Today's Topics:

1. Bulb Storage (Judy Glattstein)
2. Bulb storage (Johannes Ulrich Urban)

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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2018 10:06:41 -0400
From: Judy Glattstein <jgglatt@gmail.com>
To: pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Subject: [pbs] Bulb Storage
Message-ID: <6126292d-a4af-e396-95b9-bc2123c098ff@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Question - are your hippeastrum stored "naked" under the greenhouse
benches or are they wrapped in newspaper or placed in a brown paper bag?
When I used to unpot mine for winter storage I would wrap them in
newspaper. Now I do it as follows:

My hippeastrum are grown in pots. They go outdoors for the summer. At
about this time of year (early October) I bring the pots indoors, put
them in the basement, and ignore them. Do not cut the leaves but allow
them to wither. There are a couple that want to be evergreen - they go
into the greenhouse which is heated to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. When
growth begins in early spring they are brought upstairs to the
greenhouse, repotted, and given a good drink of water. Flowering then
happens in late spring.

Ismene/Hymenocallis are unpotted and stored in the basement. They also
have permanent roots but do not seem to suffer any dehydration.

Eucomis are left in their pots and stored in the basement.

Amorphophallis are dog from the garden and stored unpotted - you guessed
it - in the basement.

Sauromatum - which are more frost sensitive that amorphophallis - are
dug and stored in the basement although overlooked Sauromatum did
survive last winter.

Canna are allowed to be knocked back by frost, cut back, evicted from
the half barrel sized pots,. Loose dirt shaken off but not washed.
Packed in peat moss in supermarket banana boxes and wedged into the
garage. (It would be so much easier if we did not keep cars in there.)

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Message: 2
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2018 20:10:51 +0100
From: Johannes Ulrich Urban <johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de>
To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>
Subject: [pbs] Bulb storage
Message-ID: <0001f7dc-5cdb-297c-9de7-1693f942a87f@t-online.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Hello Bob,

There is one thing I do not understand in your bulb storage problem. You
say you bring the bulbs into flower in winter. But you also say you
store them bare rooted in your heated greenhouse.

I would assume that you pot them up before flowering?

My suggestion would be to pot them straightaway after harvesting from
the garden. Hippeastrum /can/ survive bare root storage, but they do not
really like it. They have permanent roots that stay turgid even in very
dry compost in pots during dormancy. If you would pot them up directly
after harvesting the roots would remain intact, you would have to be
careful with your watering regime but I would think even without any
water at all potted bulbs would be much less stressed. And the workload
would be the same except that potting would occur at a different time of
the year.

Does this help?

bye for today

Uli

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