Favorite Red Flowered Bulbs--TOW
Jane McGary (Thu, 17 Jun 2004 10:11:02 PDT)

Kenneth Hixson's notes on red-flowered bulbs demonstrate the intricacies of
plant "hardiness" in western North America. Ken lives near where I do in
northwestern Oregon, but at a lower elevation and, I'm guessing, with much
more retentive soil (more silt, less rock).

He wrote:

In contrast, in my colder garden, 'Lucifer' has flourished for many years,
surviving temperatures around 0 F (-16 C) and increasing to huge clumps. I
discovered, however, that when you divide it, you need to keep the whole
"stack" of corms together, or the plants will be weak for a few years.

Then Ken wrote,

This species does not survive the winter in my garden, although I do grow
several other Alstro species in the open.

Finally,

F. gentneri should probably be considered a subspecies of F. recurva, but
keeping it separate is helpful in protecting its habitat, since it is a
listed "species." It is quite variable and crosses readily with more
typical F. recurva. I've also obtained seedlings by crossing F. gentneri
(which I got through a seed collector's mistake!) with F. eastwoodiae,
since I had only one gentneri in flower and they are probably self-sterile.
All three are generally red (the only instance of this color in the genus)
with yellow checkering, or yellow with red checkering (I think the latter
is strictly correct), but orange and even yellow are more common in the
small-flowered eastwoodiae. All three are easy to grow in the bulb frame,
but young bulbs probably would not survive the extra-long wet season of
northern Oregon in the open. They are among the mid-season bloomers in the
genus.

Another red-bulb hardiness note: Jim McKenney in the Mid-Atlantic region
wondered if Dichelostemma ida-maia would be winter-hardy for him. I'm
pretty sure it would be, though the catalog rating he cites (Zone 5) seems
exaggerated to me, unless other climatic conditions were just right; the
foliage is present in late winter. They do well outdoors here. Anyway, it
isn't much of an investment to experiment, since they are very cheap bulbs.
Easy from seed, too. D. ida-maia surprises me by standing upright in the
garden even where it has no surrounding plants to lean on. It also infests
the bulb frames, having pulled down below the wire underlying the plunge
medium, where I can't get at it. The hummingbirds were buzzing me yesterday
evening as I collected seed from the frames -- they wanted me away from
their buffet.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA