Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Ian Young's Bulb Log - Feedback Forum => Topic started by: Paul T on October 04, 2007, 10:54:38 AM
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Ian,
Great bulb log. Shame about the Narcissus grub predation..... hope it stays away from here for as long as possible. Interesting to see the damage from them. Interesting your comments about Rhodophypoxis requiring dry all winter...... have never been a problem for me as they get watered when everything else does and they do fine. They're just surfacing again at the moment here, all looking happy which is great!
The Crocus pics are wonderful. The orange "ring" in the kotschyanus is striking isn't it? And the dark style on the Crocus banaticus is most unusual and certainly adds something. I have a couple of different banaticus but don't recall my solid colour ones having the dark style, so there are yet more variations to them. ;D I have the white, a solid colour and a bicolor form (dark larger petals and white inner petals) and love them dearly, even if they don't flower well for me for some reason. Always nice to learn or see something new in your logs...... great work as always!! Thanks for taking the time.
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males and females Ian. The grubs will have come from eggs laid this year. Did your bulbs come from a private grower? Mass grown bulbs are hot water treated to kill the grubs
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Another wonderful episode Ian, in the continuing saga of the world's hardy bulbs. I'm so looking forward to having the living, breathing two-legged version right here in just a very few months.
Paul I'm a bit surprised as well about the Rhodohypoxis being kept dry over winter. I guess it's matter of DEGREE of cold and wet. With us they are quite hardy and while I occasionally used to lose them to summer drought, I've never lost them in winter to either frost or wetness. They stay in the ground right through the year. Although the bulbs may not make roots in the winter, the old, thong-like roots anchor the clump so that to dig a well-established group takes a real effort and it's not worth that effort to lift them except to move or divide.
Gorgeous crocuses.
I'd suggest Ian, that the bought-in bulbs came with grubs in situ, then they hatched to be those you saw in the garden and at least one has lived to lay eggs for more grubs. Important to get rid of every one you can at the grub stage or you'll have to accept that you now have them permanently. They're very persistent. They attack all Amaryllidaceae. Killing the flies with a fly swat is effective but it means you have to keep the darned thing in hand just about the whole summer. If you see a fly sitting around or a bit lethargic, it has already laid its eggs.
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Mark, how hot can the water be to kill the grubs but without damaging the bulbs? And how long to dip them?
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Graham will have to tell us. I think the temperature is around 40C. Maybe lurking Derrick will come forward
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sorry for lifting this!
RECENTLY there has been concern about the efficiency of hot-water treatment to eradicate the stem and bulb eelworm (Ditylenchus dipsaci (Kühn) Filipjev) from Narcissus stocks. Following Staniland's work1, it was the standard practice in Britain to treat bulbs for 3 h at 110° F (43.3° C) rather than the 4 h which both Ramsbottom's2 and Van Slogteren's3 work suggested. More recently4 4 h at 110° F (43.3° C) or 3 h at 111° F (43.9° C) has been recommended to improve control. These treatments were based on in vitro treatments of the nematodes in water, and while in vivo tests with bulbs did not contradict the in vitro, the results have been extended to practical treatments of eelworms in bulbs assuming that longer (approximately 60 min) would be required to allow the centre of the bulbs to reach treatment temperature.
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Presumably if the bulbs are to be treated for so long, there would have to be a source of heat for the water, so it would be quite a tricky job for an amateur (home) gardener as it's so easy to lift or lower temperature using, e.g. a pot of water on an electric stove. Gas would be easier to contral. It would be easy to cook the bulbs if great care were not taken. Even at well below boiling point, onions or potatoes cook eventually. I should think that 3 or four hours at 43DegC would just about do it.
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My experience here in Belgium with Rhodohypoxis outside is that the risk is very high to loose them if you get a wet and cold winter.
I guess a wet winter in Belgium and a wet winter down under are two different things ;D.
I keep them in pots, dry and dark in winter and plunge the pots in the garden in April/May - they do very well for me that way.
