Tigridia pavonia, quick from seed

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Tue, 10 Sep 2002 10:58:30 PDT
Dear All,

Back in the early days when I first starting growing bulbs I grew Tigridia 
pavonia. In my central valley garden in Stockton (California) with its hot 
summers and lower amounts of winter rainfall, it did very well. I grew it 
in raised beds with my other perennials and it came back every year without 
much effort on my part delighting me with the gorgeous flowers.

When I moved to the north coast it was less happy and never came back after 
our first wet winter. Two years ago I got seed of it from a seed exchange 
and decided to give it another go. The first sowing was in spring outside 
and although germination was good, the plants grew slowly. Last winter Tony 
Palmer started showing these gorgeous flowers on the IBS image list 
blooming in summer in New Zealand and I was compelled to pull out the old 
leftover seed on the chance it would still be viable. I planted the seed 
2/15/02, but this time in my greenhouse. I also potted up the few pathetic 
seedlings from my attempt the year before. The seed started to germinate 
4/20/02. This time I kept them in the greenhouse and as they were growing 
robustly moved the whole pot carefully up to a 8 inch pot. Last years 
seedlings were not as vigorous so I left them in a 4 inch pot where they 
have continued to grow but not flourish. To my surprise yesterday I saw a 
huge yellow flower on this year's crop. From 2/15/02 to 9/9/02 is very 
quick to bloom from seed. I think the warmer temperatures, deeper pot, and 
occasional dilute amounts of liquid feed made the difference.

I'll add my report to Jim's  and Peter's of seasonal bloom. My Oxalis have 
started to bloom (O. commutata, O. massoniana, O. zeekoevleyensis). Others 
blooming are Leucojum autumnale, L. roseum, Cyclamen hederifolium, C. 
purpurascens, and C. intaminatum (newly keyed out as this little flower 
couldn't be C. repandum). Calydora amabilis is still blooming almost every 
day in my greenhouse. The one that is giving me the most delight at the 
moment however is Gladiolus carminieus. I have little clumps all over my 
garden and each year there are more flowers in each clump. And since my 
local pollinators love it I keep seeing it in new places as some seed 
always gets away from me. It is such a sweet thing and absolutely carefree 
in the ground. I'll try to get my husband to take a picture to post on some 
of the images lists. There have been lots of great pictures lately with the 
spring flowers in Australia and some of the fall flowers in the USA.

Mary Sue




Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org>
California's North Coast
Wet mild winters with occasional frost
Dry mild summers




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