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From: "J.E. Shields" <jshields at INDY.NET>
Subject: Introducing myself
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Hi all,

I've just joined this list, in hope of learning a bit more about hardy
Arisaema and how to grow them.  I assume this is an international group,
with members from all over the North Temperate zone.

I retired from the pharmaceutical industry about 5 years ago and have sin=ce
been happily spending my time on gardening.  We have a part time nursery,
growing, breeding and selling daylilies, something we started over 20 yea=rs
ago.  We have a web site at:

http://a1.com/daylily/garden.html

On the side, I am interested in all sorts of "bulbs" (most geophytic
flowering plants), both tender and hardy.  I have a couple of home
greenhouses, crammed full of bulbs and seedlings.  In the middle of our
land is a small woods which I have converted to a shade or woodland garde=n.
The few Arisaema I am trying to grow are planted there.

One of my bulb interests is finding bulbs from South Africa that are hard=y
enough to grow outdoors here.  Besides many groups in the iris family,
including Crocosmia, Dierama, Gladiolus, and Moraea, I am interested in
finding varieties of Zantedeschia hardy enough to grow outdoors here all
year round.

We live in central Indiana, USA.  This is a continental climate: cold in
winter and hot in summer.  It is classified as USDA cold hardiness zone 5=,
meaning that the average annual lowest winter temperature has fallen into
the range -10 to -20 F (ca. -23 to -28 C).  The past decade, the winters
have generally been much milder; this winter, however, it has been almost
typical zone 5.  Our lowest temperature hit -6 F (-21 C).

This can also be a wet climate.  Average annual precipitation is 36 to 40
inches (90 to 100 cm).  Nevertheless, we can have dry spells too.  Most
summers, we have a 3- to 6-week run of zero rainfall, which really stress=es
the plants.  The daylily nursery beds have an automatic underground
irrigation system to deal with that.  Most of the other beds have to be
watered with garden hoses when needed.

I have planted several Arisaema species in the past couple of years, sinc=e
1998:  our native A. triphyllum, some of which bloomed for me last season
but set no seeds.  Others which were planted in autumn 1999 and bloomed i=n
spring 2000 included: ringens, sasezoo, sikikianum, and thunbergii.  It
remains to be seen whether these will have survived this winter.  I plant=ed
A. amurense from Siberia in summer 2000, and I assume it will be hardy if
the bulbs themselves were healthy enough to survive.

I got two accessions of Arisaema in my share from the Alaska Rock Garden
Society's 2000 seed collecting expedition to Yunnan, China.  One, A.
consanguineum, was planted right away and germinated in good yield.  Thes=e
seedlings are indoors, under fluorescent lights.  Seeds of A. elephas wer=e
planted somewhat later, and have not yet germinated.  I presume that the
hardiness of both will be marginal here.

I'm a rank novice at growing Arisaema, and especially inexperienced at
starting them from seeds.  I look forward to remedying some of those
deficits now that I have joined this list.

Regards,
Jim

*************************************************
Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5     Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92                                    WWW:    http://a1.com/dayl=ily/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA                              Tel. +1-317-89=6-3925