PBS Forum

Quote from: Diane Whitehead on May 12, 2024, 12:03:08 PMIf I want some, I'll buy some bulbs.

I once read that someone had taken five years to grow a lily from seed, "Hah what a mug I will buy some bulbs" I thought. It took my bulbs over 10 years to vanish, never flowering. That's a thing with bulbs, they can go backwards.

Quote from: Uli on May 11, 2024, 02:33:16 PMthey reach flowering size very quickly

My latest one Polygonatum verticillatum

took 11 years from seed to flower. Has been fun, but always looked like it was going to be slow.

Beginners should look up the list of bulbs that flower in their first year from seed. 

Iris sibirica flowered today.

Photos from my garden, last fling of my Spring flowering bulbs.

I've no special knowledge of babiana... but in general bulbs are better in the ground. Often even when there is no top growth they are busy growing roots.

Sometimes we dig up bulbs and store them, but it is when they're non-hardy (dahlias in Winter) or in the way (narcissus in Summer).

My learned colleague mentions Freesia - special case, they're often heat treated so that they will act as Summer flowering bulbs (in the chilly UK).

If anyone were to offer up some H. cleo photos I would create a PBS wiki entry for it.

Doing a search on the PBS wiki for California and Crocus gives:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/SpringBloomingCrocusFour
https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/SpringBloomingCrocusThree
https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/FallBloomingCrocusTwo

I gather California is a big state with a varying climate from North to South. But now you've said where, maybe some forum members from there will chip in.

"here" may mean, here on the forum, and is a valid question.
Of course in discussion "here" may soon mean locality, and it is a good idea to set up your fourum profile (top left of page) to show it over on the left of your replies.

I grow and have grown loads of different crocus species. There is pleasure to be had. They are fairly inexpensive and commonly available from the usual suppliers of Dutch bulbs. The ones that survive long term untended in the garden are the large Dutch hybrids and Crocus tommasinianus - that is of course here in the North of England.

You can find my photos in the PBS wiki crocus pages (search on my surname).

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Crocus

I have tried but I can't recall ever growing a crocus to flowering from seed. So any photos are of the commercial varieties.

Quote from: Uli on April 20, 2024, 12:49:20 AMLauw de Jager is the owner of the now defunct nursery Bulb'Argence in southern France. He sold a wide range of often unusual bulbs suitable for the Mediterranean Climate. He also wrote a nicely illustrated booklet on Mediterranean Bulbs but in French.

Booklet available in French and English from the PBS archive:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Archive

On the BBC news at lunch time they had video showing a bloke up a ladder pollinating the puya and they said humming birds did it in habitat. It said that it spends years looking like a pile of dead vegetation before throwing up a huge flower spike.

'Otherworldly' plant blooms for first time in decade

Birmingham Botanical Gardens said the Puya alpestris, from the Chilean Andes, began to flower in one of its glasshouses last week.

It is described as a "truly rare event" with visitors told they have just days to see the "exquisite" plant.

Staff, meanwhile, face a race against time to pollinate it by hand.

Puya alpestris is native to the mountainous regions of central and southern Chile and distantly related to the pineapple, the botanical garden said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgyw895qnko

@Diane Whitehead - hovering, gets you the attach number... on Chrome when you hover over a link the URL appears in a bar at the bottom of the window. Presumably something similar happens on Safari (Mac). Right click will get you 'copy link address' which lets one paste the same thing as in the URL. Looks like this:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php?action=dlattach;fs=41293;attach=6248;image

we can get the attach value, 6248 and put it into the message:

[attach id=6248]Martin's orchid[/attach]

@Martin Bohnet - my point is that if exchanges provided some sort of information, on what there was demand for. I dunno, do you make the packets smaller, or have a lottery, or go off people's donor record, to decide who gets the items in short supply.

I once had a frank chat with a seed ex manager and what I considered good efforts on my part (lilium formosanum, zantadeschia aethopica) were just not wanted. They had, well bushels of them, they couldn't give away, and didn't want any more.

I can see why seed ex don't want to reject stuff, one day the person who donates common stuff will donate some good stuff.


NARGS has a nice page about Seed Ex.

https://www.nargs.org/seed-donation-instructions

"The most frequently ordered items in the Seed Exchange are from small, highly ornamental alpine plants, especially those collected in the wild. Seed from very unusual plants, especially from temperate climates, as well as woodland plants and the seed of uncommon bulbs are also much desired. Always highly sought are seeds of Adonis, Arisaema, Cyclamen, Edraianthus, Erythronium, Fritillaria, Hepatica, Paeonia, Trillium as well as some of the smaller or rare species of Aquilegia, Campanula, Clematis, Eritrichium, Gentiana, Lewisia, Penstemon, and Primula. There is also a small demand for easily grown ornamental garden standards, but in this regard see comments on the Unacceptable Seeds below. Seeds sent without species designation (listed as "sp.") are rarely requested, unless of highly desirable genera. North American members, in particular, are urged to collect more seed of alpine plants in the wild."

"UNACCEPTABLE SEED LIST

Common trees and large shrubs, unless wild collected; uncommon species are acceptable;�
Annuals or large perennials available from commercial seed catalogs, or cultivars of common groups such as Hemerocallis, Hosta, or bearded iris;
Plants taller than 1-meter requiring frost-free culture, or  Aquatic plants;
Food plants of little ornamental value;
Large quantities of seed of large plants like Clematis cultivars, Eryngium or Eupatorium.
"

As Babs, Ginger and the gang said "so tell us what you want, tell us what you really really want"

I have contributed bushels of seed that no one wanted. There is usually no feedback mechanism that informs you what seed would be welcome.

Problem with asking what people want, is that they will say the blue amaryllis, or similar rare items.

As Donald Trump says, "you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you can get what you need".

Taken today,  freesia, bear garlic and @Martin Bohnet if I can't have blue tulips, blue bells.