yes, it's a lot of electricity.
I'm switching to LEDs now: the fixtures are supposed to be more water-resistant, which is good; they're supposed to produce way less heat, which is better (I get burn marks on the Anthurium leaves sometimes, if the leaves flop their way onto a fluorescent bulb and I don't notice.); they should last longer; and they're supposed to produce a little more light per fixture, with about half the electricity usage. It all sounds a little too good to be true, but I still going to give it a try.
2 This is not primarily for the benefit of the plants; I have it set up that way because the overhead lights alone aren't bright enough to do anything with, so if I want to do anything in the basement, I need at least one of the lights to be on so I can see. Since I get up at different times of day, and water in the basement mostly late, it's necessary for at least one light to be on at any given moment between about 7 AM and midnight.
3 Well, one of them. We have multiple significant dates we call anniversaries, the least important of which is the date of our actual legal marriage. August's is the day we met.
4 (Like 023A Stoked, 075A Pushover, 082A Strawberry Madeleine, 095A Perturbed, and 0217A Blood Frenzy.)
5 Who, according to Wikipedia, changed his last name to the hyphenated "Lamas-Craig" because his fourth (!) wife, Shauna Sand, changed her name to Shauna Lamas when they married and didn't change it back after they divorced; his fifth (!!) wife was Shawna, with a W, and Shawna didn't want to have basically the same name as Shauna. Which sounds kind of silly, one of those "only in Hollywood" sorts of problems, but when you think about it, it's probably more practical than anything. The last thing you want during a conversation about your ex-wife is to keep getting her confused with your current wife, and a hyphenated name is a lot more dignified than referring to them as "Shauna Four" and "Shawna Five."
One hopes that Shawna Lamas-Craig has the sense to keep him away from any other Shaunas, though, as the dude is clearly zeroing in on a type.
6 (It first came up as an option for 083A Psychedelic Bunny, back in January 2015.)
7 Hopefully not the only ongoing orange nightmare to end in November, if you know what I mean.
8 Not that I'm particularly unhappy about having so many from the first batch; if potting up ~150 seedlings was what it took to get a 083A Psychedelic Bunny, then it was worth it. But I can't pot up 150 seedlings every time I make a cross.
9 • Orange/white, like 015A Nielub (22/75 = 29%)
• Orange/pink, like 034A Wahine (15/75 = 20%)
• Red-orange/pink, like 028A Phil Collen (7/75 = 9%)
• "Other" seedlings, that are difficult to fit into a category because they're variable, multi-colored, or change color as the flower matures, like 099A Dessert Room (5/75 = 7%)
• Orange-red/pink, like 055B Fort Venus (5/75 = 7%)
• Red-orange/white, like 008B Candor (4/75 = 5%)
• Red & orange & white, like 079A Yayoi Kusama (3/75 = 4%)
• Peach/white, like 024B Bryce Canyon (3/75 = 4%)
• Orange/magenta, like 088A Cyborg Unicorn (3/75 = 4%)
• Red/pink, like 078A Art Party (3/75 = 4%)
• Pinkish-orange/whatever, like 057A Pyrotechnic (2/75 = 3%)
• Dark orange/white, like 023A Stoked (2/75 = 3%)
• 083A Psychedelic Bunny (1/75 = 1%)
And yes, just to say it again: I recognize that separating, say, red-orange/pink from orange-red/pink is questionable. I was basing the different categories mostly according to whether or not I could identify them on sight alone. If I can't tell the difference between two seedlings without a name tag, then they belong in the same color group. And I can tell the orange-reds apart from the red-oranges. So.
There's also little reason to assume that just because I can split this group of seedlings into 13 types, subsequent batches of seedlings will also be splittable into 13 types. I don't even know for sure that these are all from the same cross in the first place (I'm especially doubtful about the red/pinks.). But I had to start from somewhere in order to be able to ask the question at all.
10 (In a couple cases, I didn't have three cuttings to put into the pot, or I started out with three and one of them died.)
11 To save you the trouble: no, 083A Psychedelic Bunny is still not available. I propagated it, but this was for insurance, in case anything happened to the original plant.
