Paramongaia
Lee Poulsen (Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:27:24 PDT)

Josh Young wrote:

I'm not sure why, but in southern California, Paramongaias grow almost
exactly like typical mediterranean type bulbs (California native bulbs,
Cape bulbs from western South Africa, etc.) they start leafing out in
late autumn or early winter, grow through the winter (although in my
experience, the foliage is very sensitive to air temperatures below
about -1°C but have no problems with temperatures above that
whatsoever). They tend to bloom in late winter and go dormant in late
spring or early summer. But other than treating them as mediterraneans,
as Michael Benedito said, they are very easy to grow in my opinion. In
no way is the US too hostile for them. I think it is Longwood Gardens
that used to grow lots of them and produced seeds regularly. (That seems
to be the challenge although I think someone else on the East Coast of
the U.S. has gotten them to produce seeds, and someone down in New
Zealand has also gotten them to produce seeds but not regularly.) I
don't know what happened to that program; maybe they're still growing
them but not telling anyone...

There is another variant, and it is a true variant, that emerges in late
winter or spring, flowers later than the first type, and doesn't go
dormant until late summer. Tomorrow's Plants is supposed to possess both
types. An article in Herbertia reports that there are two distinct
populations where it is found: One is in low elevation coastal hills
near the Pacific in Peru. The other is in the Andes of Peru at about
2000 m of elevation. I surmise that the second variant comes from this
population, but I've never seen it myself.

Josh, my experience is that you just have to have a little patience for
opportunities to get your hands on some of these rarities to occur. I
guarantee they will. For some number of years I was certain I'd never
ever get to grow any of the really neat things I kept hearing about or
seeing photos of that nobody sold. Slowly, and sometimes unexpectedly,
over the years different kinds of opportunities have popped up. There
are some I'm still looking/hoping for (anyone have extra Eucrosia
aurantiaca?). But I'm still confidant the opportunity to obtain even
those will eventually appear one of these years... ;-)

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a