[pbs] Ixiolirion
Jane McGary
janemcgary at earthlink.net
Wed Jun 25 18:15:54 EDT 2008
Jim McKenney wrote:
>Ixiolirion is one of those plants whose ubiquity (in catalogs at least) and
>low price cause prospective growers to take less than seriously. Allium
>caeruleum is another one.
>
>I have no idea how these behave in other climates, but under my conditions
>many bulbs, and these two in particular, need to mature into drought.
I also have not been able to keep Ixiollirion in the garden. I thought
perhaps it was winter wet that did it in, since I had it in a section that
is not watered in summer, when it rarely rains here. Allium caeruleum,
however, is a permanent plant in the garden here.
There are many bulbs that can be multiplied easily and grown to flowering
size under the controlled conditions of the Dutch bulb industry but that
are not easy to maintain in the conditions typical of the temperate-climate
garden. Many of these species seem to do best in North America when grown
in the severe-winter regions of the US northeast and eastern Canada,
suggesting that a strict regime of winter dormancy under snow suits them.
They don't get this in Holland, but there they have very deep sand and can
be kept in temperature- and humidity-controlled storage and planted at an
optimal time so that they will emerge at a time when they're least likely
to be damaged by weather. They may also be treated with pesticides,
fungicides, and heat to restrict the activity of pathogens; viruses, in
particular, can become more active when the bulb enters the more stressful
environment of the garden.
With experience we learn which commercial bulbs can be "naturalized" as the
bulb catalogs say, and which must be treated as annual bedders. Only
experimentation in every garden with its micro-habitats will give us the
answers.
Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA
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