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Messages - Robert_Parks

#61
General Discussion / Re: Plants in the News
May 18, 2023, 05:32:10 AM
Quote from: OrchardB on May 18, 2023, 01:39:32 AMI frequently pull off the growing centre of numerous plants, but have not checked if the fleshy roots reqrow. Am I fooling myself by not digging it up? As it grows in cracks and crevices it would be quite a job to remove all the roots.
Of course, it totally depends on the plant. Dandelions are the worst, being near geophytes, sprouting from anywhere on the taproot. My local native bulbs have adapted to incidental browsing by having a weak connection at the top of the bulb (bulb reserves are much larger than the needs of a year's growth).

Persistence can help, keep at it so the plant never gets to photosynthesize. In some situations, targeted use of chemicals (natural or otherwise) may be a better solution than digging up a rocky area.
#62
Mystery Bulbs / Re: Del Puerto Canyon
May 16, 2023, 10:15:00 AM
Quote from: Steve Marak on May 15, 2023, 08:23:03 AMJim,

I'm no expert on California native plants, but as a milkweed enthusiast I'll suggest a nearly spent Asclepias californica.

Steve
I'd agree as A. eriocarpa is absent in this area.

Del Puerto Canyon and the roads that complete the crossing of the hills are an amazing crossing of the ridges there.
#63
Quote from: MarkMazer on May 09, 2023, 08:32:44 AM" If you are interested in the durability of ground contact wood"

If you can get it,  Robinia pseudoacacia, commonly known as black locust, makes the best ground contact wood. It is considered an invasive species in some areas.
Honestly, nowadays, just get plastic lumber, it doesn't cost that much more than treated wood, and vastly less than dimensional black locust (unless you happen to be in the right place).

As for a mesh house, either all mesh, or impermeable roof sections with mesh around the sides. Protection from wind/rain...and critters!

#64
Quote from: Judy Glattstein on May 09, 2023, 09:19:21 AMI'm jealous! You're all done potting / planting summer bulbs - sigh, I can only wish. I'm working my way through crates of cannas: CC. musaefolia, flaccida 'Purpurea', 'Bengal Tiger', 'Tropicana'. I need to harden my heart, next fall, and refuse to dig, clean, pack, and store ALL the canna tubers that multiply over the summer.

At least the potted crinum and xamarcrin are back outdoors, ditto the red spot banannas, and the hardy Musa basjoo are erupting skyward at their usually enthusiastic speed. Hippeastrum are in flower in the greenhouse, to be moved outdoors when I get the time.

My spirit is willing but my aging back has limitations.
I have far fewer summer bulbs than winter, but they are mostly much bigger. So the potting is easier, once I remember to use the shovel to mix the soil. Moving them around is near a challenge. And they grow so fast...5" pot to 9-10" pot in one year. So far the biggest ones are maxed out in 20" pots. I foresee some winnowing come next fall,
#65
About half the winter bulbs are lifted or in pot storage...the rest are going dormant at their own speed, probably dragged out by the 1.5"+ of unlikely rain in May.

The summer bulbs are a few randoms, but mostly Amorphophallus (plus other geophyte aroids), and this year's planters of Andean tubers. That was a lot of soil! Most of the aroids are in 1 to 10 gallon pots. The indoor lights are all shining on tropical/near tropical miniature aroids. The storage boxes have been emptied of summer bulbs and are filling with winter bulbs.

The front yard still has lots of spots of color from spring/summer bulbs, and the summer flowering perennials...but it is definitely getting less colorful. Lots of miniature flowers in the greenhouse, and Pelargonium incrassatum is still being improbably pink.

Front yard - Bomarea superba(?), Ixia viridiflora (plus interloper I. polystycha)
Under lights - Typhonium circinnatum with the rolled spathe
Back yard - Gorgonidium intermedium pushing up a bouquet of flowers, Amorphophallus konjac moving towards opening

#66
Mystery Bulbs / Re: posting
May 04, 2023, 07:02:26 PM
Quote from: Jim Barton on May 04, 2023, 06:59:29 AMIt is growing in Del Puerto Canyon west of Patterson CA.
Dang! I was just there last week, but I was mostly driving through admiring the geophyte mass blooming and chasing Ceanothus.
#67
I find that several presumably closely related species in the blue range to be happier and more vigorous than the commerical hybrids in more conventional colors. Unfortunately, they started blooming just as this week's unseasonal rain started...I hope the flowers don't all melt.

