Bulbs in Bloom
Osmani Baullosa (Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:48:28 PDT)

Dear Mary, thanks a lot for your post. It's very inspiring. I'll also search for the species on PBS wiki; most of them are unknown to me. I think it's a very good idea to send pictures of the storage organs of our plants. Geissorhiza corms are amazing. I'll post some pictures taken last week, so you can compare sizes of different flowering-sized bulbs of mine.

Cheers,

Osmani

Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org> wrote:
Dear All,

I am often asked when is my garden at its best and I'm not sure when to
answer. Those early blooms are so exciting that at the moment they appear I
am quite entranced. Late winter through spring is probably best in a
Mediterranean garden. Many of my South African bulbs are done now, but
there are those that bloom later just as my California bulbs are starting
and those combinations with spring blooms from my shrubs are making me want
to spend all day in my garden at the moment just wandering around and
taking it all in. It seems appropriate to mention that my Homerias (aka
Moraea, Homeria subgroup) are rather amazing at the moment. I know Jim
Waddick only was interested in things that reseed in hardy climates, but
there is no reason why some of the rest of us can't mention what appears
for us when we don't get around to deadheading. I do cut off the seed pods
now if I get around to it of the things that reseed in my garden in great
quantity like Freesia alba, Sparaxis, Ixia, Babiana, Homeria, Ipheion,
Geissorhiza inaequalis, but since they keep popping up in unusual places I
must not get them all. My Sparaxis are almost done blooming and the
Babianas are coming along well. I have some I grew from seed (mixed
Babiana) more than 20 years ago when I lived in Stockton. Probably they are
hybrids. They are wonderful plants in my garden (except for the fact that
you have to cut off the foliage when it dies back.) I know many of you have
said you can't grow them and maybe that is the reason why when I donated a
lot of blooming sized corms last year they weren't snapped up by the BX.
Some purple ones are planted next to a magenta one next to some silver
plants and that is a nice combination. I also like the purple next to my
native Camissonia ovata. This is a plant with bright yellow flowers and
almost a geophyte. It has a very long tap root that looks kind of like a
tuber and is dormant in summer. Each year it comes back bigger with more
flowers. Like Scoliopus after blooming the pods lean over and get buried in
the soil and the ants distribute the seed.

I have quite a lot of the gold Homerias this year and I really like them.
The bright orange ones however blend nicely with the reddish new leaves of
my Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) plants and I photographed one with a
purple Felicia and the combination was quite striking. In one part of my
garden where I didn't plant many bulbs, but they have planted themselves, I
have masses of color: orange, gold, yellow, bicolored Homerias, several
colors of Babiana, white, pink and yellow Ixias, Pacific Iris hybrids,
mixed colors, Dichelostemma capitatum, and some Moraea bellendenii and
Tritonia deusta that I did plant. There are a number of Moraea vegeta in
that area too and some annual Lupine, but they are short and kind of
overwhelmed by some of the others. The dwarf Watsonias are opening in my
raised beds and will be blooming in the ground soon. I was shocked to see a
red flower blooming close to a patch of Amaryllis belladonna leaves and to
realize it was probably Gladiolus cunonius. At least I planted Anomalesia
cunonia in that spot probably 14 years ago and I haven't seen it since the
first or second year after planting it. Did it also like our patch of warm
dry weather in March or have I just not noticed it for the Amaryllis
leaves? It only has a couple of flowers, unlike some I grow in a pot that
have many more. I guess with bulbs you never know for sure if they have died.

In my pots I still have Romuleas blooming, Geissorhizas, the two
Fritillarias native to here and quite a number of native Alliums blooming
or about to bloom. Calochortus uniflorus, C. tolmiei, umbellatus, amoenus,
and the first C. venustus are in bloom and Triteleia hyacinthina, ixioides,
montana, lilacina and T. laxa are blooming too. Erythronium californicum is
just finishing. The Brodiaeas have good spikes, but none have opened yet.
This year I have having really good bloom from the three Leucocoryne
species I grow. I took them last summer upstairs when they were dormant. My
upstairs gets very warm in the summer during the day and they appreciated
that. Cyrtanthus brachyscaphus and mackenii are still blooming and so is
Moraea tripetala which started blooming in February! Moraea fugax is
blooming and what looks like a Moraea, Hexaglottis subgroup that I have no
clue where it came from since I have no record of getting any seed of it.
And I still have Cyclamen creticum and repandum blooming. These Lachenalias
are in bloom: L. orthopetala, bachmanii, contaminata, mathewsii,
juncifolia, liflora, elegans, pustulata, unicolor, haarlemensis, and today
when I passed I caught a strong smell of coconut coming from Lachenalia
violacea. The only Lapeirousia I seem to be able to get to bloom,
Lapeirousia corymbosa, has just started to bloom. Luckily it is a really
pretty thing. Although as usual a lot of my Ornithogalum dubium are sulking
underground there is one pot of orange ones with a lot of blooms just now
starting and another yellow with one rather pathetic start. I have a second
bloom from Pelargonium barklyi that I started from seed fall 2003. My
Veltheimia bracteata is a little past peak as is the last of the tulips,
Tulipa batalini. Lets see I think I neglected to mention my Delphiniums
blooming in the ground and in pots: D. nudicaule, luteum, hesperium,
patens, with others coming. Arthropodium strictum which seems to be the
only Australian bulb that I can reliably flower has just started.

Two Brunsvigia pots that I have not replanted in a number of years have
interlopers. I don't know if I'll ever see the Brunsvigia bloom, but this
winter in one pot Cyclamen coum bloomed well and now Triteleia hendersonii
and Allium hyalinum are blooming in that same pot. I don't know if these
were errant seeds or seed pots I gave up on and reused the soil. I
certainly didn't plant them. In the Brunsvigia bosmaniae pots with the
leaves dying back now I had an earlier Ixia rapunculoides bloom and not
something that is looking very like it is going to be a species Gladiolus,
maybe. I've never seen it before in that pot. Alberto made me realize that
it was o.k. to be less fussy about bulb companions not being the same as
long as the storage organ can help you identify it.

Sorry about this being too long. I've been composing over the last couple
of days and my enthusiasm is getting out of hand. I added some additional
pictures to the Geissorhiza wiki page. Geissorhiza monanthos and
Geissorhiza radians are both blooming now and I guess I don't find their
blooms too small. I still find them a marvel in complexity and beauty. I've
added a few pictures of some of the corms of various species since they
really are different. This will probably be a long term project for me and
I'm sure I'll get better at it with practice and can improve on the
pictures. I started out thinking Geissorhiza geminata blooming the first
time this year from seed for me reminded me of a number of Hesperanthas
only with smaller flowers, but it is open during the day and I have enjoyed
it. New pictures of corms, Geissorhiza geminata, Geissorhiza monanthos (in
number), Geissorhiza splendidissima, Geissorhiza mathewsii (the only
picture I got before it went to bulb heaven a few years ago), and an
unknown species that Rossouw Malherbe was growing in South Africa a number
of years ago. If anyone recognizes it (that is if anyone is still reading
this), please let me know.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

This time of the year I forget about how much work it is to pot up all
those bulbs and how I really need to have fewer. As much as I delight about
the individual blooms in pots, it's my garden that really inspires me. I
just wish more of those bulbs I grow in pots could survive in the ground.

Mary Sue

_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com/