Rain and Lycoris
James Waddick (Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:32:54 PDT)

Dear Friends;
Our peculiar rainfall has given more credence to the role of
rain on bloom at least in Lycoris. After nearly a month of drought,
but 'on time'. some Lycoris species bloomed. Following a 4 inch rain
others bloom and some that had bloomed earlier sent up more stalks.
We had another round of heavy rain and yet another round of
stalks have appeared some for the first time and others on species
which already have had one round of bloom.

Species like L. squamigera and the currently blooming L.
caldwellii have almost had 2 distinct bloom season. The first round
of flowers about faded when a new rain induced number of stems are
just blooming with little or no overlap. Others like L. chinensis and
L. longituba seems to send up stalks intermittently over a longer
period. And some like L. sprengeri and (moreso) L. incarnata all
bloom at once with less extended bloom.

This follows a similar progress noted in previous years. I am
certain that rain encourages the bloom of Lycoirs especially after a
dry period.

This does not seem to work with cultivars derived from
hybrids; these can vary widely.

Just more FYI. best Jim W.
--
Dr. James W. Waddick
8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
USA
Ph. 816-746-1949
Zone 5 Record low -23F
Summer 100F +