I'm switching to LEDs now: the fixtures are supposed to be more water-resistant, which is good; they're supposed to produce way less heat, which is better (I get burn marks on the Anthurium leaves sometimes, if the leaves flop their way onto a fluorescent bulb and I don't notice.); they should last longer; and they're supposed to produce a little more light per fixture, with about half the electricity usage. It all sounds a little too good to be true, but I still going to give it a try.
2 This is not primarily for the benefit of the plants; I have it set up that way because the overhead lights alone aren't bright enough to do anything with, so if I want to do anything in the basement, I need at least one of the lights to be on so I can see. Since I get up at different times of day, and water in the basement mostly late, it's necessary for at least one light to be on at any given moment between about 7 AM and midnight.
3 Well, one of them. We have multiple significant dates we call anniversaries, the least important of which is the date of our actual legal marriage. August's is the day we met.
4 (Like 023A Stoked, 075A Pushover, 082A Strawberry Madeleine, 095A Perturbed, and 0217A Blood Frenzy.)
5 Who, according to Wikipedia, changed his last name to the hyphenated "Lamas-Craig" because his fourth (!) wife, Shauna Sand, changed her name to Shauna Lamas when they married and didn't change it back after they divorced; his fifth (!!) wife was Shawna, with a W, and Shawna didn't want to have basically the same name as Shauna. Which sounds kind of silly, one of those "only in Hollywood" sorts of problems, but when you think about it, it's probably more practical than anything. The last thing you want during a conversation about your ex-wife is to keep getting her confused with your current wife, and a hyphenated name is a lot more dignified than referring to them as "Shauna Four" and "Shawna Five."
One hopes that Shawna Lamas-Craig has the sense to keep him away from any other Shaunas, though, as the dude is clearly zeroing in on a type.
6 (It first came up as an option for 083A Psychedelic Bunny, back in January 2015.)
7 Hopefully not the only ongoing orange nightmare to end in November, if you know what I mean.
8 Not that I'm particularly unhappy about having so many from the first batch; if potting up ~150 seedlings was what it took to get a 083A Psychedelic Bunny, then it was worth it. But I can't pot up 150 seedlings every time I make a cross.
9 • Orange/white, like 015A Nielub (22/75 = 29%)
• Orange/pink, like 034A Wahine (15/75 = 20%)
• Red-orange/pink, like 028A Phil Collen (7/75 = 9%)
• "Other" seedlings, that are difficult to fit into a category because they're variable, multi-colored, or change color as the flower matures, like 099A Dessert Room (5/75 = 7%)
• Orange-red/pink, like 055B Fort Venus (5/75 = 7%)
• Red-orange/white, like 008B Candor (4/75 = 5%)
• Red & orange & white, like 079A Yayoi Kusama (3/75 = 4%)
• Peach/white, like 024B Bryce Canyon (3/75 = 4%)
• Orange/magenta, like 088A Cyborg Unicorn (3/75 = 4%)
• Red/pink, like 078A Art Party (3/75 = 4%)
• Pinkish-orange/whatever, like 057A Pyrotechnic (2/75 = 3%)
• Dark orange/white, like 023A Stoked (2/75 = 3%)
• 083A Psychedelic Bunny (1/75 = 1%)
And yes, just to say it again: I recognize that separating, say, red-orange/pink from orange-red/pink is questionable. I was basing the different categories mostly according to whether or not I could identify them on sight alone. If I can't tell the difference between two seedlings without a name tag, then they belong in the same color group. And I can tell the orange-reds apart from the red-oranges. So.
There's also little reason to assume that just because I can split this group of seedlings into 13 types, subsequent batches of seedlings will also be splittable into 13 types. I don't even know for sure that these are all from the same cross in the first place (I'm especially doubtful about the red/pinks.). But I had to start from somewhere in order to be able to ask the question at all.
10 (In a couple cases, I didn't have three cuttings to put into the pot, or I started out with three and one of them died.)
