Hardy Gesneriads – Ramonda serbica

When I was young I always felt that the Gesneriads like African Violets, Gloxinias and Streptocarpus were the epitome of exotic tropicals, and I still have a soft spot for them. The good news is that there are a number of hardy and near hardy ones, some well known some less so. The Ramondas and Harbeleas are probably the best known and most hardy.

Ramonda serbica is one of my favourites, partly because I grew my plants from seed, but mainly because I think it has the best flowers. I’ve still not perfected growing these from seed. Like Shortias the seed is tiny and although they germinate well when sown onto the surface of the compost and kept close and warm, they take forever to get going and most just simply die off. They can be only a millimetre or two after several years and then suddenly one or two will start growing rapidly.

I keep Ramonda serbica in the greenhouse under the staging in deep shade. Apart from taking a fair amount of water it seems to be no more difficult that Ramonda myconi.

  

Here we go again!!

Lewisia tweedyii rosea

Back in 1999 I started a website called "Inspiring Plants" on Geocities. I had lots of pages on the plants I was passionate about, Cyclamen species, Pleiones, Alpines etc.

Geocities became Yahoo, I got effectively locked out of the site and I set up a blog instead. (Unfortunately I can't access that either now).

About 5 years ago I managed to recreate the site with a well known website hosting company. I got lots of visitors but it all became very expensive. I was thinking of closing the site but I was told that there was a new cheaper product from the same company. Problem was, I'd need to rebuild the site. That took alot of effort and I'm probably about half way there.

Imagine my surprise when I checked my visitor stats and saw they had dropped from about 500 a month to 5.  I get the feeling that low figures are correct and something about the stat reporting previously was way off. For years.

So I'm thinking that the website will discontinue sometime in the future but maybe it's worth moving some of the material here and seeing how the blog goes. It may look less nice but it's much cheaper and easier.

Probably not the best way to start a blog and I may remove this post but it's a harmless way of letting out the frustration and disappointment.