In bloom now
Mary Sue Ittner (Mon, 17 Oct 2005 08:03:39 PDT)

Dear All,

We had our first rain since June a couple of nights ago. It was only a
quarter of a inch (.0635 mm?) but still welcome as everything is so dusty
and dry and living in the forest so to speak there is fire danger until we
have some good rains.

I've been enjoying the last of my Nerines and first of my Crocuses and
Oxalis. Crocus tournefortii is wonderful at the moment with its gorgeous
long orange stigma branches. I get tempted to take its picture every day.
And yesterday Crocus niveus opened. It is one of my favorites. I also have
one pot of unnamed Crocus blooming since the birds have already stolen the
tag. Perhaps I'll figure it out from the process of elimination but there
are both purple and white flowers in the pot and I don't remember that
before. Last year the jays had a really high success rate in planting tan
oak acorns in my bulb pots. There must have been 30 or 40 that came up and
when I was repotting only 3-5 that didn't make it. I'd be thrilled with
such success with my bulb seeds. Do you suppose they take the tags out when
they plant so they can remember where they planted?

As usual the Oxalis are gorgeous this time of year with our finally warm
days. There are bright pinks, dazzling yellows that are hard to photograph,
apricot colors and a host of interesting leaves and more coming up every day.

Yesterday I was very surprised to see a Babiana in bloom. I didn't think
any of my Babianas bloom in the fall. None ever have before. This one looks
like Babiana vanzyliae which is what it is supposed to be on the tag. We
saw that blooming in Nieuwoudtville in August and the Color Encyclopedia
lists it as blooming August-September. Last year it bloomed in February
which would be right. Perhaps it thought our summer felt like winter?

Moraea polystachya is now blooming in two places in my garden and will be
blooming for another three months at least depending on when it gets really
cold and wet. I watched a bee pollinate one flower and then crawl all over
an unopened bud trying to find the way in. It is such a satisfactory plant
when it blooms reliably which mine finally are in pots in my raised beds as
I don't think the soil dries out quite so much there as it does in the
ground. The ones I planted out I'm lucky to see again.

I have a number of exquisite small pink Gladiolus species in bloom (G.
brevifolius and G. martleyi) and there is a late spike of G. monticola
starting. The first flower of that was in July. And there are still more
Gladiolus carmineus opening here and there even though there are seed pods
now on some of the earlier plants and the long leaves have appeared on
those plants too.

Mary Sue

Mary Sue Ittner
California's North Coast
Wet mild winters with occasional frost
Dry mild summers