I think repotting offers the plant some nutrients that had been exhausted in their previous soil, even if you apply fertilizer regularly. It may also help to clean off dead tissue that has built up around the bulb or corm. I used to repot everything (and that was a lot) every other year, but now I can't physically manage mixing that much new soil. Regarding Tecophilaea cyanocrocus, the article that reported the refinding of this species in Chile suggested that it's a plant of mobile soil irrigated and stirred by snowmelt. Not only would there be more nutrients in spring, but also more aeration in the root zone. That loosening and aeration would also apply to new repotting. Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon, USA, which is not being burned to the ground. On 8/22/2020 1:55 PM, Lee Poulsen via pbs wrote: > So two things: > > 1. a. After many years of growing Vagaria parviflora, all of a sudden my two pots have sent up scapes for the first time. > > 1. b. I didn’t know they bloomed oporanthously (to use Jim McKenney’s apt term), in the dead of later summer while I thought it was completely dormant. I guess it’s like Amaryllis belladonna, a few of which have also started blooming. > > 2. Why does it seem that some bulbs refuse to bloom until they’re repotted? What does repotting simulate in nature? > > > I got one bulb of V. parviflora from M&C Willetts in 2004. (I don’t think they’re around any more.) It leafed out every autumn and grew fine every winter here in So. Calif. But I never got any flower scapes. Last Fall the pot it was in split. So I repotted it. By then there were a number of pretty large healthy bulbs about 2 in/5 cm in diameter such that I had to repot them into two 2-gallon pots instead of the common/typical 1-gal. pots that are everywhere. (I don’t know the metric equivalent pot size.) Now all of a sudden they bloom for the first time in all those years, and several of them are sending up scapes in both pots. > > This is not my first experience to have bulbs go crazy blooming after repotting, and I don’t think it’s merely because they were too crowded. I’ve had bulbs not bloom even when there were only one or two or three in the pot, they then get crowded, I repot with one or two or three bulbs in the new pots, and the next season they go crazy blooming. Another example for me is Tecophilaea cyanocrocus. In their case, it’s not that they don’t bloom. They always bloom. But the growing season after repotting (and I still fill the pots with bulbs when repotting), the entire pot gets smothered in flowers to where you can’t see the leaves or the soil or anything else. The royal blue variety is breathtaking when this happens. > > So what gives? > —Lee > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…