Tazetta Photos

From: “Ethel J. Smith” <>

Date: December 22, 2008 5:16:10 PM CST

To: “Melissa M. Reading” <>

Subject: Re: [daffnet] Tazetta Photos

Oh – there’s been a lot of talk in past years about keeping the stems of potted paperwhites short by watering them with alcohol in various dilutions, and some folks seemed to think it worked. Also there have been a lot of jokes about whether rubbing alcohol or good drinking whisky worked better. I used a 1:10 solution of isopropyl to kill off the mealybugs that had infested my four pots of tazettas while they were summering in nearly complete dryness under my sunroom – I couldn’t believe how many bugs showed up after I brought the pots into the garage and gave them a drink of water this fall! They were simply awful – I actually removed all the soil from three of the pots and coiled the long roots around pebbles in bowls of water, like annual paperwhites are often grown sitting above pebbles. I’ve still had to spray several of the stems with alcohol to get the mealybugs I missed – yuck! Guess I’m just too stubborn to pitch out the bulbs – but Avalanche of Gold has two bloom stems and Sugar Cups has one that I know of on the way! Nice to hear from you – I hope you and John will have a Merry Christmas! Ethel

On Dec 22, 2008, at 1:28 PM, Melissa M. Reading wrote:

Ethyl (inadvertent slip from an old chemist):

Can you explain what you’re referring to with the the heavy drinking (isopropyl) reference?  I’m not sure.

m

At 10:52 AM 12/22/2008, you wrote:

I’m happy to say that in spite of the mealybugs and the heavy

drinking (isopropyl) later I have one pot of Avalanche of Gold in

bloom. And the leaves are 2 feet tall even with all that alcohol!

They don’t know it’s -13 degrees outside! Merry Christmas to all!

Ethel Smith in MN

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