11 To save you the trouble: no, 083A Psychedelic Bunny is still not available. I propagated it, but this was for insurance, in case anything happened to the original plant.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Schlumbergera time again
After the first round of selling Schlumbergera seedling cuttings in May, I took another batch of cuttings, and they're ready to go now. So if you passed up that opportunity to buy some, here's a second chance. Prices are the same as the first round: one plant for $7, two plants for $11. If you want more than two, I'm allowing that this time around, but I strongly prefer it if you select an even number of plants to purchase.1 They'll be shipped as boxes containing two plants each, so four would be $22, six would be $33, etc. Those prices include shipping.
The previous disclaimers apply:
• they're mostly three cuttings, stuck in a square pot 2 inches on a side.
• U.S. only.
• you have to let me know which ones you're interested in well before buying them, because quantities are limited and there will probably be conflicts. E-mailing gets you dibs on a given seedling, but neither of us is obligated to do anything until money has been exchanged.
• Though I have tried my best, I cannot guarantee that bloom color, frequency, etc. will be the same for you in your home as they are for me in mine. Mutations happen, cuttings get mixed up, plants grow differently in different environments, etc.
• Rooted plants only; I won't send unrooted cuttings.2
• I still haven't seen scale or thrips on any of the Schlumbergeras in the house, ever, and consequently think that they're unlikely to transmit bug infestations to your other plants, but it is still hypothetically possible and you should be prepared to take appropriate precautions, like quarantining them, spraying them with a pesticide, or washing them in soapy water, on arrival.
A couple seedlings that weren't available in April/May are available now, most notably 055B "Fort Venus" and 082A "Strawberry Madeleine." Here's the full list as of 14 July 2015:
2.png)
Colors (petals / tube): orange / light pink; dark orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Might be the same plant as 008A "Frightened Dog," just producing more shapely blooms. I haven't seen a second bloom from "Frightened Dog," and "Frightened Dog" happened before I started marking the branches to indicate different seedlings.
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink; ages to red-orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2
2.png)
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 3 waiting on new growth from one or two cuttings
Comments: One of my personal favorites; the orange and pink harmonize better on this one than they do on some of the other orange / pinks.
4.png)
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options.
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Colors (petals / tube): red-orange / white; ages to red-orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: The color doesn't do much for me personally, but it blooms well, the blooms last a normal amount of time, and the color is strong, so I think it's objectively a good seedling, just one I'm not especially into.
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Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 2 ready now, 3 waiting on new growth from a cutting
Comments: Another of my personal favorites, though sometimes the petals . . . break off? I'm not sure what's going on; I just know that a few times after taking photos, I then notice pieces of petals on the floor or wherever, and they seem to be mainly from "Stoked." Either I'm being unusually rough with it, or it's unusually brittle.
Colors: orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Very similar to 025 "Clownfish." Infrequent blooms, but was one of the latest to bloom during the spring, so it's possible that it's less strict about temperature and day-length requirements than many of the others. 023A "Stoked" is a better version of the same thing, if one is available.
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Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white; yellow-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: crazy fast
Quantity Available: 1 ready now, 1 waiting on new growth from some cuttings
Comments: Does drop a lot of buds, but it starts out with so many that it still winds up producing more flowers than any of the others. Vigorous. Odd color which may or may not be to your personal taste.
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Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Earliest to bloom, and still seems to be the least picky about getting absolute darkness at night, but for all that, it doesn't produce very many flowers. Reason is unknown. 023A "Stoked" looks a lot the same but blooms much better.
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; pink-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 3 ready now; 2 waiting on new growth from one or more cuttings
Comments: Probably my overall favorite orange from the group; it doesn't come across in the photos at all, but there's a weird softness to the color that I find very appealing, and the flowers practically glow at certain times of day. I mean, they all do this to some degree or another (golden hour + orange bloom = glowy), but "Brick Wall" regularly stops me in my tracks. I was surprised there wasn't more interest in this one in April/May.
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / very light pink; ages to orange-red / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 2 waiting on new growth from one cutting
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: Similar to, and a reasonably good substitute for, 012A "Sofa Fort," though "Sofa Fort" is a slightly yellower shade of orange.
