Can you grow South American bulbs in a dry hot climate

[Bulbs and blooms]

Hello! I grow a lot of South African bulbs and have been seeing a lot of South American bulbs and am curious about the care requirements. I live in a very hot dry part of Los Angeles. It's wet during winter but not too cold 35f lowest. What soil do South American bulbs like and how much sun can they handle? Do they like shade? The genera I'm interested in are Bessera, Eustephia, Eucrosia, Habranthus, Hippeastrum, Leucocoryne, Milla, Phaedranassa, Sprekalia, and Hymenocallis. Do they all have somewhat similar care or do they all have different requirements?

[janemcgary]

"South American bulbs" is not a monolithic category. South America has a vast range of climates, and bulbous plants grow in many of them. There are bulbs from rain forests, from high mountains, and from coastal deserts. You need to research what areas have climatic patterns close to those you can approximate in your garden. For Los Angeles, you would want to look at coastal Peru and northern to central Chile, and the dry eastern foothills of the Andes in Argentina. You could expand beyond that if you can create small irrigated habitats. The PBS wiki will give you information on species origins. Be aware that plants from high elevations can be very difficult to maintain in the lowlands, as they may be unable to tolerate high temperatures and may require a long dormant period under snow cover. The PBS has published and sells a book, "The genus Hippeastrum in Bolivia," which offers eye-opening descriptions of the varied habitats of this genus in that mainly high-elevation country.

[Bulbs and blooms]

"South American bulbs" is not a monolithic category. South America has a vast range of climates, and bulbous plants grow in many of them. There are bulbs from rain forests, from high mountains, and from coastal deserts. You need to research what areas have climatic patterns close to those you can approximate in your garden. For Los Angeles, you would want to look at coastal Peru and northern to central Chile, and the dry eastern foothills of the Andes in Argentina. You could expand beyond that if you can create small irrigated habitats. The PBS wiki will give you information on species origins. Be aware that plants from high elevations can be very difficult to maintain in the lowlands, as they may be unable to tolerate high temperatures and may require a long dormant period under snow cover. The PBS has published and sells a book, "The genus Hippeastrum in Bolivia," which offers eye-opening descriptions of the varied habitats of this genus in that mainly high-elevation country.

Good to know! I saw an add in one of my bulb garden articles for that book with an email for more info. I sent a message to the email and never got a reply. Where can I buy the book?

[Uli]

Hello Chris,

The Hippeastrum book is available at our treasurer @ Arnold Trachtenberg who has the stock, he will be more than happy to send you one, please get in touch with him   arnold140@verizon.net

Growing South American bulbs on a balcony in Los Angeles? Hmmm..... sounds challenging but I would like to encourage you to try. Much will depend on exposure to sun and wind, it may be a good idea to protect the pots from direct exposure to the sun by simply putting them into a larger one or wrapping them with aluminum foil, the first version looks nicer especially with ceramic pots. Overheating substrate may damage or kill roots or even bulbs. Hippeastrum hybrids should be possible, with species it might be a trial and error thing because some have specific requirements. Summer growing Oxalis have nice foliage and flower for a long time and for the winter you can switch to the winter growing ones.
The smaller Amaryllids like Habranthus and Zephyranthes should be easy, too. I would avoid tall growing plants or very large leaved ones as they may be damaged by wind but why not if your balcony is sheltered.
There are also advantages growing on a balcony: you are out of reach of slugs and snails and narcissus fly probably, too. Not to talk about rodents and deer...... which can devastate a plant collection. Just take care not to introduce slugs and snails hidden in pots into their new mini habitat.
Just ideas.....

[Bulbs and blooms]

Hello Chris,

The Hippeastrum book is available at our treasurer @ Arnold Trachtenberg who has the stock, he will be more than happy to send you one, please get in touch with him  arnold140@verizon.net

Growing South American bulbs on a balcony in Los Angeles? Hmmm..... sounds challenging but I would like to encourage you to try. Much will depend on exposure to sun and wind, it may be a good idea to protect the pots from direct exposure to the sun by simply putting them into a larger one or wrapping them with aluminum foil, the first version looks nicer especially with ceramic pots. Overheating substrate may damage or kill roots or even bulbs. Hippeastrum hybrids should be possible, with species it might be a trial and error thing because some have specific requirements. Summer growing Oxalis have nice foliage and flower for a long time and for the winter you can switch to the winter growing ones.
The smaller Amaryllids like Habranthus and Zephyranthes should be easy, too. I would avoid tall growing plants or very large leaved ones as they may be damaged by wind but why not if your balcony is sheltered.
There are also advantages growing on a balcony: you are out of reach of slugs and snails and narcissus fly probably, too. Not to talk about rodents and deer...... which can devastate a plant collection. Just take care not to introduce slugs and snails hidden in pots into their new mini habitat.
Just ideas.....

Thanks you for the ideas! I'll have to do a few attempts with some common species or hybrids. I sent Arnold an email just now!

[Lee Poulsen]

Hi Chris,

I live in SoCal (Pasadena area) and grow quite a few plants from South America. Tl;dr answer is that if you water them in the summer, many of the summer-growers will actually enjoy the heat during the summer.

As others have pointed out, you need to distinguish between the summer-growers (winter dormant) and the winter-growers (summer dormant). California is one of the "mediterranean" climate areas where it rains in the winter and is dry during the summer. (The other area are middle and northern Chile, western South Africa (Cape Province), Western Australia (around Perth and south) and South Australia (around Adelaide), and the entire perimeter* of the Mediterranean Sea--the coastal area and inland maybe 100-200 km?. One odd small addition with this climate is the western slopes of Haleakala at around 3000 ft/1000 m on Maui, Hawaii. Pretty much any plant or bulb native to those areas will grow in California easily.)

In your list, there is one winter-grower, Leucocoryne. So as the descriptives above imply, it grows during our winter when it wants to be watered and is dormant during the summer when it wants to kept dry. All the others are basically summer-growers. Although I should point out that Bessera and Milla are from the monsoon areas of Mexico and so they actually don't start growing until late spring/early summer and continue into the fall. Most of the others will actually enjoy the summer heat--as long as they're watered. And they should probably be protected from too much cold winter rain if we get a really rainy winter. Not bone dry, but merely slightly moist.

And depending on the size of your balcony, and how crowded you keep it, you can grow quite the collection. A former member of PBS who used to live in Santiago, Chile had an amazing collection of almost all the native Chilean bulb species that he grew on his balcony. He did so well with them that he would sell seeds of all them every year. I was able to visit him once and he had quite the system to grow them and then protect them from too much direct sunlight during their summers.

*The "perimeter" includes Spain, the French Riviera, most of Italy, the Baltic coast, Greece including all the Greek islands, western and southern coastal Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, the coastal areas of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, Cyprus, Malta, and the other Mediterranean islands (Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Mallorcas, etc.). But it also includes the Atlantic sides of Morocco and Portugal as well as the Canary Islands and the Azores to some extent.