Rigidella and Tigridia
Mary Sue Ittner (Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:14:44 PDT)

Thanks David and Dennis for clarifying about Rigidella. I reread Alberto's
introduction to Tigridia when it was the topic of the week (referenced on
the wiki Tigridia page)
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
It's very interesting so it was good to read it again and it appears that
is where I got the notion to include Rigidella in Tigridia. And in Clive
Innes book it is written that the infamous Ravenna was suggesting all the
species be included in Tigridia. After the posts in the past about the lack
of documentation for a lot of Ravenna's work and Dennis' support of the
local expert in Mexico, I've revised the Tigridia and Rigidella wiki pages
and moved Rob Hamilton's previous Rigidella picture from Tigridia to
Rigidella and added the new pictures of R. flammea that I saw in the
Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens blooming in June.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
I have some Rigidella orthantha grown from seed and I had forgotten advice
from before about how to grow it (when to start watering for instance.) It
just emerged in July (in a pot) and after reading what Alberto wrote, maybe
early May is when I should water, it if that is when it rains. Any advice
from Dennis or Rob (translated from Tasmania in the southern hemisphere)?
It grows in a totally different cycle than anything else I grow.

By the way when I visited Diana Chapman in June she had a number of
Tigridia species blooming in her warm greenhouse and I added some
photographs of them to the wiki afterwards (T. dugesii, T. durangense, from
Diana and some T. chiapensis pictures of my own plants that I was thrilled
to see in bloom from seed this spring). Short lived flowers, but oh so
lovely. I think I have to give up on T. pavonia and leave it to people who
live in a hot, but not too hot, climates. None of the ones I planted out
have come back although they did quite well in the ground when I lived in
Stockton (inland California) where there was much less rain in winter and
much warmer temperatures in summer. And I've not had great luck with the
summer Irids in my greenhouse either as some insect seems to destroy the
leaves and I'm not much into spraying with chemicals. The Tigridia pavonia
I planted in a very deep pot kept dry in winter and outside in summer
rarely blooms so has been given away. I look forward to seeing Dennis'
pictures when he adds them however.

Mary Sue