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Ian,
As usual great information in the bulb log, thanks very much. One thing I try to do is to compare the climate here in Ottawa, Canada with what you have going there in Aberdeen. I then try to use this to relate the progress your bulbs are making with what my bulbs are doing here. Would you consider including the average hi and low temperatures for the week as part of the information included in each log - ideally in the heading or at the beginning of each log? It certainly would help us non-UKers in appreciating the conditions you are experiencing there.
Rob
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My Rhodohypoxis are outside all year in the ground, troughs and pots
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Would you consider including the average hi and low temperatures for the week as part of the information included in each log - ideally in the heading or at the beginning of each log?
Good idea, Rob, we'll try to do just that in future.
For the record, temperature here in Glasgow at the moment, indoors at the Discussion weekend, is around 21 degrees... too cosy, really!
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Maggi if it hadn't been that warm you wouldn't have been able to do all that flirting from behind your fan this weekend! ;) ;)
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A tropical fish tank heater/thermostat or one of those heaters used to heat gallon jars (curiously misnamed 'demijohns') used to make wine could be easily used?
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By coincidence to Ian's log posting...... the first flowers have opened this week on some of my Rhodohypoxis.
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I've been enjoying the bulb log for some time, but I had to register today to tell you that we just had our first storm in the San Francisco Bay Area last night: ~.89 inches. This is actually a little early for the first storm here. Possibly they get earlier rain north of here and at higher elevations (where many of your frits. grow wild), but not much earlier, I think. My conclusion is that California natives do not mind a little extra water...
If I may add a technical note, I would love to have an RSS feed for the bulb log. Much as I love it, it often takes me a few weeks to remember to check for updates.
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Ian, your picture of the Narcissus bulblets reminded me to share an interesting discovery I made just this week re: Fritillaria Camschatcensis bulb division. I have always wondered why local populations of F. Camschatcensis don't bulk up. With their rice-grain bulblets, one would expect that a failed parent bulb would trigger the bulblets into growth, and that at least a few of them would grow the flowering size leaving a clump of bulbs rather than the individual. The bulbs are most successful in the very fine silt (which I think holds nutrients very well in our rainy climate) with a topping of root mass, moss, or leaf mould to hold moisture and additional nutrients. Unfortunately, these are the areas where voles proliferate and eat every parent bulb they find, and one only sees individual flower bulbs and trails of bulblets scattered all along the vole tunnels (they do a good job of propagating). In mountain elevations where there are few voles, I occasionally see a clump of two or perhaps even three bulbs, always very small and with only one or two flowers per stem. There is no fine silt in these areas, and I think poor nutrition may be a factor for clumping. Then, this week, in a very silty area that has much colder winters, I happened across what appeared to be very large clumps. I lifted a couple of clumps and discovered not only the largest bulbs I've encountered (a full 5cm diameter), but upwards of 10 bulbs packed very tightly against each other, and even stacked vertically, all of flowering size, all in excess of 2.5-3 cm in diameter with dozens of smaller (.5-1 cm) bulbs at the periphery. I didn't note a single vole hole or trail anywhere, but did note the ideal growth conditions: super file silt with just a bit of very fine soil (decomposed fern and leaves) blended in, topped with 4-5" of moss or 1-2" of composted fern and leaves. The bulbs seem to do best very close to the surface as long as they have some moisture storage mechanism covering them. The answer is that F. Camschatcensis will clump up if they have ideal nutrition and no predation. I also noted that there were earthworms in and around the clump, probably accounting for the fine soil mixed in with the silt.
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Max, greetings to you in California and a warm welcome to the Forum, thanks for your comments. We will investigate the RSS feed option, others have mentioned this too. Most weeks, the Log is online by Thursday, at the latest, if that is any help, meantime?!!
Clay, this is super observation from the wild... valuable to all growers to learn this stuff !
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Clay,
Fascinating observation!!
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Hi, Max, sorry to be so long in replying... just noticed you were online and remembered this! :-\
Fast Fred , our esteemed Administrator, has two things to say: firstly, RSS feeds are not easy to achieve with our setup and secondly, he thinks everyone should be encouraged to check regularly!
Enjoying your Two Gardens blog, by the way!
Maggi