Drimia maritima

Pamela Slate myixia1@gmail.com
Sun, 05 Jun 2016 11:34:52 PDT
Dear Jim,
I have a small "field" of D. maritima, probably about 20 now, all planted
for many years outdoors in the shade. They aren't protected from summer
monsoon rains, tolerate temperatures of 110+ and offset regularly. They
flower toward the end of summer, usually August, but not all flower each
year. Foliage was still lush at the end of April, dried up completely by
mid-May and will return with cooler fall temperatures. My bulbs are planted
with the tops exposed an inch or two.

On the Mystery Bulb page, there are three photos of flowers in Marrakech
that Robert Hoel submitted. I have often thought these are D. maritima and
in the background of the third photo there are others.

In your climate, Jim, I think I'd be more concerned about too much
water/humidity than heat. Two summers ago we had 11 inches of rain from
July through September without ill effect to the bulbs although some
summers we get as little as two inches. Ours is what I would call good
desert dirt compared to other locations - excellent drainage, small gravel
and no clay. Over the years, we had many tons of loamy sand hauled in to
build gardens, a bit of it there. The point is you might pot it in a
similar mix in a very large pot, perhaps one of the nice resin ones Lowe's
carries. I'd remove the glass dome

Oddly enough - and it's a first - a small D. maritima is shooting up an
inflorescence reminiscent of Ledebouria socialis in bud. It's occurring in
one of the smaller bulbs. A nice surprise, probably triggered by the
current high temperature extremes.

Hope this helps,
Pamela Slate



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