PBS Forum

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.

This page is interesting:

https://www.rareplants.co.uk/product/romulea-ramiflora/

"You might sometimes see R. ramiflora  labelled as "Romulea bulbocodium nivalis" – that name isn't correct, it is a name invented in horticulture and it isn't a valid one either as there is already a valid, totally different, species called Romulea nivalis, from Lebanon, already using the epithet nivalis. You may also see R. ramiflora labelled as Romulea bulbocodium Knightshayes Form, (especially when it is grown on the west coast of the USA). This is a more tricky situation, since although that appears to be a valid name it is being misapplied to R. ramiflora in error. I don't know if the original, documented Knightshayes plant is even still in existence or in cultivation, though its memory is being kept alive by the imposter.

As if this wasn't all enough – many of the stocks grown in cultivation, under the actual name of Romulea ramiflora are not in fact Romulea ramiflora at all! They seem to be wrongly named and represent a weedy southern hemisphere species that is perhaps giving the correct plant a bad name. Those plants represent a "seed list changeling" that has replaced the true species by virtue of its thuggish manners and prolific seeding."

Hi Judy - blue and yellow is a nice contrast. Pity those blue tulips are so rare.

Quote from: Diane Whitehead on March 30, 2024, 07:40:52 AMSame genus, but a different species

Bah! Google!

@Diane Whitehead

There is a copyright Sheila Burrow photo of this species:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/146789269088182672/

that I found on Google.

North Korea TV censors Alan Titchmarsh's trousers

Central TV aired a 2010 edition of Alan Titchmarsh's Garden Secrets for its morning audience, but made sure that viewers could not see his jeans.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68664644

Steff - good project, very interesting story. Martin's reference to 'Molseed' goes back to the PBS wiki page on Tigridia:

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

The gardening world has managed to lose lots of things over the years, holly with white berries for example. Vendors will fill demand with whatever they have. Stuff drifts, I have pots of cultivars which are not what they were, because they have generated seed which has grown and replaced the original.

Look at it another way, sometimes it is where the plant is grown that counts, quality of the soil and climate. Some plants in some places do well and produce lots of variation.

The old thing that keeping your own seed will produce plants better adapted to your garden.