Tecophilaea info
Mary Sue Ittner (Sun, 09 Jul 2006 07:31:56 PDT)

Jacinda cross posted her message on the Australian list and Rob Hamilton
reported on that list what Lee Poulsen has said in the past and that is
that his blooming sized Tecophilaea increases every year by reproducing
each year a new corm and two small ones next to it. So that in a very short
time his initial investment of one expensive bulb paid off in many
additional bulbs. I purchased bulbs and seed from Bill Dijk in the past and
have some survivors and eventually some blooms, but never any increasing.
In my case the number of bulbs I have every year seems to be diminishing.

I felt somewhat better after Lee wrote this in May:
"It is almost embarrassingly easy for me to grow and multiply the various
varieties of Tecophilaea cyanocrocus starting from just one bulb each. I
treat them virtually identically to how I treat my Cape Bulbs on an annual
basis. I've germinated seeds of T. cyanocrocus a number of times, and I
germinate and grow them with my
other Cape Bulb seeds that I'm germinating and growing. However, unlike
the mature bulbs pots where each fall it seems that each bulb has added 2
or more additional offsets, very few to none of my pots of T. cyanocrocus
seedlings bother to emerge in the fall/winter even though their neighbor
Cape Bulb seedlings return to growth just fine. The few Tecos that do
return grow just fine, but then finally disappear the second summer never
to be seen again."

There are a lot of people on this list who grow Tecophilaea. What is your
experience? Do you find it increases well from offsets?

Perhaps it is time for me to try some of Lee's increasing corms to see if
they behave the same way in Northern California as they do in Southern
California.

Mary Sue