Interesting increase of S.A. bulbs
Marguerite English (Thu, 18 Jul 2002 23:49:43 PDT)

I have been repotting Romuleas, Nothoscordums, Babianas and
Laperiousas early because I thought I may have lost quite a few when the
Big Wind destroyed my greenhouse in January. Almost all the pots had
budding flowers or new green shoots scoured out of the tops, and some were
even thrown on the floor, either being dumped from the posts or having
broken pots with a resulting big mess. I wanted to be sure what was
there, so I could re-order some favorites if they hadn't survived.
Turns out that while many of them had poor or almost no growth this
spring and died back early if they were up at all, they have increased more
than the usual pattern here. I guess the attempted murder by the Big Wind
caused them to propagate like crazy! (My neighbor's wind device was blown
off her roof with a reading of 96 mph, and that was early in the day!)
I'll be checking the Ixias and Lachenalias with interest this weekend
to see if the same thing is true with them. There are a few unknowns
where the big wind mixed up labels , but otherwise the bulbs have done
fairly well. Looks as if I'll finally be able to share some of the special
ones next year. (When you start with only 1 or 3 of a species, it takes a
while to get enough to share!)

Marguerite