Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => NARCISSUS => Topic started by: Menai on January 19, 2015, 09:21:40 PM
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I have been growing this since 2009 from Archibald seed [0.705.100] and now have a nice potful of leaves but no flower. What am I doing wrong? I have repotted the bulbs every other year and the pot is plunged in my bulb frame but moved into my frost free greenhouse in December.
Erle
Anglesey where we have had the first proper frost of he winter.
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The bulbs need to be dried out in the summer. Could try feeding with high potash fertiliser too. Does this help?
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I agree with Anne, dry in the summer and in addition I think they need to be baked in the summer. For forty years I had a 20ft x 10ft wooden greenhouse and to be honest very few flowers each year. In 2013 a willow tree fell on it and demolished it and I replaced it with two 10.5ft x 8ft aluminium ones. One containing my narcissus, plus a few frits and colchicums was in operation by late summer 2013 and last year I had many more flowers. This year virtually everything has flower spikes already and I put this down solely to the much higher temperatures I get in the new greenhouse during the summer.
'Treble Chance' (see below)is currently in flower and other pots of Jim Archibald's selections will be out soon.
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I find that N.romieuxii needs less of a baking than say N.cantabricus. A dry rest is more important as no Narcissus bulb likes to be too hot (with a risk of rot if there's any moisture present). I might be inclined to repot annually, or at the least feed more. Whilst they might grow in some tough places in the wild, bulbs are gross feeders and will benefit from a high potash feed as Anne suggests (avoid anything with a lot of nitrogen).
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Thanks for these suggestions everyone. I will try everything and keep the pot in the greenhouse over the summer rather than in the bulb frame which is never going to get very warm up here.
Let you know what happens next year.
Erle
Anglesey
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If you look at the link
http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Azrou-weather-averages/MA.aspx (http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Azrou-weather-averages/MA.aspx)
which shows the temperature graphs for Azrou where Narcissus romieuxii was first named I am sure that the temperature in your greenhouse (if ventilated) won't be a problem. I certainly don't match that here on a North facing slope in West Yorkshire, see my temperature distribution in 2014 below.
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I think it's worth seeing WNOETULIP's glasshouse temperature chart without having to open the pdf .....
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