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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2009 12:43:45 GMT
Bulbs are technically perennial plants because they repeat year after year. What makes them different from the herbaceous perennials is their mechanism for food storage through their semi-dormant phase. There are bulbous plants for a variety of settings,from wet to dry,shady to sunny,for all qualities of soils,and for a range of conditions:harsh to lush,and for all seasons. The plants that are loosely classified as "bulbs" take five different forms:true bulbs(such as tulips),corms (such as gladiolus),tubers(such as caladiums),tuberous roots(such as dahlias),and rhizomes (such as gingers and cannas). The first image that comes to mind is the spring-flowering hardy bulbs:tulips,hyacinths,and large,golden trumpeted daffodils.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2009 13:09:01 GMT
France goes wild with daffodils and jonquils in the spring. The bulbs are imbedded by the thousands in many of the municipal parks and seeing them start to rise through the grass around the end of February is one of the things that gives people hope.
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 11, 2009 5:28:04 GMT
Here there are none of the Spring-flowering bulbs listed above, because there's not enough chill factor for them. Still, we're not suffering. We have gingers & cannas & the Mexican native, tuberose, for instance. Also crinum lilies and I have a clivia blooming right now. Irises are always a thrill, and amaryllis put on quite a show here in Spring. Some pictures from my garden:
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2009 12:02:38 GMT
Blooming here now,Agapanthus,Lily of the Nile
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2009 12:09:10 GMT
Dietes,African Iris
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2009 12:15:21 GMT
Wild Louisiana Iris,picture a whole lagoon chock full of these from your canoe!
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 25, 2009 14:07:12 GMT
I know what I'm going to have to smuggle back from my next visit to N.O.! I've never seen that particular dietes before, and am eaten alive with desire for it. Frustration -- the iris pic is not opening. There is an illustration of La. iris in the Botanical Illustration thread, Reply #1, which I see I stupidly forgot to caption. The illustration is lovely, but hardly covers the full array of colors and combinations offered by the Louisiana iris.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2009 12:06:59 GMT
Am going this a.m. to dig up a bed of Lycoris bulbs(although a little late for doing this) that a friend of a friend is getting rid of. Also known as 'Naked Ladies',their foliage goes dormant when the bloom pops up in the fall. They also come in a wonderful red. the ones I'm scoring are yellow.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 14, 2009 14:23:08 GMT
Awwww ~~ my grandmother had a whole chorus line of Lycoris radiata dancing across the front of her yard every year. . In my new house there is an abandoned garden area right off the porch. It's empty except for some wiry weed grass, a messy crinum, and a semi-toppled, battered aloe vera. The other day I noticed some thick red stems sticking out of the wasteland, but didn't inspect them as I was on my way out. Image how stunned I was the next day to have these beauties greet me in the morning. They rebloom over a period of days. I dug one up and gave it to a friend & it cheerfully performed for her, too. Nice, huh?
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2009 2:09:55 GMT
magnificent red! Lust,lust. How big was the bulb Bixa and was it as difficult to dig up as a cri num? I remember the first time seeing lycoris in full regalia was in St. Francisville in the autumn all over the town. I discovered a Gloriousa lily today in a pot discarded by the side of the road while bike riding. They are the only lily I know to climb with tendrils. She came home with me in my basket
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Post by bixaorellana on May 15, 2009 3:05:43 GMT
Oh joy ~~ the gloriosa is such a great, old-fashioned flower!
The bulb was about golf-ball size, although I assume there are some smaller & some larger ones out there somewhere. Probably one would fall in my suitcase accidentally were I to travel your way. It's nothing like the crinum, whose roots are somewhere in the core of the earth.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2009 3:14:56 GMT
...the core of the earth,they come up from under asphault here!
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Post by bjd on May 15, 2009 12:30:07 GMT
Someone gave me a gloriosa lily "root" with precise instructions on care etc, but since it didn't actually do anything, I finally dug around in the soil and discovered that it had completely disolved. Just disappeared! I did find those fat white slugs that you get in compost though so maybe they ate it up.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2009 12:49:33 GMT
I know they go really dormant,even here. Are you sure it's totally gone?
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Post by bixaorellana on May 15, 2009 13:12:06 GMT
Urk! I know those nasty things, Bjd, and yes they can completely consume a bulb. They are the larvae of various beetles. Here they are called gallinas ciegas -- "blind hens", who knows why!
