PBS Forum

This reminds me that when I have received emails with a subject line being the taxonomic name of one of the many plants with the species epithet formed from the Latin adjective for 'black' (niger nigra, nigrum), the message gets tagged with a red chili pepper, signifying offensive content. Earthlink apparently believes it's a message from a nasty racist who can't spell either.

Interesting question. The site is sloping toward the street, so runoff might decrease persistence of Casoron. However, the bark itself would be a good home for wind-dispersed weeds from the unmaintained lots across the street. Perhaps I should just leave the eyesore for a year (no neighborhood committee here), then replant with inexpensive bulbs and seed some shade- and drought-tolerant grass over it. It's going to be summer-dormant whatever I do because of huge Douglas firs nearby. I surrounded the trees with Cyclamen hederifolium, which is effective about 9 months a year in a gravel mulch.

I'm in the process of renovating a part of the bulb lawn. Near the street where people park weed-dispersing cars, it acquired an infestation of Geranium lucidum (shiny geranium) that could not be stopped except by killing the whole area. I'm thinking of applying the persistent pre-emergent Casoron now and having the area covered with a bark mulch, then waiting to see if the weed reappears next spring. If it doesn't, I'll replant with low shrubs and bulbs. Does anyone know how Casoron might affect bulbs planted about 14 months after application?

Can someone change the title of this topic to "Babiana" so it will be properly searchable? Thanks.

Ignoring for the moment the recent explosive splitting of the genus Scilla, I think Jan (who lives across the city from me) has the same thing that's flowering in my rock garden now. I'm pretty sure, given the botanical description and the history of my bulb collection, that it's Scilla lilio-hyacinthus, with S. verna another possibility. I'll find out more when it goes dormant and can be lifted, as S. lilio-hyacinthus is described as having distinctive scale-like structures on the bulb. Either one could have got into my rock garden as random seedlings when I moved to the present place.

When I started my bulb collection around 1990, I bought and grew from seed many species of Crocus at my home near Portland, Oregon. I've lost a lot of them over the years (especially to field mice) and have tried to bring in replacements and new species as often as possible. I can't import corms any more, but I have new seedlings most years and keep them carefully. Mark Akimoff's Illahe Nursery in Oregon is growing many different Crocus species, including some from my collection. Sadly, little seed is now being collected and offered for sale, but perhaps importation of corms from Europe will occur soon.

Paeonia species are starting to flower here in northwestern Oregon, and as usual I was looking around the web for information and help verifying their identity, as mine are all seed-grown. I came upon this excellent site: https://www.peonysociety.eu/peony-species/ . People from all around the world post photos with brief text there. I was amazed to see an emerging cluster of Paeonia brownii (or P. californica) in a garden in Finland. I'm still trying to identify one that came up, probably from a forgotten seed that got moved to this garden in potting soil with another plant. I have Josef and Jarmila Halda's sumptuous book on the genus and will see what I can find there to match this plant with crimson flowers and sharply lobed, dark green leaves. Another spot to watch is a large colony of P. daurica seedlings, the offspring of P. daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii (I think that's the current concept of the yellow form), left to grow in hope of another real yellow, but so far mainly cream flushed pink. The yellow parent, from a Halda collection, is stronger in color than the wild plants I saw in the Caucasus. The common pink form of P. daurica grows nearby, and here and there around the garden, possibly planted by jays.

It shouldn't look like dead vegetation. I grew this Puya for years in a big pot in a solarium, and it finally flowered. However, I got rid of it because I was tired of getting stabbed by its hundreds of fishhook-like marginal spines. In Chile, P. alpestris provides shelter for a rare species of chinchilla, and is encouraged to grow in the preserve dedicated to this little nocturnal mammal. The Chinchilla Reserve is also an excellent place to see many plants in flower around December, and interesting birds too. Puya species seem to be fairly easy to propagate from seed.

The list of "unacceptable plants" from NARGS that David quoted originated with me. I've done every phase of the NARGS SX, including 3 years as intake manager in the mid-1990s. My capacity for snarking about common donations is limitless. For the past few years I've just done packaging, and it's hard to be asked to put together 30 packets of Lilium formosanum (for example); and then there are all the donors who send in Clematis seed.

The Calochortus appears to be C. monophyllus.

The correct spelling is "Knightshayes," not "Knightslayes." The Romulea I have grown as 'Knightshayes form' was deeper in color than the plants in the preceding photo.

Rebecca, I have a good quantity of this species, grown from wild-collected seed. You can contact me privately through the "Membership" button on the PBS website, since I'm the Membership Coordinator for the society. I could send you bulbs this summer.

Since there do not seem to be strict objections to this idea, I will post a few species I have grown and no longer have, which I would love to grow again. I would be delighted to show my current inventory to anyone able to exchange these, as bulbs within the USA or as seeds from elsewhere. Several are native to Europe, so perhaps they are more often cultivated there. For reassurance, I formerly grew all these to flowering from seed and lost them when I moved the collection about 12 years ago.
Acis longifolia
Colchicum kesselringii
Erythronium helenae
Fritillaria tubiformis
Iris stenophylla
Ranunculus abnormis

Some bulb offsets are very small and can be sent as seeds if protected from being smashed. For a long time I had only one clone of Notholirion thomsonianum, so no seed, but several years ago an acquaintance obtained the species' tiny offsets from someone in New Zealand and shared them with me. It's definitely another clone because my original was a seedling via the Scottish RGC. The new one is about a year from flowering size now. Meanwhile, last year viable seed startlingly showed up in the NARGS leftovers, donated by a grower in Oakland, and I obtained good germination from it. Illahe Nursery has some too, so I hope someday this spectacular monocarpic bulb will be common in temperate gardens in the USA. It makes hundreds of offsets.

To Carlos's question, would it apply to the EU? I think it should, and also to the UK. Those who already share seeds and bulbs to correspondents in other countries will be aware of the barriers to this, and how to deal with them. Individuals may have resources not available to commercial sellers and plant societies, such as bringing material personally through customs while traveling rather than risking shipped items being held up for months awaiting inspection.