2.png)
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: The odd not-fully-opened thing has been consistent in all blooms so far, but it doesn't bloom often, so I'm not sure that's necessarily genetic. Other seedlings have done similar things from time to time, so it's possible "Diwali" was just having trouble getting its shit together. We'll find out this fall, I guess. As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options.
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; ages to orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1 claimed, 1 available
Comments: As nobody wanted it during the April/May round, the pots available for this one are significantly larger and fuller than those of a lot of the other options. The parent plant bloomed a little later into the spring than a lot of the other seedlings.
Colors: red / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1 claimed, 1 available, 2 waiting on new growth from one cutting
Comments: Not a heavy bloomer at all for me so far, but when the blooms appear, they're pretty nice. Or at least they're not orange.
Colors: orange-red / pink; ages to red / magenta
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 3
Comments: One of the three available pots only has one cutting in it, but that cutting has a developing fruit on it, which you could use to start your own seedlings if you really wanted to. (No idea who the pollen parent was, and I can't guarantee that any resulting seedlings would be worth growing. But how will you know unless you try?) "Fort Venus" is as close as any of the seedlings have been to the parent, 'Caribbean Dancer,' and the similarity is especially strong on older flowers.
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Colors (petals / tube): pink-orange / white; ages to orange-pink / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Another one I really like, probably based on the color being pinker than most of the oranges. Fairly substantial color change from orange to orange-pink as the blooms age.
2.png)
Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 1 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Looks an awful lot like the NOID peach that I think was the pollen parent, and I think has only produced one flower to date, but the cuttings rooted like champs so at least the plant is fairly vigorous? I mean, this is definitely the one to get if you're big into stems. I'm not going to promise flowers.
Colors: orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: Pretty ordinary orange / pink. It started late and didn't have a very long bloom season, so I didn't really get to know it as well as some of the others.
2.png)
Colors (petals / tube): red / pink
Bloom Frequency: very slow
Quantity Available: 1
Comments: The original plant has only produced one flower so far. 054A "Helpful Gesture" isn't a heavy bloomer either, but it's probably a slightly better plant, with a very similar color. The original seedling has a less upright growth habit than a lot of the others, though the cuttings so far have been pretty vertical.
Colors: orange-red / white; ages to red-magenta / white
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 1 ready now; 1 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Probably the most impressive of the later seedlings, in that it produced a lot of blooms all at once, in April, and then the blooms change colors in an interesting way as they age, too.
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Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: fast
Quantity Available: 2 ready now; 2 waiting on one cutting
Comments: Although the flower in the top two images looks different from the flower in the bottom two, I'm pretty sure both blooms are from the same seedling. 'Caribbean Dancer' is prone to the occasional streaky bloom too, and they're not produced consistently on the same branch or anything as far as I can tell, so I think it's just a Schlumbergera thing.) "Cyborg Unicorn" is one of the stronger, more floriferous orange/pinks, though it's a darker, more magenta pink than, say, "Sofa Fort" or "Neon Like," which have lighter, more delicate colors.
Colors: orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium? Can't actually remember. . . .
Quantity Available: 1
Colors: orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Quantity Available: 2
Comments: I can't remember if this was actually a crappy seedling or if it just happened to photograph badly.
And that's all there is for this round. There won't be a third Schlumbergera-selling post like this this year, because there's nowhere for me to get new cuttings from, so when these are gone, they're gone until next spring. If you're interested in any of these, send me an e-mail and we'll get the payment, mailing addresses, and so forth straightened out. I'm hoping to mail plants out on or before early August, so they can have a couple months to acclimate to their new homes before it's time to produce buds.
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1 Because I have boxes that will fit two plants more or less exactly. If you really, really want a large odd number, something can probably be worked out, but it simplifies things a lot for me if you stick to even numbers.
2 The main reason being that the seedlings have had so many cuttings taken from them already that they need time to recover before I can take more.
2 The main reason being that the seedlings have had so many cuttings taken from them already that they need time to recover before I can take more.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Preliminary Schlumbergera seedling-selling stuff
I finally have a list of which Schlumbergera seedlings will probably be available for sale, for anybody who was interested in getting one. My guess is that I'll probably be ready to mail them out in May, though exactly when in May depends on the weather, and I don't control the weather.1 My best guess is something like $5-7 for one plant and $12 for 2 (which includes shipping), in mid- to late May, but none of that's nailed down.
