PBS Forum

My weather station data gets shared to a data-distributor. I think it might be PWS or AWS. Then lots of systems subscribe to that data distributor. So my little amateur weather station does show up on public systems, not just weather underground. They have rating systems for data quality that look at how long the station has operated continuously, how consistent it is with nearby stations, and other stuff. But apparently their bots do not read my comment field where I state it is too close to trees and not at regulation height. Also my rain bucket sometimes jams or gets filled with bird poo. So when you get free data... caveat emptor. 

I also have a soil moisture (tension) and soil temperature meter about 5" deep in the sand plunge underneath the weather station. And I have a leaf wetness meter. I used to gaze at graphs showing the damped oscillation of soil temperature versus air. Not just damped, but phase delayed. 

The one thing my Rainwise station does not do well is summon rain when we need it. 

no scroll bars on my iPhone 13 mini with iOS 17.12 and looking at the link you gave using Safari (on the iPhone). See screenshots. 

btw, I was not logged in on the forum on my iPhone because I have no clue what my pw is and to change it requires the pw, so... I may be a smartphone user but I'm not a smart phone-user. 

No scroll side-to side is the result. However, I think I'd prefer it as-is, w/o scrollbar, since it is much easier to just scroll down and the columns self-adjust to screen width. 

I use newspaper pots for annuals and vegetables but have not attempted these for bulb seeds. I'm pretty sure I've never transplanted a bulb seedling in fewer than 2 growing seasons (2 years). I've never tried keeping a newspaper pot longer than a single season, a few months, before transplanting. 

I use just a random empty food jar to make my paper pots. Roll a few thicknesses, flatten one end. 

I do like the idea of transplanting bulb seedling and its growing medium as a whole rather than dumping out the soil. The tiny bulblets could easily be overlooked, especially if only one year old. One year old Moraea are the size of a pin head, smaller than the sand grains of my coarse sand. 

Hi Janet, as Uli mentioned, you will want to either raise or remove the wire screen as bulb leaves begin to poke through. I've made the mistake of leaving wire mesh over bulb beds. You and I likely share a population of critters, both being in coastal California. I've got scrub jays, possums, skunks, mice and neighbor's kids' soccer balls. 

A few strategies I've used: 
Scrub jays are best kept out with bird netting, but wire mesh also works if small enough. Bird netting can be draped over a frame that allows me access. Small pieces of bird netting are enough to discourage jays. My guess is they've developed a deep fear of the stuff.

That fear strategy seems to work for wire mesh and mammal pests as well. Just a scrap of wire mesh over, or even around, bulb pots seems to scare away the kinds of critters who may have evolved to avoid wire traps. It does not work for soccer balls.

Jane's screen house was the inspiration for my own screen house. Mine is nowhere near hers in durability or aesthetics, but was cheap to build. I put three DIY wire shelf sets in a U, sharing corner poles. Then I draped the whole thing in bird netting. This lets rain and sun through, except when I top it with a tarp. It does not let birds through. And the mammals have not attempted to jump up to the first shelf, which is about 18" above ground. The mesh is open enough for most pollinators, although occasionally butterflies get trapped. 

My wire-shelf screen house is not as good for pots as the plunge. The white baskets hold tiny seed pots plunged into perlite or sand. I call them my "mini plunge baskets". Various boards or slates shade the sides of some pots from sun. I like having pots at eye level. 

I'm working on refurbishing the hoops over my plastic-board plunge beds. I have not yet decided on wire mesh or bird netting to drape over the hoops. As Uli mentions, access to the pots is important. Yours might be clean but mine always need a lot of tedious weeding by hand. 

Here are a couple of my sand plunge beds. Years ago, these were tidy and worthy of a shared photo. Today these are an example of garden entropy. The sand settles, exposing the sides of pots. And until I re-build the critter netting, random bits of wire mesh protect pots from scrub jays planting acorns. One bed is wood and is holding up well after 12 years. One bed is plastic fake-boards. A cut-off piece is visible sticking up vertically to shade the side of a pot. Unless the pots are neck-deep in the sand, they can get too warm exposed to the sun.

The square box has soil moisture and temperature sensors buried in the sand. As expected, the sand temperature a few inches down is significantly damped in diurnal amplitude compared to air temperature measured by the weather station atop that steel pole.

I use a very coarse sand, the most coarse available here, sold for sand blasting. It takes a lot of time and effort to wash the dust out of it. And it does not hold shape unless saturated. It is the same sand I use in my growing media.

I am realizing Colchicum germinate differently than most everything else I grow from seed. If this information source is correct, from Strictly Medicinal Seeds, then I'll set the seed pots in a shady, cool spot with less daytime light and heat. That agrees with the 1 to 2 cm of grit over the seeds that the PBS wiki Colchicum page says. Night temperatures are regularly below 40 F lately so they'll get plenty of chill.

I chose C. corsicum in hopes my climate is like Corsica so this species might do well here.

