Crinodendron Hookerianum
Jill M Pitman

I have had several attempts at growing the Chilean Lantern Tree from seed – all to no avail, I find cuttings at the end of July an easier method.

This year we had two Gardening Club groups to the garden when the Crinodendron was in flower and for some unknown reason it flowered for much longer than usual – in fact the last flowers fell off at the beginning of November. There were two or three seed heads in reach and I gave them to one of our visitors. I took one into the greenhouse and dropped the seeds onto a solid plastic pot with a bit of compost in it – after about two weeks I looked and lo and behold nearly all the seeds were sending out shoots with the roots already formed – so this is a copy of the Nerine seed which certainly will not germinate if covered with compost – you learn something every day. Of course I then collected some more seed and had another go. There are now 20 pots in the greenhouse all with super little plants in them about 1 – 2″ high and showing their second pair of leaves.

This gardening lark is a funny old business ….!

First published in the Correspondents’ Group Newsletter December 2008
and subsequently in Cornucopia Issue 25
© Copyright for this article: Jill M Pitman

This article was taken from a copy of Cornucopia that was published in 2010. You could be reading these articles as they are published to a national audience, by subscribing to Cornucopia.