February 2010 Catalogue + June New Releases

February 1st, 2010

All Clivia seedlings grown by this nursery are from seed of the highest quality, obtained from recognized breeders, both in Australia and overseas.

For convenience, these offerings may be divided into 3 categories:

1. A chance mutation giving rise to a desirable flower colour or form is crossed with itself with the aim of producing similar offspring. But while some will be similar to the parent, others will have only a slight to no resemblance.

2. The deliberate crossing (by the breeder) of two different cultivars (established varieties) with the intention of producing a range of desirable outcomes.

3. Selective line breeding of a group of very similar plants to produce relatively homogenous offspring with common improved characteristics.

Category 2, and then 1, are favoured by the enthusiast, while general gardeners usually prefer category 3.

Clivias for the General Gardener . These are the only varieties, which, because of at least four generations of selective line breeding, are reliable garden plants in terms of colour, leaf and petal width, general vigour and resistance to disease. They are collectively termed “Gardener’s Best Clivias” and are guaranteed by this nursery to flower in the colour described. They are indicated by an asterisk throughout the catalogue.

Clivias for Specialists and Collectors - Each year the catalogue contains dozens of best quality new varieties – both from Australia and overseas. These are not line bred, so that only a proportion will be similar to the parent(s). However, most will be excellent plants, [with a chance that a few will be superior to the parent(s)]. Inevitably a proportion will be poor or in the dominant colour – orange. Such crosses tend to be favoured by specialists and collectors.

The major “turn off” for some beginning growers is not that the occasional seedling flowers orange, but because they had not expected that this could happen.

N.B. (i) There is a further 10% discount for members of the Clivia Society and holders of Seniors Cards.

(ii) Orders are post free within Australia.

(iii)All export orders would require a phytosanitory certificate from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service. The nearest AQUIS office is in Canberra, 3 hours drive away. This is far too expensive in terms of time and fossil fuel to be practical. Regretably there will be no export orders.

Where the numbers of a variety are less than the expected customer demand, they are marked, “1 per order”.

All of the new release seedlings are marked (June) because they will be too small to dispatch until then.

This catalogue contains an even larger and more comprehensive range of Clivias than in 2009. Even so, less than half of the new season’s varieties are being made available now. The rest will be released in June and September. The slower growing variegates will be held until September.

I am again particularly indebted to Brenda Nuss of the Kwa Zulu Natal Club and Mick Dower of the Cape Club, both in South Africa. (The seedbanks of these two Clubs properly parcel their seed in small lots to suit their own customers, but both of them did their best to meet my particular needs of 50 of a variety for my customers.)