sowing Moraea seeds
Ina Crossley (Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:41:32 PST)

Thank you Mike. I was wondering if they should be put into a sealed
plastic bag. I have lots of little bags so that is no problem.

And yes, I looked at the Wiki and apart from thinking, right it grows in
such and such a place, I don't know my geography all that minutely, so
it often is no help. Nor am I likely to travel to places like that.

And like Gail, I am a garden enthusiast, not a scholarly knowledgeable
person. And even of us gardeners, there are not all that many
around..... However, have learned heaps through the mailing list. And
the Wiki. Thank you PBS people!

Thank you for the offer of putting things on the Wiki, as that is not
something I would attempt.

Ina Crossley
Auckland New Zealand where it is a gusting wind, not nice to be out even
though the sun is shining. Things getting dry already.

On 26/11/2011 1:18 p.m., Michael Mace wrote:

Ina, one more thought on your Moraea seeds: If you're worried about them
staying viable, it wouldn't hurt to put them in a sealed plastic bag in the
refrigerator (not the freezer). Here in my part of California I wouldn't
bother with that for a single season. (In fact, I've had some Moraea and
other South African bulbs sprout from decade-old seeds stored neglectfully
in the garage. You heard me right, Moraea speciosa seed from the era of Bill
Clinton is still viable.) But the relative humidity here is quite low. The
air is a tad more moist in Auckland in summer, and if you use the
refrigerator that'll protect the seeds.

But as I said, I doubt you need to do that to store them for a single
season.

By the way, which species did you get?

I also wanted to double-plus endorse Lee's suggestion that we get more
cultivation information onto the wiki. It's the web's leading resource to
get basic information on bulb species, but I'd love to see it also become
the best source for cultural information. So many times there are little
tricks and techniques we've found to make something germinate, or grow
particularly well, but unless we document them someplace they won't be
remembered.

Even information on what *doesn't* work can be helpful.

To give you an example of how that can work, check out the wiki entry for
Calochortus macrocarpus, here:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
acrocarpus

The Calochortus Society gave us permission to reproduce their cultural
advice, so I put it into a little expanding box. Look for the link
"cultural information" at the bottom of the entry for C. macrocarpus. Click
on it to read the cultural info.

How cool would it be to have a note like that for every species?

Adding information to the wiki is intimidating for some people, so here's an
offer. If you want to write up the cultural information for a species (or
for a hundred species), but don't want to post it yourself, send it to me
and I'll post it.

Best,

Mike
San Jose, CA

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