Very vigorous...I got flowers in 15 months from seed. I'd worry about them becoming weedy, except the gophers eat them first, they don't even carry them to their caches. My only regret is that I don't have the space for a true mass planting...maybe my neighbor will allow me to install a band of gopher basket in his barren yard.

Robert
1.5" so far this month (3 X monthly normal average). Happily indoors lifting winter bulbs from pots.
#68
Quote from: Emil on April 16, 2023, 04:48:56 PM
Quote from: petershaw on April 05, 2023, 07:06:25 AMAs I was thinking about the post about invasive bulbs, this one was top on my mind... Is there anywhere someone would want to grow this plant because it's hard to grow there? Or because it's rare there?
I have seen it offered for sale in a catalog!
So far I have resisted the urge to try the (reputedly less invasive) double form. It really is a spectacular bloomer...often with massed blooms fall and spring.
#69
Quote from: Ake Nordstrom on April 28, 2023, 11:23:06 PMThank you all!

So, now i have some methods to work with. I liked the tips from Tony Avent, even if it feels a bit unpleasent to tear the flowers apart. I also realize that I have mostly male flowers, I guess that some switch over to female till next year if they are well fed?

The snow is disappearing fast, I can see about 10% of bare ground outside now.

/Åke
Most of the aroids require desecrating the flowers to hand pollinate. Amorphophallus mostly has timed receptivity, so you have to have successive flowers or store pollen.
#70
Quote from: petershaw on April 05, 2023, 07:06:25 AMAs I was thinking about the post about invasive bulbs, this one was top on my mind... Is there anywhere someone would want to grow this plant because it's hard to grow there? Or because it's rare there?
I don't think it is rare anywhere it can grow easily. My neighbor, who lets me garden her front yard prefers they not be removed since they are so pretty. It makes a pretty pot plant...think abandoned pots in the corner of a yard bursting into bloom winter and spring!
#71
Quote from: Uli on April 02, 2023, 01:59:33 PMI had to learn the hard way that pulled up Oxalis pes caprae is quite capable of forming small emergency bulbils from its own substance before it dies. So no longer will it go to the compost place. Before I understood that I contaminated an entire compost with this weed....
But such a pretty terrible weed! Which the gophers transport everywhere here. Sorry to hear about your emergency tuber infestation...I found that out when I weeded a back yard that was totally covered...I found those emergency tubers at the bottom of the piles of dessicating plants when I didn't get around to putting them in the city compost (industrial hot composting, kills tubers and most seeds).
#72
That succulent root is under the developing bulb. When the plant goes dormant, the root collapses, drawing the bulb down into the soil. Many geophytic Oxalis do this, pulling bulbs inches down into the soil, leaving a void in the soil! So not actually a storage organ, except as a water reservoir at the dry end of the season.
#73
Here, it woould be gopher caches. There's Oxalis purpurea popping up through my neighbor's pavered driveway...20-30 feet from the clumps the gophers harvested.
#74
In cool tropical San Francisco, they were distinctly summer growers, producing flowers in late summer (that melted in the fog). The bulbs were remarkable in size and the small divisions were remarkable in numbers. Removed from the garden after one season and passed on to someone on the other side of the hill who doesn't get the cold windy fog.

Robert
#75
Quote from: Arnold on February 28, 2023, 05:49:09 AMRobert

Thanks for undertaking this.

You could include a note with shipments to send funds to PayPal at Arnold140{at}verizon.net with a note it's for the Clivia distribution.

Or check to my address.

Thanks again
Um. This was the last of the Ephemeral BXs undertaken by volunteers over the winter after PBS leaders stated no interest in supporting a ephemeral seed exchange. Costs go to the volunteers doing the distributions to cover the costs of shipping and handling.

Robert
in near frosty San Francisco, where the worst of the storm impacts were the winds, not the rain.