Sandersonia

We used to grow Sandersonias commercially, that business now sold and all we have now is these few planted in a polystyrene box. They are rather short in the stem, having been growing in polystyreme boxes for over three years. None of these would have made even local flower market grade but never mind they make a colourful sight.

I will save the see from these and with the existing tubers will eventually have a patch in our garden.

Does anyone else have these in their garden or in pots? They are very pretty and a lovely in a vase with gypsophila. Ooops, spelling looks wrong for that last word! Lol

Do they have another name? I never heard of Sandersonia so I opened the pic to see what they looked like, and I know I've seen this plant before, but I don't think it was under that name.

Your plants are beautiful.

I wish they were hardy in Zone 4.

Corinne

I think the other name might be Chinese Lantern? I grow them and they re seed very well.

That sounds familiar, that's probably it. They are very pretty, I've never tried them but maybe I will one of these years!

Yes, Ecrane, it has several common namees, Chinese Lantern, Golden bells and Golden lily of the valley. It is called Sanersonia after the botanist who first discovered it in South Africa. It first came to prominence as a good cut flower over twenty years ago and was widely grown commercially. However, the good prices meant more and more people started to grow world wide with a subsequent fall in price back to the grower.

I just enjoy it now for it's vivid colour. And this is the only colour known, although hybridisation has been attempted once that i know of, to get more colours, but this was not successful.

Taramark, we used to sell our tubers for Japanese growers, where they also have extremes of temperature. so you could try them in a pot perhaps.

I will look out some of my old photos tomorrow and let you have a look at some we took when we were growing thousands of them. These were all taken on my old camera, everything is so much easier now I have a digital one.

Keep them in pots and they're ok but DON'T put them in the ground! Absolutely the most invasive plant I' ve ever planted. After 3 years it comes up in beds 20 ft from where I planted it. Pretty but invasive.

I've them in pots that overwinter in basement. The culture is similar to gloriosa, though plant/vine is considerably smaller.

Hymenocallis, gosh, that surprises me, your growing conditions must suit it fine. I have friends here who have tried to grow them in the garden and most fail.

Found the following photos.

Tubersw, the flower stems emerge from the tips of the legs. Photo taken because we were trailing differnt growing medias.

Jmorth, they are lovely in a pot. Do you change the potting mix each year?

We grew the export flowers in a poly house to get them to the markets early and had to plant in our winter so they would go to the northern Hemisphere from September onwards which was your fall and winter.
This photo, ready for harvest.

This message was edited Jan 5, 2007 8:29 PM

This after picking and in the shed ready for grading.

graded and placed into floss packets so they could have a little food while they were on their travels.

I've got some seeds planted, your plants are georgious, I wouldn't mind one bit if they are invasive plants. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even if it's beholding 50,000 of them LOL.

Hi Kathy, I went to visit a friend today and she has Alstromeria clumps through out her garden in all sorts of colours, I believe these are also invasive but she loves them. I have one plant she gave me, a lovely red one which has given me so much pleasure.

But sometimes, invasive plants can be a problem. I saw a British t.v. program about the potato vine, it looked great and I though I would buy one. But outside the garden centre I saw one in a home garden which had grown everywhere amongst the plantings and was chocking them out!., It grows so vigorouslyy in our country that I decided to give it a miss, so it really all depends on where you live and just as importantly, how big your garden is and where it is planted. We are only on a small section so a potato vine was not for me. Lol, but you have to call it as you see it.

I hope your seed grow well for you and hope you send a new posting when they are in bloom.

I had no idea they came in other colors. I never see them for sale. anywhere.

I just got aclose up of that poly house full of lanterns, WOW they are beautiful. SO MANY!!!

Kathy, just to make sure, Sandersonias only come in one colour - orange.

It is the Alstromeria flowers that comes in different colours.

