So two things:

1. a. After many years of growing Vagaria parviflora, all of a sudden my
two pots have sent up scapes for the first time.

1. b. I didn’t know they bloomed oporanthously (to use Jim McKenney’s apt
term), in the dead of later summer while I thought it was completely
dormant. I guess it’s like Amaryllis belladonna, a few of which have also
started blooming.

2. Why does it seem that some bulbs refuse to bloom until they’re
repotted? What does repotting simulate in nature?

I got one bulb of V. parviflora from M&C Willetts in 2004. (I don’t think
they’re around any more.) It leafed out every autumn and grew fine every
winter here in So. Calif. But I never got any flower scapes. Last Fall the
pot it was in split. So I repotted it. By then there were a number of
pretty large healthy bulbs about 2 in/5 cm in diameter such that I had to
repot them into two 2-gallon pots instead of the common/typical 1-gal. pots
that are everywhere. (I don’t know the metric equivalent pot size.) Now all
of a sudden they bloom for the first time in all those years, and several
of them are sending up scapes in both pots.

This is not my first experience to have bulbs go crazy blooming after
repotting, and I don’t think it’s merely because they were too crowded.
I’ve had bulbs not bloom even when there were only one or two or three in
the pot, they then get crowded, I repot with one or two or three bulbs in
the new pots, and the next season they go crazy blooming. Another example
for me is Tecophilaea cyanocrocus. In their case, it’s not that they don’t
bloom. They always bloom. But the growing season after repotting (and I
still fill the pots with bulbs when repotting), the entire pot gets
smothered in flowers to where you can’t see the leaves or the soil or
anything else. The royal blue variety is breathtaking when this happens.

So what gives?
—Lee

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