April 29 update: prices will be $7 for one pot, $11 for two, and $15 for three. Those prices include shipping. I expect to mail the plants out between May 15 and 31.
The plants I'm mailing out will be two (sometimes) or three (usually) cuttings of the same plant, stuck in a square pot with sides two inches long. All cuttings in a pot will have produced new growth above the soil line.2 This is approximately what you could expect to receive, maybe a little bigger since they'll have been growing for another month:
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U.S. addresses only, alas, since it's a pain to try to ship plants internationally. (Sorry, non-U.S. readers. I would if I could.)
This post is mostly to get feedback about which seedlings people are interested in, so that I can 1) plan who gets which plants, and 2) start more cuttings if a particular seedling turns out to be really popular.
What I'm looking for right now is an e-mail3 telling me what plants you're interested in, ideally ranked by first choice, second choice, third choice, etc., so that I know what to substitute if your first choice is not available.4 Get as complicated as you like. You can also just say something like, "I'd like the best orange/white you can give me," "whatever one nobody else is interested in," "any orange/pink except 'Cyborg Unicorn,'" or something along those lines.5 Calling dibs in this way doesn't obligate you to purchase anything. When I'm ready to start mailing plants, I'll try to work out who gets what in a way that makes everybody happy, notify people accordingly, and only then will we start talking about which specific plants in exchange for which specific payments, mailing addresses, and all that.
Photos and brief descriptions of each follow:
Colors (petals / tube): orange / light pink; dark orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: slow6
Comments: Might be the same plant as 008A "Frightened Dog," just producing more shapely blooms. I haven't seen a second bloom from "Frightened Dog," and "Frightened Dog" happened before I started marking the branches to indicate different seedlings.
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink; ages to red-orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: One of my personal favorites; the orange and pink harmonize better on this one than they do on some of the other orange / pinks.
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
ALL POTS OF 022A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015
Colors (petals / tube): red-orange / white; ages to red-orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: The color doesn't do much for me personally, but it blooms well, the blooms last a normal amount of time, and the color is strong, so I think it's objectively a good seedling, just one I'm not especially into.
ALL POTS OF 023A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015; MORE CUTTINGS HAVE BEEN TAKEN AND SHOULD BE READY IN JULY
Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: fast
Comments: Another of my personal favorites, though sometimes the petals . . . break off? I'm not sure what's going on; I just know that a few times after taking photos, I then notice pieces of petals on the floor or wherever, and they seem to be mainly from "Stoked." Either I'm being unusually rough with it, or it's unusually brittle. All existing pots of cuttings are spoken for, but if you're interested in it, go ahead and e-mail me to say you want it; I'm planning to start another round of cuttings shortly, plus people do sometimes change their mind or whatever.
Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white; yellow-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: crazy fast
Comments: I forgot that I'd already taken cuttings of "Bryce Canyon" and took another batch, so there are four sets available, meaning that if you ask for it, you're likely to get it. Does drop a lot of buds, but it starts out with so many that it still winds up producing more flowers than any of the others.
Colors (petals / tube): dark orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Comments: Earliest to bloom, and still seems to be the least picky about getting absolute darkness at night, but for all that, it doesn't produce very many flowers. Reason is unknown. 023A "Stoked" looks a lot the same but blooms much better.
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; pink-orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: Probably my overall favorite orange from the group; it doesn't come across in the photos at all, but there's a weird softness to the color that I find very appealing, and the flowers practically glow at certain times of day. I mean, they all do this to some degree or another (golden hour + orange bloom = glowy), but "Brick Wall" regularly stops me in my tracks. It's the weirdest thing.
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ALL POTS OF 027A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white, slightly lighter orange / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: Always has that whee-I'm-in-a-wind-tunnel look happening, more so than most of the other seedlings.
