Another great deer repellent is irish spring body wash, the liquid stuff. Mix this with water in a sprayer. Works Great! And one thing I have learned is to alternate your repellent from week to week. Deer get used to a scent, so you need to trick 'em. I've got four pods collected and more coming. The four are. 'Pres. Johnson' x self 'Pres. Johnson' x 'Flamingo Star' 'Sumatra' x 'Elaine Grace' and 'Lemon Star' x 'Kaitlin'

Oleg, I have maybe three bulbs of H. psittacinum and they're pretty slow growing and they're very susceptible to rot and bug attacks, I've not had the easiest time with them but I have started to care for them more and have had an easier time! I think partially the reason H. papilio and H. cybister are so common in cultivation now is considering Fred Meyers, he crossed the best clones of each species to create a more tough and tumble plant. As well, these two species are among the easier to grow along with H. striatum, H. aulicum and H. puniceum which are also fairly common. Many Hippeastrum species I don't think could withstand cultivation in the casual growers hand UNLESS you live in an area with favorable conditions. You must study many of the species individually to know exactly what conditions are best considering they're found in a multitude of places including swamps AND deserts. I know many seasoned growers of Hippeastrum still have a very tough time with many species and many flower very seldom if at all. H. papilio is from a mild forest which is easily imitated by indoor conditions, it can be grown epiphytically, lithophytically or the usual pot of soil so it can handle a large range mediums. It grows in brightly lit places to shady areas so lighting usually isn't much of an issue. H. papilio can be maintained as an evergreen plant which gives a huge advantage against rotting too and it's resistant to many pests and diseases where as most other species are not! If you were to try growing Hippeastrum pardinum with the same idea of H. papilio you would more than likely fail, it needs a incredibly dry rest period during opposing months; any water during the dormancy will result in rotting and quite quickly! It doesn't always flower well *some sources only see flowers every ten years or so* and is usually a winter growing species, it relies on a lower amount of sunlight and ultimately much less water, put this in the hands of a typical "amaryllis" grower and they're set up for failure! This isn't to say that it's impossible to grow many of these species successfully because it isn't but you must educate yourself. While the hybrids and some species (h. papilio) are very forgiving, most others are not. I think it would be spectacular to see these grown in larger quantities but sadly I don't foresee that as most aren't willing to invest the time and energy they take. :( It's also a big misconception that ALL Hippeastrum need light water in fear of rotting, H. breviflorum, H. harrisonii, some forms of H. vittatum and H. angustifolium can be found in bogs, swamps and other wet areas, many are completely submerged throughout their growing seasons and only slightly dryer during dormancy, these species could create a more resistant plant in future breeding as well, I think these are quite beneficial as parents to new hybrids but their ease of growing is nil to none. Josh

Air escaping sounds odd. Even if it doesn't mean they're not viable, don't squeeze them. That might break them. Also, I thought some P. Geayi seeds I had were non-viable because they were basically transparent and like... honeycombed, but they still worked, so it's hard to say. It SOUNDS LIKE the seeds for A. Araucarana should be fairly rubbery. By the way, are there sites selling seedlings for like, A. Araucana or A. Bidwillii online, anywhere? If anyone knows?

BKay, I have made an observation about the fragrant flowered hosta. This is too soon to tell, of course, "scientifically" anyway. But there are a lot of the fragrant family not just scaping, but blooming or already REblooming (Ginsu Knife doing 2 more scapes almost 60 days after the first 2. Doubled Up is going strong, Avocado is almost showing white flowers on 5 nice scapes. I would be able to say the same I'm sure if the Fried Bananas, Fried Green Tomatos, and Guacamole had not croaked on me. BK, it is amazing to see things growing so much each day.....this is my first real "spring of the fragrants" with these wonderful plants. I got side tracked. Sorry. But the hosta are smart cookies. If they can start growing earlier in the year here, as opposed to the more northerly regions, then they would be ready a lot earlier to flower and set seed. Benefit being, it will be cooler on this time schedule. I'm not talking crazy, really. I read a couple of books by Michael Pollan, the first being Botany OF Desire.....about plants ways of getting what they desire......(.those little devils!) And the ones which can adapt to a changing environment will be the survivors. We all on this forum believe that hosta are all basically survivors. So they are going through an ajustment period, to living in the reality of a warmer world. The survivor plants will know early and adapt. Those which cannot make adjustments or move by some sweet method or tricky one, will not make many more generations before they are extinct. I do not think that will happen to hosta. For one thing, they've already learned to go dormant in the worst heat that taxes them. They can then re-emerge and continue on with the life cycle.....or so I think. I only had one go heat dormant on me last year, none this year. And I had one which did not go dormant all winter, not until June....I thought it was dead, poor thing.....so I got another. By the time it was leafing out, up pops #1 again, and outgrows #2, has blooms before #2, .....and that was my introduction to Stained Glass, always willing to do something outrageous. BKay, I think the hosta are adapting to a hotter world already. They will be helped along by us gardeners pushing them into the sun more, or into hot shade, higher humidity. They'll adjust, fragrant ones included, to an earlier emergence in a hotter growing zone, and get the life cycle thing out of the way...or else they'll stay fertile during the high temp times. Maybe the plant will seek to replace itself with more heat tolerant offspring, and they'll show up and grow quickly, so the older plant will be waning as the seedlings flourish. Which is one reason I think it can be interesting to grow the seedlings of my fragrant hosta seedpods. They do not set too many seed....even Old Faithful came from a single fertile seed...these plantaginea play hard to get. But, perhaps there will be more pods with more fertile seeds, if we try to grow what we have. Green or not, the hosta Next Generation is ready to take over. :) With your seeds that become seedlings, I'd be looking for outright stamina in your climate.Healthy. Looks can be improved later, just keep the stamina in heat and humidity. EDIT: Gee, I cannot believe that I forgot what I started out to say...... Take em into the air conditioning, eh? Well, I can just see me and BKay walking past the desk clerk, each with a pot of hosta in our hands...... then coming out again two hours later....hosta all tousled.......???? BKAy is not the only one who doesn't know how to deal with this. hehehehe This post was edited by moccasinlanding on Mon, Jul 8, 13 at 23:36