On this list at least Paul Tyerman and I have bemoaned the fact that
some of our Ornithogalum dubiums choose to remain under ground in
spite of our efforts. I think Lyn Edwards also reported on this list
or the ABA list of having amazing blooms one year only to find the
bulb had disappeared the next.

So it was with great interest that we had a conversation with Andy
who is Rod and Rachel's partner in their tissue culture ventures.
Some of you who order seeds from Silverhill may remember a picture
in their latest catalog of Ornithogalums they were attempting to
grow and hybridize. The picture was really gorgeous guaranteed to
make anyone who saw it want these plants! Well this year a lot of
them have not come up which they have found very frustrating as they
want to sell them and if someone buys a lot of bulbs and they don't
come up that person is not going to be happy. Andy told us that they
were having the most trouble with their larger bulbs. Does this mean
that if a bulb blooms really well it needs a year or more to recover
he wonders? Should they only be selling bulbs that are a smaller size?

They are experimenting with gibberelic acid to see if this will
help. Andy thinks that it is temperature that starts them into
growth. Theirs are stored dry and warm and he things that it is
cooler temperatures that initiates growth. So he wonders if you
could get successive blooms by keeping them warm and then moving one
pot at a time to a cooler place.

I'd like to comment also on Paul Tyerman's lament about the one
season of his orange Ornithogalum dubiums. I've had similar problems
and yellow ones I bought never flowered again so my yellow ones were
not better. Last year I unpotted all I had that had including the
ones that were not coming up and put them in trays upstairs in my
house (the warmest spot in summer). I was thinking of tossing them
and didn't get around to potting them for a long time and when I
looked at some of them they had tiny roots on the bottom. So I
potted the ones up that seemed to be rooting and had more blooming
this year than usual. I was told in South Africa by an exporter that
the Dutch won't let them send any unless they have a shoot. I'm
going to try this neglect system again this year and see if it will
stimulate them to grow again. Some never showed any signs of sprouting so I
tossed those.