Colors (petals / tube): orange / very light pink; ages to orange-red / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: Only one available
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Comments: I can't remember how many blooms I've gotten since this photo of the first one, but it/they also had the same screwy not-fully-opened thing going. So this might just be the way it grows.
Colors (petals / tube): orange / white; ages to orange / light pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Colors (petals / tube): pink-orange / white; ages to orange-pink / white
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: Another one I really like, probably based on the color being pinker than most. Fairly substantial color change from orange to orange-pink as the blooms age, which may or may not appeal to you but is at least interesting.
ALL POTS OF 061A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015
Colors (petals / tube): light orange / white
Bloom Frequency: slow
Comments: Looks an awful lot like the NOID peach that I think was the pollen parent, and I think has only produced one flower to date, but the cuttings rooted like champs so at least the plant is fairly vigorous? I mean, this is definitely the one to get if you're big into stems.
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ALL POTS OF 064A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015
Colors (petals / tube): red-orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: medium
Comments: Something about "Rose Hoses" that I don't like, but I haven't been able to figure out what. All the individual parts seem fine; I just don't like the way they come together, or something. Probably the seedling closest in appearance to 'Caribbean Dancer,' the seed parent, of the plants currently available.
Colors (petals / tube): red / pink
Bloom Frequency: slow
Comments: I like "Art Party" so much that I may decide that I don't want to sell it after all, so be prepared for that. (No particular reason to like it that much, except that it's not orange.) There's only one set of cuttings available, and the original plant has only produced one flower so far.
ALL POTS OF 088A HAVE BEEN CLAIMED AS OF 29 APRIL 2015; MORE CUTTINGS HAVE BEEN TAKEN AND SHOULD BE READY IN JULY
Colors (petals / tube): orange / pink
Bloom Frequency: fast
Comments: Although the flower in the top two images looks different from the flower in the bottom two, I think both blooms are in fact from the same seedling. The suspected pollen parent varies between normal blooms and really streaky blooms too, and I know it's all the same plant. (Update 24 April 2015: I noticed a day or two ago that 'Caribbean Dancer' is prone to the occasional streaky bloom as well. Maybe it's just a normal Schlumbergera thing.) All pots of cuttings are presently spoken for, but as with 023A "Stoked," I encourage you to e-mail anyway if you're interested in it because there will be more sooner or later.
May be available later in the summer, or next year:
035A (name to be announced)
055A "Pumpkin Festival"
054A "Helpful Gesture"
055B "Fort Venus"
073A "Laurie Anderson"
082A "Strawberry Madeleine"
099A "Dessert Room"
111A "Morning Sun"
Would love to offer someday, but can't until they rebloom:
021A "Spider Crab"
021B "Birthday Dinner"
024A "Safety Vest"
083B "Guy Fawkes Night"
Might never be offered through the blog because I'm interested in trying to patent it, maybe, if it ever blooms again, which I'm starting to think it never will:
083A "Psychedelic Bunny"
(The Anthuriums are a different situation entirely; I haven't even begun to try to decide which ones to sell. I can barely keep up with which ones are blooming at the moment. Maybe by the end of the summer?)
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1 (yet)
2 Or at least that's the hope. I have at least one pot where there's new growth on all cuttings for:
• 008B "Candor"
• 010A "Semantic Satiation"
• 012A "Sofa Fort"
• 019A "Belevenissen"
• 023A "Stoked"
• 024B "Bryce Canyon"
• 025A "Clownfish"
• 026A "Brick Wall"
• 027A "Kiln"
• 028B "Neon Like"
• 030A "Diwali"
• 031A "Baby Carrots"
• 057A "Pyrotechnic"
• 061A "Leather Fairy"
• 064A "Rose Hoses"
• 078A "Art Party"
• 088A "Cyborg Unicorn"
and I'm still waiting for new growth on one or more cuttings of:
• 022A "Sad Tomato"
• 028A "Phil Collen"
I'm fine with sending cuttings out that haven't produced new growth above the soil line if you tell me you're okay with it. I don't think cuttings that haven't produced new growth are likely to die or anything; this is more just to assure myself that they're healthy and established and whatever before I start distributing them.
