[pbs] Timing for bulbs changing hemisphere?
Lee Poulsen
wpoulsen at pacbell.net
Fri May 4 02:08:56 EDT 2007
On May 3, 2007, at 6:33 PM, Paul Tyerman wrote:
> Howdy All,
>
> I need some brain-picking of experience please? What is the best
> time to try to change hemisphere for bulbs and corms?
I know plenty of others have experience with this too. But as a
general rule of thumb, the conversions that have worked the best for
me are when I get a bulb as soon after it enters dormancy in the
opposite hemisphere as possible, and then try to grow it as long as
is feasible in what is left of its normal growing conditions in my
hemisphere. I have tried to hold dormant bulbs over an extra 6
months, but very few bulbs seem to like that. They shrivel and
sometimes disappear before the proper growing season begins in my
hemisphere, especially if they are very small bulbs, which is often
the case. Now if I can't get them early enough after dormancy I just
wait another year.
That being said, I've found that the most difficult type to convert
hemispheres are the winter growers. Summer growers are easier to
convert because it's much easier to continue providing them the
warmer conditions they want on into our late autumn and early winter
than it is to continue providing cool growing conditions after spring
has ended and summer here has begun. I have often thought about
begging friends who lives along the coast here (where they have much
cooler conditions even into the summer) to let me finish growing them
at their house. But then I know they won't take care of them
properly, etc. Now if you live along coastal northern California or
in the coolest of the San Francisco Bay Area climates, you can
probably grow them in cool conditions for an extended period after
receiving them. Same holds for the Pacific Northwest and British
Columbia. If you have friends in Anchorage, Alaska, that would
probably be a perfect place to try converting winter growers.
Our only saving grace in So. Calif. is that we get May Gray and June
Gloom which makes our early summers generally much cooler than what
the U.S. Southern states experience. But many of the summer dormant
species don't do well there anyway because it is so humid and wet
during their summers.
Western and Northern Europe probably have a similarly easier go of it.
--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA, USDA Zone 10a
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