When I moved from South Africa to England, I brought a large collection of bulbs with me. I moved in September, just at the start of the growing season for many of the South African bulbs. I had a whole variety of different genera in Amaryllidaceae, Oxalidaceae, Iridaceae, Hyacinthaceae, Haemodoraceae. The bulbs had to travel completely devoid of any soil to get their phytosanitary certificate, so as soon as I arrived I potted up the bulbs and gave them as little water as they could get away with until they were growing. Their first winter was really tough as I did not have a greenhouse yet and they were transported inside and outside whenever frost threatened. Despite this rough treatment, the vast majority pulled through and within a year had settled to a normal routine. The ones I struggled with were the Iridaceae. Very few of these survived as they had just started into growth, their corms had already used their resources for that season and they had not had time to replenish before being disturbed. Apart from that, anything with a largish bulb, Lachenalia, Ornithogalum, Drimia and absolutely all of my Amaryllidaceae, survived. Chris Whitehouse On 08/09/2014 21:53, pbs-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote: > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 20:02:38 -0700 > From: Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net> > To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> > Subject: [pbs] Bulbs changing hemispheres > Message-ID: <E1XQpGK-0004Wj-K8@elasmtp-masked.atl.sa.earthlink.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > > The following question came via the website from Keshab Pradhan in > northern India: > > > I just got some bulbs of Amaryllis, Gladiolus and tuberous Begonias > from New Zealand. Since it is from southern hemisphere where it is > spring the bulbs are in sprouting condition. We grow them here in > February. Is it advisable to let them grow or keep them in > refrigerator till our planting season. Grateful for advice from any > quarter who has some knowledge on it..Thanks. > > Could some of you who have experience with similar climatic questions > please answer? I will forward your answers to Keshab. > > Jane McGary > > > > ------------------------------ > >