Drimia maritima bulb rot - from above!

Paul McCarthy via pbs pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Thu, 30 Nov 2023 09:39:08 PST
Hi

I’m in San Francisco CA and have been enjoying growing drimia maritima
bulbs for a few years. Most are doing great for me, but a few weeks ago I
noticed that while most of my drimia bulbs right now are pushing out their
winter green growth, one of my bulbs (massive, about 8” in diameter) seems
to be rotting from the top. I dug it up, and the bottom of the bulb is very
firm, good roots, etc.

See photos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HocJ3Xhg5CE9YaBHA/

This may seem a little silly since it’s just one bulb, but it’s quite an
old bulb, and I’d love to save it if possible.

I scraped out most of the rotten part, including some maggots (yum) and
noticed there does seem to be some new growth trying to come up, though not
from the center, exactly.

My question is: how do I keep this new divot from just filling with rain
and rotting more? Is there something I should fill it with? Or maybe make a
very tiny umbrella for it?! Or just give up on it?

Also would love to know if this has happened to others, if there’s anything
I can do to prevent this kind of thing in the future with my other bulbs. I
have a horrible problem with voles so normally I would attribute this type
of damage to a story like “a vole ate all the foliage and a little bit of
the top of the bulb, then rain filled the hole that the vole made, then it
started rotting” — but drimia is literally the stuff that they used to use
to make rat poison, so I doubt a vole ate it….

Paul
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