It's good I was sitting down when I read this about the blue Freesia laxa. Most of mine are blue , and they seed in all the surrounding pots. I assumed this was a common, weedy form. I never gave it a second thought that it might be difficult. Let me see what I have, I'd gladly donate it to the BX. Rick K On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Gastil Gastil-Buhl <gastil.buhl@gmail.com>wrote: > Mary Sue wrote: > "None of the seeds germinated for me. It's strange > that this plant from a summer rainfall area blooms for her in winter > (January)." > > The pale blue Freesia laxa I grow are all from a single parent plant which > I got in the 1990s from UCSB, who got it from UCI. > > Because these grow so easily for me, I have not done germination tests nor > kept much of a record of how I grow them. Until I learned about the PBS BX, > I used to toss the seeds into whatever pot of succulents was within reach. > I only noticed when they grew. I do not know what germination rate to > expect. I sow them very shallow or even just toss them on the soil surface. > > This past year Ive grown these in their own pots, on a wire shelf under an > arbor of vines, protected from frost. Their indicator plants are self-sown > Impatiens that dry out much faster than anything else on that shelf so > these pots get a lot more frequent watering than my other bulbs. Their soil > is nothing special, just half bagged mix and half sand and pumice, roughly. > I crowd them way too much in the pots. > > I set the terra-cotta pots on a wire shelf and let their leaves grow up > thru the wire shelf above them as a support. Otherwise the floppy leaves > just fall over the edge of the pot. They seem to like having their lower > stems more open in the air like this. I got twice as many seed pods this > year as last year. > > The flowering period has varied. This year I had flowers from January > through April, with a few stragglers either end. This is more than in past > years. They are beginning to go dormant now but there are still a dozen > green pods maturing. I have never attempted to put them on a particular > growing cycle. When they sprout I water them. When they begin to turn brown > I stop watering them. They also get chance water; I do not move the pots > onto the dry storage shelves over the summer. > > - Gastil > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >