www.disas.com

Ingeborg Meyer is the daughter of the famous Disa grower and hybridizer Helmut Meyer who passed away an number of years ago.  She has been trying to maintain her father's collection as best she can although her primary focus has to be making a living.  All things considered, she is doing a good job considering the size of the collection.  I know how difficult it is to maintain my collection and I do it full time.  It was very interesting seeing how Helmut grew his collection.  The main Disa growing area consisted of two large sand tables held off the ground and covered with a shade structure.  The uniflora were just planted in the sand and since the whole table was planted with uniflora, one didn't need individual labels.  In addition, he also had a warm house where other genera besides Disa were grown.

Helmut Meyer first tried to grow a single Disa uniflora collected as part of the Botanical Garden about 1940.  That plant died but then he started trying to grow them again in the late 60's and early 70's.  The sand bench was tried as a result of his desire to dispense with the annual repotting.  The plants are basically untouched since his death.  Ingeborg does do some repotting and maintenance but doesn't have a lot of time as she has a full time job. She also has trouble replacing used sand so a lot of time is spent cleaning old sand, sifting, etc.  The pots used in the warm house are about 5" in diameter and are as described in the Vogelpoel pamphlet about uniflora.

The sand tables are supported by brick legs on the bottom.  The corrugated roofing which is a cement type material has the corrugations filled with coarse crushed rock, smoothed, and then a layer of fine mesh is spread over the rock to contain the sand.  The sand is coarse river sand in which the clay particles have been washed out.  The sand fills the trays to a depth of about 10 cm or 4 inches. The plants are then planted directly into the sand.  The biggest problem is controlling the ferns and moss that wants to grow on the surface of the table.

The following pictures attempt to show the growing areas.

This photo was taken inside the warm house.  There are a number of Disas in the photo and they were surviving but I think they would have appreciated it a bit cooler.	Some of the various hybrids in the collection.
This shade structure was once filled with Disa uniflora.  Notice the wavy base material under the tables.  This is a corrugated roofing material and was used to provide drainage for the bench.  The pieces of plastic at the edge of the left bench were to keep the cats off the sand as the bottom of the structure was open to the outside.
The whole bench had to be 40 - 50 feet long and about 4 ft wide.	This photo was taken at a slant and doesn't look any better on the side.  I was trying to show how the plants were just planted in the sand on the table.
	This uniflora represented many years of crosses.  Always selecting for the yellowiest color.  The flower was past it's peak and was a bit wilted by the heat but was quite yellow except for the rays in the dorsal.  With Ingeborg's permission, I took some pollen to try on my xanthic unifloras.  Maybe they will have better vigor.
This is another overall view of the shade structure.  In the winter, the angle of the top shadecloth sheds some rain but the plants get a lot of winter rain.