Growing South African bulbs under glass in Pacific Northwest

Lee Poulsen wpoulsen@pacbell.net
Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:45:03 PST
The problem with the Pacific NorthWest of North America is that the climates of the Cape in South Africa are more similar to that of various of the climates of California. The PNW is definitely colder in winter than that of the Cape or the non-mountain areas of California. If you look at Mike Mace's climate maps on the wiki <http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…>, he has gone into great detail about the various summer-dry climates.

So you should already expect that you'll need some kind of protection to grow Cape bulbs up there.

On the other hand, and I know Alberto knows this because I've told him several times, there seem to be a few select climates that have native bulbs with flowers that are simply exquisite to a majority of bulb-growing human beings (producing what some people label "bulb lust"). So if your climate starts to approach that of the native climate of the item you simply have to try growing but isn't close enough, it means you're going to have to go to extra trouble to attempt growing it. Some of us have climates that are much better starting points for doing so. Alberto has failed to mention that the climate in Buenos Aires, despite being on the east coast of a continent, also happens to be very conducive as a starting point for growing a great variety of bulbs. It's fine and dandy to collect and grow all the most gorgeous flowers your climate is capable of. But then you go and visit Alberto's garden and see everything you're growing and twice as many more gorgeous species that you can't grow without extra care, growing out in the open in his back yard with minimal additional care. Sometimes it's just not fair. (Although I shouldn't complain since Southern California (and the more coastal locations of Northern Calif.) have climates that allows us to grow a great many things that are much more difficult in most other locations of the U.S.)

;-)

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a
Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m


On Jan 8, 2015, at 4:08 PM, Gordon Hogenson via pbs <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

> I also am in the PNW and am interested in South African bulbs, although for outdoors, not in a greenhouse.
> I would love to see a list of the easier subjects to start with as it's great to proceed from the most trouble-free to the more challenging species.  I do have the Cape Bulbs book by Doutt, which is some help.
> Gordon

>        From: Randall P. Linke <randysgarden@gmail.com>
> 
> I agree with Alberto.  

> On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 4:49 AM, Alberto <ezeizabotgard@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Grow more of the African species that are naturally winter dormant. They
>> are very many, many have gorgeous flowers and dealing with the bulbs while
>> dormant in winter will not be difficult once you organize your tasks.
>> 




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