Allium TOW
Mary Sue Ittner (Sun, 09 Mar 2003 20:48:55 PST)
Dear Mark,
Before I introduce the next topic tomorrow I'd like to thank you for your
amazing effort on Allium both on the list and on the wiki. I suspect there
may be people catching up on everything throughout the following week and
more discussion to come. It is going to be hard for anyone to match your
output for any other genus in terms of helpful information and photos you
have added to the wiki.
Over the years I have tried a lot of Allium from seed and partly this has
been because of all those articles you have written in NARGS bulletins with
your extraordinary enthusiasm. There has always been a lot of seed
available of Alliums through NARGS and for a number of years (not the last
two I am happy to say if Tom S. is reading this) if I didn't get my first
choice I got a lot of Allium seed because they started with A and went down
the list of my alternate choices. My success rate with this seed has been
really poor. Except for the California species that I mentioned in an
earlier post and a few others that I expect to bloom soon, with about 22
different things I have tried, perhaps I've gotten three to blooming
stages. Some germinated and I lost them later, but a lot never came up.
Many of the ones I have tried have been praised this past week.
For some I expected I started them at the wrong time so now I can look at
what the seeds look like for a clue. From an earlier comment I am assuming
that some of them needed colder winters. But the other question I always
had for the ones that did come up was what were their requirements for
summer water. Perhaps I didn't give them enough water. I experimented with
planting extra chives and garlic chives in my "dry" summer garden and they
disappeared. I still have some in containers that I water regularly
however. I could never have the glorious display of blooms in summer you
showed us on the wiki.
I'm not complaining because there is a wide array of material from
Mediterranean climates that are quite happy in my situation and I love
living in an area where I can hike year round (albeit in rain gear some
days in winter). Besides the California onions that don't need cold
temperatures to thrive are there other species you would recommend for
those of us who have mild winter temperatures and dry summers that wouldn't
escape into the wild areas like Allium triquetrum.
On another forum I saved from Lauw his words: "A. christophii,
schubertii, stipitatum , amethystinum, sphaerocephalon do very well here
in our Medit. climat. Many Allium hybrids
and Allium giganteum have been abandoned; as they all degenerate rapidly
by virus infection due to our mild climate. Allium cowannii, triquetrum
(of course), subhirsitum , zebdanense are all good 'stayers' here."
Of these:
Allium cristophii-started in spring, came up the following winter. Years
later I still only have two very tiny bulbs
Allium schubertii-started in November, germinated in January, failed to
thrive as well
Allium subhirsutum-never germinated
Allium zebdanense-started in October, germinated in March, did not survive
Allium amethystinum-I have some healthy looking seedlings now from a fall
sowing. What do I need to do to keep them going?
Can you comment on Lauw's statement about Alliums degenerating rapidly to
virus in mild temperatures. I am assuming the Allium that Alberto talked
about was virused when he got it.
I bought some Allium acuminatum from Jane and I have two seedling pots
returning too so am hopeful that this will be another Allium from
California that I can keep going.
Now that you have whetted our appetites are you going to donate some seed
of some of these you told us about to the BX next year?
Mary Sue