Yes, there were a lot of stems and there were also more in a big glasshouse. They were labor intensive and I don't miss growing them commercially, much easier having a patch of them in the garden. LOL

ferrymead's Sandersonia (Chinese Lantern Lily) http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/1227/index.html in the Liliaceae family

other plants are called Chinese Lanterns (Physalis genus in the Solanaceae family) http://davesgarden.com/pf/adv_search.php?searcher%5Bcommon%5D=&searcher%5Bfamily%5D=Solanaceae&searcher%5Bgenus%5D=Physalis&searcher%5Bspecies%5D=&searcher%5Bcultivar%5D=&searcher%5Bhybridizer%5D=&search_prefs%5Bsort_by%5D=genus&images_prefs=both&Search=Search

This is where we find the orange Chinese Lanterns that are dried for decorative uses. I think these two very different plants are being confused here. Also found here - the delicious ground cherry and the tomatillo for green salsa. In my area the Chinese Lanterns are invasive by spreading.

Also known to some as Chinese Lanterns are the abutilons (Flowering Maples). And so it goes with another Common Name for a plant.

I hope this will help.

Echoes, thank you so much. It's a funny thing but when I was aked for it's common name I had to google it to find it having always known it by its correct name. I checked all the sites you sent and the first of course fits the bill. So interesting to look at the other sites too.

Visitors to our property when we were growing them ( not being in the flower growing business) could never remember the name Sandersonia, so I always told them,' look at the flower and then imagine Colonel Sanders sitting down to a Sandersonia burger' . .. LOL, but it did make it stick in their minds.

I should do a posting about them on the plant files site I suppose.... don't know if I am brave enough to do that!

Actually, both of the links I provided are to PlantFiles. You really should go to the first one and leave a comment and a few pictures. It's quite easy as the entry is already there. You don't even have to start your own.

Yes it does help, Thanks so much.

Will do, but tomorrow will be best, it is 7.45 p.m here and time for me to wind down.

Tess, so interesting. did you grow other flowers for market? the sandersonia are very pretty.

Echoes, well, l have written something for the plant files site, will have to see if it is posted. Couldn't see where to post any photos though.


Hi Grammy, we no longer grow flowers for the export or local markets. Since selling the business three years ago, we have downsized to just my husband and I.

We now lease land on which we size up Calla tubers from tissue culture that we buy in. Grow them on for a season, plant them in October and start harvesting them in mid May or beginning of June, depending on whether the leaves have died off.

We still grow these for our exporters and sell them ourselves only locally. You might like to have a look at our website to see the photos of the cplours of Calla lily tubers we grow.
I only work during the planting, harvesting and post harvest months May to end of October, so for seven months I am able to do my own thing and enjoy having time to visit Dave's Garden. So interesting and so many great people on the sites.

www.calla.net.nz

If you google it, should come up under - calla lily tubers from mew zealand excelgro tubers and funnily enough, it comes up showing a hyperlink from Daves Garden from when I posted the link in on another forum some time ago.

When we first became flower growers we had the following flowers, Oriental lilies, Casablanca and a pink variety, Asiatic lilies, Ragale lilies and Freesias. We were tigers for punishment as they were all labor intensive. Lol. We kept a few of each of these bulbs and now have them in our little home garden, I can enjoy their blooms but really enjoy not having to do any thiing to them except admire the flowers.



This message was edited Jan 7, 2007 9:16 PM

Gosh, that photo is not right, must have been in early Spring as I see a couple of trees are not in leaf. Will try to get ore more up to date. Well, I think this is the latest photo but see it says taken in 2006!

Well darn it, picked the same photo, I give up, shows the paddock anyway!

oooh, chianti. such rich colors! some day I'll have to try some callas. I'm too lazy to dig them up. but I know people who push their zone by finding a spot with a microclimate. I just need to wait until I understand my garden better and then I'll try some. It's worth a few to see if I can get them to winter over. this would have been a good year to try it LOL

Grow 'em in pots (check out the coop forum - folks are getting callas)

thanks, 4paws, but I'm concentrating on my roses this year

ferrymead, did you sell callas to (or through) Orchids Direct? I used to order New Zealand callas through them (when I worked as a florist) and they were wonderful!

Gemini, no, have never sold directly overseas but always through local export firms. We could tell where the flowers were going by the codes the exporters gave us for shipping out the cartons of Calla flowers. Ours did go to the States. Japan, Germany and even Holland.