Michael Neumann

My profession is horticulture. I work in the Botanical Gardens of Bonn. My job is tending the tropical greenhouses including the Amorphophallus collection -especially A. titanum (http://www.botgart.uni-bonn.de/o_samm/titan/galbluetstand.php)- together with an Mediterranean bulb collection.

Privatly my wife Jutta and I are gardening near Bonn on about 1500 m² garden by the house and another 1200 m², 10 minutes walk away. Both gardens are quite different. One has a small creek on two sides and is shady and wet. The other is a south facing slope, which is hot and dry. Both are zone 7. Beside the perennial borders, a small alpine garden, some trees and shrubs, some vegetables and fruits, we have a bulb collection of about 800 different taxa. Main interest is Narcissus, Crocus, Fritillaria, Colchicum, different Araceae, Hyacinthaceae from the Mediterranean area, and since we have a frostfree glasshouse Gladiolus from Southern Africa as well as Oxalis, Calochortus, etc. At least everything with a bulb is welcome!

My wife runs a small wholesale buiseness for rare plants. This developed by often having so many spare bulbs and plants and not knowing what to do with it. This should bring in some money to support the collection.

At least we do travel as much as possible to see plants in the wild. In the last years we mostly went to Mediterranean countries. But more exotic countries like Georgia (Caucasus), Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan were on the list as well as Cambodia, Borneo, and other tropical places. Still it is great fun working with plants.


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