I can second Jim Waddick's comments about Tulipa sylvestris based on my experience with it here in Maryland. Years ago I used to take lunch break walks through the community where I then worked. It was an old community, with some houses still retaining what for all the world looked like old Victory Gardens and shrubs popular fifty years or more ago. In one of those gardens I saw a huge patch of Tulipa sylvestris which covered several square yards. There were very few flowers but hundreds, maybe thousands, of single leaves. In my own garden, Tulipa whittallii and Tulipa clusiana chrysantha behave the same way. They form dense mats of single leaves with few flowers. The foliage covers many square feet of ground. The rhizomes romp freely through parts of the garden and rarely produce blooming size plants. The patch of Tulipa whittalli had been at this for so long I had forgotten what it was. So several years ago I started a campaign to feed the clump and built it up. I was eventually rewarded with a few flowers, and now I know again what it is. This clump grows in the dense shade of Magnolia stellata, the bulbs wedged in the thickly matted roots of the Magnolia. If you've ever seen the typical forms of Erythronium americanum growing in the wild in this area, you know how these tulips grow: thousands of leaves and one or two flowers. Jim McKenney Montgoemry County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where Iris tectorum opened a first flower this morning, Iris 'Dardanus' is showing bud color, and Brodiaea terrestris and Muscari comosum are also starting. -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of James Waddick Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 9:06 AM To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: [pbs] Tulip delight - T. sylvestris Lee wrote: >I've tried T. sylvestris, but it never endures. This may be because it >doesn't like growing in pots for more than a few seasons. Dear Lee et al; I can't imagine growing T. sylvestris in a pot. It is one of my favorite 'weeds'. Let me explain. A friend gave me a few bulbs a number of years ago and said they do 'best' in shade so I planted them there. Well they sure GROW well in shade. I have a "sod" of tulip foliage 1 or 2 leaves per bulb, but few flowers. After transplanting to a sunnier site they produce plants 4 times the size with nice size bright yellow flowers. In shade they are actively stoloniferous and have invaded the lawn and wandered around a shady spot. In sun they are well behaved, multiply modestly and bloom regularly. In both sites they are trouble free, but they do move around, a behavior that suggests they'd be unhappy confined to a pot. On the other hand, in the ground there they might escape your property if they grow as exuberantly in your mild climate as say 'Ipheion'. Ths is one of the few tulips to do so well in shade. 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 + _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php