Growing from seed versus importing bulbs from another hemisphere

Mary Sue Ittner via pbs pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Sun, 28 Dec 2025 18:11:53 PST
I once wrote an article for Bulbs summarizing information people's 
experiences for dealing with bulbs ordered from another hemisphere. You 
can find it here:
https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…
on Page 35. After reading this thread and reflecting on my experience of 
growing bulbs from another hemisphere, I found that bulbs were much more 
likely to survive than corms. Since a lot of corms can flower from seed 
in a few years if happy in your conditions, that would seem a better 
choice. When plants arrived made a big difference for me. I lost almost 
all of what I once ordered within a year or two when it arrived in late 
spring. And I don't think there was an advantage in that case to living 
where summers rarely are hot. After that I concluded it was better for 
me to either grow from seed or purchase bulbs from someone who grew them 
in my country so they would be used to growing at the right time.

On another note, there are some of us who would be willing to share 
seeds that need to be planted immediately if PBS could find someone who 
would be willing to take on the job of distributing them in a timely 
fashion. Since so many of the South African Amaryllids flower in the 
fall and seed set is late fall to winter,  it would probably be best for 
a volunteer to live where it doesn't get really cold when these seeds 
are ready to plant. Lee mentioned that Silverhill Seeds in the past used 
to let people know when recalcitrant seeds were available. With the mail 
delays I expect that is no longer possible.

Mary Sue
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