PS: Last night the LA basin revived an inch and a half of monsoonal rain, to be followed later this week by 90 degree afternoon heat. We would receive a third of an inch in an average September. Ugh. > On Jul 21, 2015, at 10:37 AM, Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net> wrote: > > If Chris's bulbs are growing deep in garden soil, the recent monsoon rains in southern California should not affect them. The soil will not heat appreciably to the level where some of the bulbs settle down. My main worry would be that they might start root growth and then become dry again, so that the new roots withered. > > I have a lot of themids, alliums, and lilies in parts of the open garden where they get watered in summer and they do not suffer from it. Calochortus might be a bit trickier. > > Jane McGary > Portland, Oregon, USA > >> On 7/20/2015 4:41 PM, Giant Coreopsis wrote: >> This past week traditionally summer-dry Southern California has experienced torrential monsoon rain, emanating from a tropical storm that normally would stay well south of us. We quickly got a 1/3” of precipitation at our house, and the rain came with cumulus clouds, thunder, lightning and now humidity. This all may not sound like much to you but for us, and to our native plants, it’s highly unusual. >> http://latimes.com/local/lanow/… >> I have a decent collection of summer-dry native bulbs (calochorti, themids, alliums, lilies …) planted in naturalistic rock/rubble gardens. Almost nothing is in pots, so there was no easy way to shelter them from the rain. The planting mix is lean and fast draining, so I suspect the moisture will have penetrated to the levels of some of the bulbs. It’s hard to say how many bulbs will have dived down below the moisture level – the bulbs should be from 8’ – 24” below grade depending on the species and the depth of the planting bed. >> I hope these conditions don’t effectively steam my summer-dry bulbs into moldy little balls of mush, but without digging them all up (and there are too many) I guess there’s no way to know until I see or don’t see them emerge in December. Fingers crossed. It’ll be unfortunate if climate change means our native bulbs can no longer be grown naturally here in their native range. > \ > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/