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Post by bjd on May 15, 2009 17:14:35 GMT
Not dormant, casimira -- nothing left. I ended up tipping the whole pot out in the garden and there was nothing left. But the birds were happy and ate all the wormy things. Gallinas ciegas? Interesting name. Maybe because they are so big that even blind hens would find them?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2009 18:03:29 GMT
I adore tuberose and am so disappointed that only one came up and is due to bloom any day. Next year I am definitely going to plant a ton more if I can find a decent price somewhere for the bulbs. I prefer the single blooms,they pack more fragrance.Two or three cut flower stalks will perfume a whole room for several days.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2009 19:12:54 GMT
After daffodil season had already ended, I found a pot of bulbs in a forgotten cupboard. I decided to take it out and put it on the windowsill, water it and see what happened.
Well, some of the bulbs have put forth long stalks and seem to enjoy the June weather. Other bulbs just put up a few small sprouts and seem to be on strike now, even though they look completely healthy. Not a single bulb accepted to produce a flower.
So now I figure all I can do it cut off the stalks and stick it all back in the cupboard until next year, because nothing else is going to happen.
How do bulbs manage to outsmart people like me and refuse to be tricked even when they have been sitting in the dark for 10 months or more?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2009 19:18:26 GMT
Don't cut off the stalks. Let them wither naturally. Supposedly this feeds and strengthens the bulb.
I believe if you'd kept the pot in the fridge for a while, it would have been tricked into believing it had gone through winter and might have treated you to a Springish display.
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Post by bazfaz on Jun 12, 2009 21:29:11 GMT
We have an incredible display of yellow lilies; the cannas are just coming into bloom; agapanthus next; then ginger. We also have eucomis. Anybody know these? The stems produce a cluster of flowers that looks very like a pineapple.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2009 21:33:38 GMT
Wow ~~ I've only seen those in plant catalogues. What an amazing variety -- the possibilities for landscaping with it are mouth-watering. What are its cultivation needs?
Yellow lilies = oriental lilies? day lilies? ~?~
Talk Mrs. Faz into registering and becoming a presence on the gardening discussions!
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Post by bazfaz on Jun 14, 2009 7:46:35 GMT
Bixa, I'll have you know that all those bulbs I mentioned are in my special preserve in the garden known as the Tropical Folly. They don't get much special treatment. I put on compost from the heap in winter and water a couple of times a week in summer.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2009 11:05:22 GMT
Euconomis is a lovely plant,the leaves are broad and straplike,the variety I have has deep maroon coloring on the outside leaves. It blooms reliably every year with little to no fuss. The bloom is on a fairly thick,hollow stalk and the bloom itself is a cone-like cluster of waxy like white blooms,not too unlike a hyacinth but bigger. It does resemble a small pineapple therefore, the common name Pineapple Lily.
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Post by bazfaz on Jun 14, 2009 11:17:59 GMT
I have grown our eucomis from seeds - three years to flowering. The first lot were eucomis bicolor, which has dark spots on its stems. Then I tried a pack of hybrids. These are certainly vigorous. The stems are so tall they tend to flop over.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2009 11:34:31 GMT
The blooms do get heavy,I learned the hard way and began to stake mine.Each one of those small star like flowers produces a black seed. I have saved and then always forget I have them and never plant. Every year I say "I'm going to plant these" and then invariably "forget" until the next year...or,another one of my repeated garden foibles is ,I put the seeds in a nice air tight container and don't label it. One year I'm just going to toss ALL the seeds I have saved in the shed or house out into the garden and see what comes up!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2009 3:18:47 GMT
these guys blooming all over the place,I had to harvest some bamboo to stake them all!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2009 10:54:46 GMT
Of the 8 or 9 gingers in my garden(ornamental), the first to bloom is one of the Hedychium ,a largely represented member of the ginger family. This particular one is very showy and fragrant It is known as KAHILI. They thrive in half sun (here) with a fair amount of moisture required to maintain a lush green foliage. One cut stalk will maintain it's beauty for several days and perfume a whole room as well as provide a spectacular focal point. Fortunately they love the heat and are therefore early to bloom this summer. They grow on sturdy stalks 3-4 feet tall. Grown from a rhizome similar to the edible ginger root ,technically not a bulb ,but often classified with. Hedychium gardnerarianum,'Kahili'
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2009 11:05:28 GMT
Crocosmia,Montbretia; grown from corms,repeat year after year. Love the heat and drought so, am having a stupendous display this year There is a large red,red ,variety named 'Lucifer' that does well further north but not here
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2009 3:06:13 GMT
After all the intermittent summer rains we've been having these guys pop up all over. Always forget about them until this time of year. Zephranthes, Rain Lilies, grown from small bulbs I put in years ago and they just sit dormant until the right temperature and moisture they like makes them burst forth. Also in pink and in white. Will naturalize after a few years.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 3, 2009 3:53:46 GMT
What SWEET little lilies! I do not know them at all.
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