3 (mrsubjunctiveX@outlook.com, without the "X")
4 Numbers are very limited for most of these, because you can only take just so many cuttings off of a small plant before you no longer have a plant.
5 And I'll still let you know which one before I mail anything, in case you realize that you have a violent hatred of "Sofa Fort" that you weren't aware of before, or whatever.
6 Bloom frequency is based just on what I've seen so far. This only covers a six-month period, plus they were up-potted at different times and were different ages, so the bloom frequency I've observed may or may not reflect what it will do for you in your home. Take it into account, but don't weigh it too heavily.
2 Or at least that's the hope. I have at least one pot where there's new growth on all cuttings for:
• 008B "Candor"
• 010A "Semantic Satiation"
• 012A "Sofa Fort"
• 019A "Belevenissen"
• 023A "Stoked"
• 024B "Bryce Canyon"
• 025A "Clownfish"
• 026A "Brick Wall"
• 027A "Kiln"
• 028B "Neon Like"
• 030A "Diwali"
• 031A "Baby Carrots"
• 057A "Pyrotechnic"
• 061A "Leather Fairy"
• 064A "Rose Hoses"
• 078A "Art Party"
• 088A "Cyborg Unicorn"
and I'm still waiting for new growth on one or more cuttings of:
• 022A "Sad Tomato"
• 028A "Phil Collen"
I'm fine with sending cuttings out that haven't produced new growth above the soil line if you tell me you're okay with it. I don't think cuttings that haven't produced new growth are likely to die or anything; this is more just to assure myself that they're healthy and established and whatever before I start distributing them.
3 (mrsubjunctiveX@outlook.com, without the "X")
4 Numbers are very limited for most of these, because you can only take just so many cuttings off of a small plant before you no longer have a plant.
5 And I'll still let you know which one before I mail anything, in case you realize that you have a violent hatred of "Sofa Fort" that you weren't aware of before, or whatever.
6 Bloom frequency is based just on what I've seen so far. This only covers a six-month period, plus they were up-potted at different times and were different ages, so the bloom frequency I've observed may or may not reflect what it will do for you in your home. Take it into account, but don't weigh it too heavily.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Schlumbergera seedling round-up
Okay. So I think we've seen all the Schlumbergera seedlings we're going to see until the fall. Could be wrong, but that's how it looks right now. So here are all twenty-nine of them together:
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And for what it's worth, some of the variation in colors here is because of differences in lighting or camera settings, or the plants just being naturally variable in their bloom colors (both from bloom to bloom but also according to the age of the flower: Schlumbergera blooms don't change as much with time as Anthuriums can, but they do change some), but the seedlings really didn't all bloom in the same shade of orange. Most of them fall pretty neatly into a handful of categories: orange/pink ("Neon Like," "Sofa Fort"), orange/white ("Belevenissen," "Baby Carrots"), red-orange ("Sad Tomato," "Phil Collen"), dark orange ("Clownfish," "Stoked"), light orange ("Bryce Canyon," "Leather Fairy"), and "other" ("Psychedelic Bunny," "Helpful Gesture").
I've started cuttings of ten of these and expect to offer them for sale through this blog at some point, if they don't die and I'm convinced that they've rooted adequately. I haven't done cuttings for every one of the seedlings: some of them just suck and why would you want cuttings (e.g. #060A "Wet Dog"), some of them aren't large enough yet to be able to spare cuttings (e.g. #028A "Phil Collen"), and some of them finished blooming before I came up with a way to keep track of which seedlings were which, so I actually can't take cuttings yet (e.g. #054A "Helpful Gesture"). I'm expecting to be able to take cuttings from three more fairly soon, and if the plants keep blooming sporadically during the spring and summer, I should have most of the good seedlings in propagation, if not actually ready to sell, by the end of summer.
I'll have a post about buying the cuttings once it's warmed up outside, outlining which ones are available and how to go about purchasing one. (There may also be some Anthurium seedlings available in the summer, but again, I don't know for certain that there will be any, and if there are, I don't know which seedlings they'll be.) For the moment, though, posting will slow down until I can get some new material together, and when I do, it's likely to be pretty Anthurium-centric.
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