Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Bulbs General => Topic started by: BULBISSIME on November 08, 2009, 04:44:26 PM
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Not always easy to grow because it sometimes stay 1 year without vegetation at all !
Less floriferous than A. rechingerii, this is A. gramineum, from Morocco.
I grow it in the bulb frame, in pure quartz sand.
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Congratulations Fred, really lovely.....where would it grow in the wild?
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For what I know, it grow's in Nord Africa and Spain, in sand.
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Quartz sand presumably has plenty of minerals, does it Fred? If the foliage doesn't appear sometimes how on earth does the plant regenerate itself year on year to produce such a lovely flower? I was amazed to see Colchicum growing close to the sand dunes in Hristo's thread in Bulgaria
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In fact, the corm just stays dormant for one or more year if the conditions are not good enough for it's growth ...
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Robin,
A lot of the Moraeas can skip years, in fact I have had some species have a bulb that has skipped up to 6 years before resurfacing again. Doesn't seem to bother them much.... they just sit there and wait until conditions suit whatever it is that that particular bulb/corm has decided it needs before it will shoot again. In the Moraeas I have had 2 corms where one shot every year and the other just sat there, then one year the one that hadn't been up came up and the other one stayed dormant. Who knows why? ::)
Lovely Androcymbium, Fred.
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Very nice!
I like this genus.
In fact, the corm just stays dormant for one or more year if the conditions are not good enough for it's growth ...
Maybe try to use a different soil mixture for them instead of quartz...
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Miriam,
they grow well now, since I've planted the corms in the pure sand !
I stilll have a pot with standard soil and only 1 corm is starting to grow.....
I hope to get seeds.
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Looks like a little Colchicum
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Quartz sand presumably has plenty of minerals, does it Fred? If the foliage doesn't appear sometimes how on earth does the plant regenerate itself year on year to produce such a lovely flower? I was amazed to see Colchicum growing close to the sand dunes in Hristo's thread in Bulgaria
as far as i know, quartz stone or sand is quite entirely sterile, unless its an area where organic matter deposits on top or soils exist underneath (there are some habitats in brasil popular with certain cacti that have a layering of quartz with other materials)...
in pure quartz, plants will grow like epiphytes (more lithophyte of course) where the substrate is only providing anchorage/shelter..
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Amazing how some plants seem to live off thin air Cohan :o
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Not always easy to grow because it sometimes stay 1 year without vegetation at all !
Bravo Fred !! It looks great, well done ! :D
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Amazing how some plants seem to live off thin air Cohan :o
so true! rain water, maybe critter droppings if they are lucky, maybe runoff water from some spot with soil or organic matter?
there are bromeliads you grow with no soil, just water, no ferts....
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the same is blooming now :)
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Lovely plant Fred!
Like Paul - I've found that Moraea are especially prone to skipping a year. In the UK it is especially if they don't get a warm enough summer rest - M. loubseri is the worst culprit here. I don't think that can be the case with Paul T's hot summers though! The variability in response between individuals in a species may be a good evolutionary safeguard which prevents all plants from being in growth if disaster strikes (unseasonal fire, grazing, drought etc).
An off-topic musing: Older gardening books used to recommend a good 'baking' in the sun under glass for bulbs. This was discredited by a newer generation who advocated a cool dry rest. Both are dangerous generalisations. I'm sure you bulb growers out there will share my experience that some bulbs really do want a very warm dry summer and others really do want the opposite! The only useful guideline is to know your plants and the conditions they grow in in nature.
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Darren, I TOTALLY AGREE with you !
it's impossible to define a single rule to grow and rest bulbs.
would be too easy... and boring ;D 8)
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Darren, I TOTALLY AGREE with you !
it's impossible to define a single rule to grow and rest bulbs.
would be too easy... and boring ;D 8)
Exactly! Half the fun is working out how to persuade the awkward ones to grow and flower ;D
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.......The only useful guideline is to know your plants and the conditions they grow in in nature.
Hmmm - OK, but the guidelines are not always too easy to interpret. Take Crocus robertianus - a plant which I have found difficult. Mathew (p66) describes it as growing “in semi-shade......between and at the edges of deciduous.......scrub. The soil is a sandstone-shale, rather moist from the autumn to late spring and then becoming rather dry but never hot and sunbaked.”
I took this to mean a dry but relatively cool summer in the shade. Following this regime, I lost many plants over the years (not "fun" at all). More recently I have had more success by keeping them outside all the time so they receive whatever the local weather delivers.
How would you interpret Mathew’s description of the natural conditions?
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Knowing the conditions pertaining to the wild habitat of any plant is interesting, but this is not always the key to success in cultivation. Whether growing plants out of doors or under glass, outwith their natural surroundings it is unlikely that one will ever be able to successfully imitiate their home life. There are just too many variables... it is nearly always a question of trial and error... the fun comes when one doesn't make too many errors! ;)
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Which is why I used the word guideline ;)
The classic example where this fails would be to try to grow american frits by trying to recreate their sticky adobe clay in a pot. In fact I fell foul of a similar mistake when trying to grow Hesperantha vaginata too wet in winter - it also inhabits sticky clay in the wild. I found it very prone to rotting at the neck even in a well drained loam mix in a plastic pot. Putting it in a plunged clay pot and keeping it much drier was the answer.
I lost many arisaema by following the book advice 'dry in winter to avoid rotting'.... Again - a generalisation - and in this case the advice was then re-interpreted in the light of experience (dry means drier - not bone dry).
Based on your experience Gerry I think the key word in the Mathew advice is 'rather' - i.e. no extremes. Though without your experience I would have interpreted it exactly as you did.
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I'm actually quite dreadful to my plants.... I keep them totally illiterate and don't let them NEAR my gardening books. It is amazing what plants will take when you don't let them near litterature that tells them they shouldn't grow in a given area. My Beaugainvillea, for example, would NEVER survive here if it knew it wasn't supposed to. ;D