I'm with Diana here. I tuned in late, went back and am amazed to find that some astute growers don't think bulbs can pull themselves down. Maybe our conditions are very different! What's needed here, perhaps, is a very, very slow-motion video showing how contractile roots and next-year corms can move ever downward. I have no idea how they do it. But it's easier to observe in pots than in the ground. I have repeatedly planted bulbs at midpoint in a deep pot, only to find them clinging to the very bottom when I turn them out. I don't say it happens with every bulb. But there are many examples in Lilium. Take, from three very different groups, L. columbianum. L. canadense and L. nepalense. Then there is Calochortus. No matter where I plant it, or sow it, if it lives, after a couple of years it is at the bottom of the pot. It can also survive in a shallow pot, if mulched, but it always goes to the bottom, no matter where that is. The same is true of Fritillaria, bulbous Iris, dryland Allium, and many Crocus. Paige Woodward paige@hillkeep.ca http://www.hillkeep.ca/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "diana chapman" <rarebulbs@earthlink.net> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 5:53 PM Subject: Re: [pbs] Pulling down to correct level >I too will join the fray. > > I planted my first mature Veltheimia capensis bulbs with half of the bulb > exposed when I lived in a very hot climate with summer temps over 100F for > three months. By the end of the summer you couldn't see any of the bulbs. > How? I don't know, but I don't think the physics is against it. If you > tried to punch through asphalt with a shoot of a plant you couldn't do it, > but plants frequently are able to do this amazing feat. Taking a bulb and > pushing it into soil is very different from a bulb pulling itself deeper. > I > am sure there's someone who knows all about the physics of hydrostatic > pressure, which has something to do with this. > > Diana > Telos > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > >