Surprises

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Tue, 13 Jun 2017 17:37:56 PDT
First a big thank you to David Pilling who has apparently found a way to 
make the list work by moving it. It no doubt took a lot of time and 
effort. We are grateful for all the Pacific Bulb Society volunteers, but 
David especially does so much trouble shooting for both the list and the 
wiki.

Diane's comments about her disappearing Erythronium and Jane McGary's 
recent topic of the week about hardiness of plants have prompted me to 
post about this amazing year. Until this year California was in a 
multiple year drought. In Northern California we had an almost average 
amount of rainfall last year, but this was mostly because of a couple of 
big storms that deposited a lot of rain, at least where I live, and not 
regular rainfall. This year has been much better with above average 
rainfall and scattered throughout the rainy season although we didn't 
have much from May on. We recently had a good rain however, something 
that rarely happens in June. It's hard to predict what the future will 
hold. It has been said about bulbs that they often stay underground 
waiting for the right conditions to grow. This year I have continually 
been surprised to see things flowering in my garden that either haven't 
flowered for years, never flowered, or that I don't think I ever planted 
out. How the seeds made their way to those spots who knows. I have had 
to stop and think, what is that and how did it get there? A number of 
years ago I planted some Cyrtanthus brachyscyphus out after Andrew 
Wilson admired it planted in Santa Barbara. This is an evergreen species 
and I had my doubts about this being a good idea and with my dry summer 
garden that was the last I saw it until I saw some orange flowers this 
spring. But the biggest surprise was to see the blue flowers of Pasithea 
caerulea from Chile. I kept it alive in my raised beds in pots for a 
number of years, but have seen no sign of it for many years and how it 
made it in the ground I cannot fathom. There were Lachenalia blooming in 
a spot far away from any pots I spied one day and an Ixia that I thought 
was long gone. This has been the year of the Watsonia in my garden and 
in other gardens and along the road verges. Unfortunately there is far 
too much Watsonia meriana (var. bulbillifers) this year . No fire, but 
good rainfall must have made the difference for those species that don't 
flower every year. Not to be outdone, those plants that are easy to grow 
and have the potential to take over have also done really well so for 
months I've had flowers: chasmanthe and freesias, then sparaxis and 
romuleas, followed by homerias, ixias, and babianas, then tritonias, and 
now Gladiolus species and hybrids, late flowering Ixia and Tritonia 
species and my natives: Toxicoscordion, many species of Triteleia, 
Dichelostemma, Brodiaea, Bloomeria. And this has been the best year for 
Calochortus flowering in a very long time. At times my garden was a riot 
of color (and now a lot of drying leaves.)

I guess the moral to this lesson is that plants you thought were lost 
may not be. They may just be waiting for the right time.

Mary Sue

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