Hi, there I noticed that this forum is a very good forum with intelligent people, so i was wondering you know aloe variegata, have you ever heard of them blooming in canada? You know what sucked last year when i went to wal-mart it was around november or december or something and it was in canada the south keys one and anyways I saw one aloe variegata ok but guess what it had a flower stalk and it was pretty healthy 3.5/5 to 4/5 of health, anyways I asked my dad if i could get it but i couldn't lol cause i din't have any money, well im happy atleast i hope it went to a good home with people that would start them from seed and polinate the flowers, so my question is have you ever seen any bloom in canada? Where do you think would be the best place in canada, (non internet), in shops were i could find an aloe variegata in bloom, because i have read that they bloom around winter in the us canadian climate! Thanks guys you are awesome! Any new hippeastrum's avaible besides tosca?

Jungle, That should work..just keep one thing in mind that when a bulb has no roots as in a new bulb it is more difficult for the seed pods to grow to completion..harder on the bulb. It can be done and quite often there is no trouble but, just be aware that polleating on a bulb that has already rooted is always more successful..just a though... Last year I bought a new Evergreen (cybister type) and there were probably 7 flowers on the first stalk which I tried pollenating and all failed. A few weeks later another stalk appeared and there were fewer flowers and I tried again and this time I did end up with one pod that produced a few seeds and so I have just "3" seedlings of Evergreen x Exotic Star that are doing splendidly. I am excited and am already envisioning what the flower might look like.... Fortunately for me my first papilio that came from Ebay was already rooted and it already had a bud!! How lucky was that!! Good Luck...

50C (122F) is a bit higher than is used commercially and 3 hrs. is a longer period as well. V. Read gives the following temperatures as a common application in commercial concerns: 48C (118F) for 80 mins. or 46C (115F) for 2 hrs. I would *not* use the oven till I had pre-tested the pan of water, employing a *good* thermometer for at least the projected length of soaking time. Fill the pan with water and proceed as if you had your bulbs in it. Check the temp of the water when the oven clicks off and recheck every 10-15 mins. or so. Of course, opening and closing the oven door frequently will affect the procedure somewhat, so an oven-proof thermometer in the water at all times that can be easily read through the oven door is called for. Write down all those temperatures and if you're getting the desired temperature continuously, I think you'll be OK. Ovens are notoriously "loose" in temperature calibration, especially in the lower or "warming" range. They may switch off at what it is set to respond to, say 46C, but it could easily be higher or lower than that in actuality. Another problem with home oven is the on-off cycle of heating. This can result in temperature fluctuations of the soaking bath. First going higher than desired as the oven heats, then lower before the oven switches back on. Unless your oven has a cooking thermometer that is inserted into the water, it will react to the air temps inside the oven which may not reflect the true temp of the water or the bulbs in it. You could easily cook your bulbs to death if the temperature is too high! Too long and you may also damage the forming buds, but your bulbs will eventually recover completely and be blooming again. It will just take time. But if all goes well, no harm will come to the forming flower buds. If in fact your problem is caused by mites, the treatment will rid your bulbs of them. I would caution you strongly against using the oven, but if you are set on it and take *ALL* precautions, you may succeed. If you intend to throw away the bulbs anyway (which you say you already did in your first post.....)you have nothing to lose. Robert.

Hello members, interesting stuff to read! I myself bought from this seller, and as we all know you can retrieve all our former actions on ebay.... so there is our record of buying things. Nice prices on ebay for very special clivias and other plants, in my case, too - and this seller did not only take pictures from the Internet, but also has people to bid for him (maybe himself?) pushing bids higher and higher - always the same people, ebay members, but either without any performance or with only a few articles bought, of course from him. They bade and bade, pushing my high offer higher and higher, until a special point was reached (they outbid me), and then took back their former offers in a few seconds. So I wonder if my bulbs will turn out true-to-picture, or will be frauds - I have informed ebay about his strange "connections" who never got a single point, and they promised me to have an eye on that, but nothing happened. Now this seller has no items to sell at all, but the question stays if we were all betrayed....