Are Colchicum seeds recalcitrant? One of the seeds has a white thread which might be a radicle. I did not even see it while photographing, only now when I cropped the photo. Those seeds are sown now so I cannot put it under a microscope. I'd never seen Colchicum seed before. 

Well Arnold when your unidentified Colchicum bloom and we post those pics here for the experts, you will have spliced back together this forum thread 'Identifying Colchicum' that I split with my question. 

I may not add any more Colchicum, at least not until a blue hybrid appears. 

Thank you Uli.

I planted it in the ground, in a raised bed adjacent to my patch of lawn. That way it can reach moist soil with its roots when it needs to but not get the bulb wet in summer. I placed it to the NW of a large ceramic planter to shade from afternoon sun. I put it 5 inches deep. My soil is loamy sand (not sandy loam) so it is easy for bulbs to push through. 

It took some courage to plant directly in the ground my entire collection of Colchicum - consisting of this single bulb. 

And thank you Arnold for the toe-down tip. The white tip you see in this photo is not the toe.  

Question for someone gardening in coastal central or southern California that grows Colchicum:

In the ground or in a pot, which is better? I was lucky to receive a Colchicum 'Glory of Heemstede' bulb in our latest BX 493. I have not grown Colchicum before but I've seen them succeed in others' gardens, although I did not take note of those species or varieties. Those were in the ground, under trees. I read these do best in the ground, but that was Arnold's New Jersey, completely different climate than here in Santa Barbara (like zone 10 or Sunset zone 24 except there is frost in my neighborhood.) I figure these are ok with frost. I do plan to find a place for this special bulb in the ground. But, unlike a pot, I cannot move it around after planting. So, full sun? Morning sun? Maximum frost location? And do gophers eat these?

Or maybe I should plunge a pot. There is a bit of room still left in the plunge beds.

Also, I'm pretty sure this photo shows my bulb upside down, that the flat end goes up and the pointy end is an offset, yes? Grid is 1 cm bold, 1 mm lighter grid.

The link broken by the * at the end is Bridget's BX post on this page:
https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php?topic=722.0
Last edited Oct 25, at least as of now. 
If you can edit it to remove the * at the end of the link, that will fix it.

I'm not seeing how to link to a particular post within a topic. Scroll down to the one titled "US BX 493 CLOSED" then scroll down to the post before that (which displays below that on my view but I've noticed the above/below is not the same for everyone.) 

Or just search for the text within page of "Orders should be paid upon receipt through the PBS website at:"
The broken link is right below that. 

An easy fix. I'm just too lazy to figure out how to edit someone else's post. 

Hi Forum team,

I clicked on the link to pay for my BX treasures which just arrived. The link is
https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php?page=BXpay*
and that gives this error:
"An error has occurred
This article is not available. You may not have permission to see the article, it isn't active, hasn't been approved yet, or simply does not exist."

When I remove the * the link is fine. My guess is some markup messed up the link text. 

Thank you,
Gastil

Hi @Brenna Green,

Good plan. And that reminded me to also look at Gordon Summerfield's seed list that comes out this time of year. 

I was re-potting 7 trays of seed pots this past few weeks, dumping out the contents and examining the bulbs grown from seed from NARGS and a PBS SX back in 2020. Tedious work, but fun. Some species grew really well and were ready to move up to a bigger pot. Some were empty. So now I have more of an idea what species I want to try again. Some of those species have already had their first flower and subsequently a positive ID. 

The seed lists, PBS included, are long and can easily overwhelm my patience to look up each one to determine if it is something I both want to grow and my climate makes possible to grow. So, if I were smart, I would start from my Wish List and then find those in the offered lists. 

Here are some seed pots' contents: 

Hi Brenna,

I had considered just ordering a few packets but it would have been crazy expensive for that. So if you are still looking for cost-share, I'm in. Although I'm farther down the coast in Santa Barbara, not as convenient as Peter. Small Lots green/yellow labels last for 3 years.  

Question: 
RSA is just now at the end of their spring. The species I grow ripen seed in late spring or early summer. So if I order now, their stock is likely from November 2022 not this month. So if I receive it in January, then I should plant the following September I think, right? So is it better to order in January and get the November 2023 seed?

Gastil

Hi @Arnold , I'm growing Veltheimia capensis

for its grey-green ruffled leaves. Mine has never flowered. Does yours have the grey-green ruffled leaves? I'm tempted to order seed from the current SX since I only have one (surviving) specimen. I started a batch of seeds a few years back but I was a bad seed mommy.   Time to try again.

How old were your Scilla madeirensis

before they first bloomed? Mine I am only this year potting up. My bulbs are still only an inch in diameter. How big did your bulbs get in diameter before they bloomed first? I've put mine in rather large pots in hopes they are like goldfish growing to the size of their pond.

Two things blooming now here are Scilla lingulata (or Hyacinthoides lingulata

if you prefer) and Crocus goulimyi

.