Blooming in my garden

Osmani Baullosa osmani_baullosa@yahoo.com
Fri, 22 Jul 2005 12:28:35 PDT
Thanks Alberto, and everybody else for all the useful information and experience...
 
In Santiago de Chile Narcissus "Tazzeta" are in full bloom, as well as the first Daffodils and Hyacinthus...
 
About my Chilean species, Phycella scarlatina is flowering right now, bringing some red to my garden, a different color from all the white, yellow and blue of the dutch bulbs.... My Tropaeolum tricolor is starting to bloom (Very very early as they have said to me); buds are elongating and turning red. Also Nothoscordum striatellum.
 
I wish for you all a very happy and fun week end...
 
Regards,
 
Osmani 
 


Alberto Castillo <ezeizabotgard@hotmail.com> wrote:


>From: Osmani Baullosa 
"::::::those cases in which the water never runs out of the pot:
>
>If the soil mix turns dry in the upper layer, and the drainage is not good 
>-so the water remains for a longer time down in the pot... Will the roots 
>finnally absorbe this water if you stop watering the plant? Or they will 
>rot? "

Hi Osmani:
How is the Chilean season going?
Succulents, bulbs and cacti are very sensitive to soil 
or mix porosity. The existence of all important absorbing roots depends on 
the availability of oxygen in the mix and perhaps more crucial, that 
noxious gases (carbon dioxide, methane, sulphidric) leave the mix. A mix 
that would perform wonders for many kinds of vegetables (for instance) will 
kill most bulbs rapidly. So if water collects at the bottom of the pot it 
must leave it soon as the plant will “drink” only what it needs for cooling 
and for photosynthesis and has no way to get rid of the rest. It will just 
remain there whence by capillarity will ascend into the remaining healthier 
upper portion. Drainage must be fast and rapid TO LET gases come in and out 
of the mix with ease. Bulbs can cope very well with thirst and seldom suffer 
from it. More normally they die from suffocation. In dry climates dry air 
would help take water from the wet mix but in humid climates the problem 
will be a lot worse.
In case of normal plants like say indoors type, they 
quickly give signals of being overwatered (random leaves yellowing) and have 
ways of surviving the danger, like producing superficial roots in the upper 
layers of the soil where the mix dries up more rapidly and there exists a 
certain exchange of gases. Bulbs can not do this, they are normally low in 
the container where water actually collects and have no mechanisms to send 
roots up. Their normal response is stunted growth and death as roots become 
asfixiated one after the other and and the rot crawls into the basal plate. 
It is by now that first signs of trouble show up and by then the poor thing 
is practically gone. So, do not take risks and make your side drainage 
holes before ti is too late.
Regards
Alberto

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