vegetative propagation TOW
Diane Whitehead (Mon, 05 May 2003 23:09:56 PDT)

Janis Ruksans' short talk on propagation at the Western Winter Study
Weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, first weekend of
March, 2003.

He uses charcoal as a fungicide. He uses a meat grinder to grind up
pieces from the fire.

He also uses a light solution of formaldehyde, and cleans his knife
in a stronger solution of it.

Juno Iris
Broken bits of root can regenerate and bloom the following year.
Some won't grow if broken accidentally but will be OK if carefully
cut and put in a box of sand.

Fritillaria
1. Many Central Asian frits don't increase much. (F. stenanthera, F.
ariana, etc. ) Dig up the bulb and break the two sections. Dry a
bit, then cover with pure sand. One side will have many small
bulbils, the other side will flower. You can do this every year.

2. The imperialis group increases well. Every year each bulb
produces one, two or three new bulbs, except for F. eduardii which
has better, brighter colour, but the bulb never increases, and it
takes 7 to 8 years to flower from seed.

He was sent several bulbs of a new colour form of F. persica, F.
Ivory Bells, so he could experiment and see how it could be
propagated. He tried every which way and none worked until he sliced
it horizontally. The bottom part regrows its missing top, and the
top produces 20 to 30 small bulbs which will flower in 3 years. Now
his price of this is down to $35 U.S. I forget how much it was
before he experimented.

This horizontal slicing will work with all frits with large bulbs,
like F. raddeana and eduardii. [I'm not sure about this, though, as
he mentioned earlier in the talk, and also wrote in his catalogue
that eduardii won't increase vegetatively. Maybe he is still
experimenting with it. Maybe he meant that the horizontal division
might work with eduardii.]

Scilla bucharica and Muscari - cut 1/3 cut across the bottom.

--
Diane Whitehead Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil