Tigridia--Topic of the Week
Lee Poulsen (Tue, 23 Sep 2003 16:08:08 PDT)
At 23:54 +1000 9/23/03, Paul Tyerman wrote:
Obviously they like multiplying for us over here in Aus eh Rob? I can't
say I mind at all <grin>.
Don't you and Rob live in parts of Australia that are cooler than
most of the rest of the country? The reason I ask is that I have two
accessions of the species version of Tigridia pavonia that I got from
Yucca Do. (I think Tony Avent of Plant Delights currently offers one
of them.) I put a picture of one of them up on the wiki
<http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…>.
When I bought them, the catalog description said that they were
collected at a much lower and hotter location than the ones that
formed the basis of the Dutch trade cultivars. And that therefore
they could tolerate much warmer summers than the Dutch varieties.
They said that their accessions would easily grow and thrive in the
Central Texas climate they are located in as opposed to the Dutch
bulbs that never do well there. Could this be a reason some of us
have had so much trouble with the standard varieties? I've noticed
that most (but not all) of those who said they easily grow them come
from climates with cooler summers (or at least cooler nights) than
the rest of us.
I too would like to hear about seed sources for
the other species that Alberto mentioned. Great intro Alberto!!
If only I had joined some of these organizations earlier, I would
have known about Southwest Native Seeds in Tucson much sooner. They
haven't listed any Tigridias (or color forms of Bessera) for the past
3 years, even though they have listed some interesting things. I
guess they only head down into Mexico to collect every so many years
and not every year like they do other areas. (It seems to me that
bulbs from Latin America are the least easily obtainable of all the
regions in the world. Thad Howard's book on Bulbs for Warm Climates
is too difficult to read sometimes because of the unfulfillable
bulblust it induces in me.)
At 0:12 +1000 9/24/03, Paul Tyerman wrote:
If people are interested I will try to set some seed on various of the
Tigridias this year so I can donate to the BX. That is assuming that
people are interested if I am successful? Would people only be interested
in the species, or in the hybrids as well?
Yes, yes, yes! Both species and hybrids. (Some of us are not species
purists...) Especially any seed of the pure colored (unmarked) T.
pavonias all you Australasians seem to have, but I've never seen
offered here in the States.
--
--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10