Oxalis 'Ken Aslet'

Roy Herold rherold@yahoo.com
Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:00:47 PDT
Given the recent comments on the subject by Mary Sue (welcome back) and Jim, I thought I'd add my two cents.

I've been growing Ken's namesake for going on five years now. It had zero flowers for the first couple of seasons, but seems to have come around recently. This year a four inch pot had a over a dozen flowers (not all at once!), and perhaps half that number last year.

I'm guessing that part of my success might be repotting in midsummer and keeping only the largest bulbs. They stay in the greenhouse for the summer, bone dry, and get watered on Labor Day (a tip from Matt Mattus). Then they go outside until frost.

 The runts get repotted or sent to worthy causes like the BX. None of the smaller ones bloomed this year, or last, despite identical treatment. Perhaps there is a critical mass that the bulbs have to reach in order to bloom, and too many little bulbs in a pot keep this from happening??

Oxalis hirta Gothenburg has been blooming its head off. Quite satisfactory. It came from Russell Stafford last year, and is a much darker color than the one pictured in our wiki. 

And thanks for the new oxalis I received from the BX this year. (All from MSI??) Looking forward to seeing them bloom, too.

--Roy
NW of Boston, still no frost (but close!)




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