February Greenhouse Tour
This month I am going to be presenting some slides taken during my recent
trip to South Africa. While there, I had a chance to visit the greenhouse
of Sid and Marlene Cywes and view their tremendous Disas. They are
situated on the eastern slope of the famed Table Mountain in a suburb of Cape
Town called Constantia. They have a brand new greenhouse and while it has
only been in operation for about a year, it is over half full with Disas. One of
the things that strikes you as you walk through the door is that they only have
Disas. I guess I should qualify that and say that they have an occasional
Orchid hanging on a tree outside here and there but inside the greenhouse, I saw
nothing but Disas! The Disas themselves are grown on recirculating water
tables and use the sand mix as substrate that seems to be favored by most South African growers.
The Cywes have a well water source (bore hole to them) which I forgot to measure
as far as pH and TDS were concerned. (It's difficult to remember things
when your jaw is constantly dragging on the ground!) The overall dimensions of
the greenhouse were 18 x 12 meters which translates roughly to 60 x 40 feet.
 Sid and Marlene in their new greenhouse. Note the pink flowers behind them. They are mericlones and fill a bench about 30 x 4 feet in 4 inch pots. Quick, how many are there? |
 D. Colette Cywes 'Blush' |
 D.
Koos Myburgh x D. Diores |
 D. Helmut Meyer 'Pat' FCC/DOSA Scintillating color. Triploid. |
 A view of roughly half of the greenhouse. The outside wall is partially covered with insect screen and misters spray water on it to provide a "wet wall" cooling effect. Note the upside down pots in the benches to mark a place but prevent light from encouraging algae bloom. |
 D. Tricard |
 D. Kalahari Sands x D. Child Safety Transvaal. 140 mm overall spread with no bunching of 5 fully opened flowers and 2 buds. AWESOME! |
 D. Nedbank x D. Diores |
 D. Kewensis 'Sidmar' |
 D. Kewensis. This is an attempt at breeding white flowers by using xanthic unifloras and white tripetaloides. |
 D. Tridior 'Little Beaut' AM/DOSA beautiful petals with green edging. |
 D. Auratkew 'Peach' AM/DOSA |
 Another D. Tridior |
 A yellow D. Watsonii. |
 D. uniflora x ( D. Robert Cywes x D. uniflora) Intense vibrant red. |
 D. Nedbank x D. Riette |
 D. Bernard Podlashuk |
 D. Kalahari Sands 'Sidmar' x D. Betty's Bay |
 D. Kristo Pienaar |
 D. Nedbank Note Veining and purple sepals |
 Another D. Nedbank |
 D. Kirstenbosch Pride 'Monterey' AM/DOSA |
 This unnamed cross was awarded an FCC/DOSA at a recent meeting. It's easy to see why! |
 D. (Auratkew x Watsonii) x D. (Koos Myburgh x Kalahari Sands) |
Well, if you have gotten to the end of the page and still aren't unhappy with your browser, you can return next month and get the second chapter of the Cywes' greenhouse tour. I will have another 26 slides or so and will try and cover any topics that I may have missed this month. If there is anything in particular that you want me to cover, email! Also, those of you that regularly follow the Diablo Disas Page may notice an increase in the use of photos. I still don't have it quite right but I think I'm getting there.