[pbs] Blooming now/Weather changes
Mary Sue Ittner
msittner at mcn.org
Sun Feb 1 19:48:42 EST 2009
Dear All,
People subscribed to this group so we could talk about bulbs in the broader
sense and growing them and I'd like to get us back on topic before we have
a mass exodus.
It seems like there have been a lot of weather extremes in the last few
years and I'm interested in knowing how people are coping. There have been
droughts, floods, colder than usual weather, warmer than usual weather. Are
people losing plants or finding some grow better?
I live in coastal northern California, but on a ridge in the mixed
evergreen forest and usually we have rain and a lot of it between sometime
in October and November and May with it dry the rest of the year. The
months with the most rain are December, January, and February and after
that it tapers off. Storms usually start north and move south, but this
year they aren't getting to us. And the tropical storms from the south
aren't coming far enough north either. We've lived here 20 years and it has
never been as dry this time of the year as it is this year and we are in
the first stages of voluntary water conservation. This is leaving everyone
very worried as last year it stopped raining in February and we had bad
fires in the summer.
In addition to the drier weather we had unseasonably warm days for part of
January as well. It has been beautiful if you don't think about how it is
supposed to be. What this has meant for my garden is that things are
blooming much earlier than usual. I am getting a sense of what it must be
like in Southern California most years. Normally I don't have to water my
too large collections of pots in winter, at least not those that get rained
on, but not this year. We collect water from the roof, so I'm using that
for now. It doesn't take much rain to fill our water barrels so am keeping
my fingers crossed that before I've exhausted my supply it will rain again.
Yesterday I did a survey and there were blooms in more than 100 pots with
spikes in others. That's a bit unusual for January and there are quite a
few things blooming in the ground as well. All three varieties of
Tecophilaea are blooming. Some years they don't even come up until January.
I've a lot of Romulea in bloom: R. crocea, R. sabulosa, R. luteoflora, R.
flava, R. kamisensis, R. kombergensis, Romulea bulbocodium, R. monticola
and something that has been well eaten (tag says R. subfistulosa alas since
it is one of the more spectacular ones.) And there was a Galaxia that
bloomed that I missed. I have several species of Cyclamen blooming in pots
and in the ground and Narcissus both places as well. Ixia rapunculoides is
falling over in more than one place and there are Crocus blooming in pots
and in the ground. A few early Lachenalias are finishing and others taking
their place. The Massonias are about done except for Massonia depressa.
Oxalis in bloom are all my different obtusas, Oxalis purpurea forms, O.
versicolor, O. depressa. Gladiolus caeruleus has been booming for some time
and other Gladiolus like alatus have well formed spikes. The Veltheimias
seems to have sent up more spikes than usual, but aren't quite open. I've
had quite a few Babiana species in bloom for awhile, but two new species
started blooming today. Leucojum aestivum which doesn't bloom consistently
at the same time each year is blooming now. In the greenhouse a couple of
Haemanthus are just about done, but I have several Cyrtanthus in bloom, one
Phaedranassa, Canarina, and Tropaeolum tricolor in bloom. There is another
Trop species that got away from me before I could train it properly and it
is growing all over the top of the greenhouse. I'll have to use binoculars
to see the flowers. For the first year in years Tropaeolum brachycercas (at
least one) showed up. I wonder if I have missed it in the past and not
watered enough since that first shoot was so tiny and thin. And all my
yellow Ipheion-Nothoscordum-Tristagmas, whatever we are calling them, are
blooming this year. One pot had remained dormant for many years. There is
also a white Nothoscordum unidentified, but not the bad one, that has been
blooming well. As for my natives I have these in bloom: Erythronium
multiscapodium, Cardamine californica, Triteleia clementina, Scoliopus
bigelovii, Calochortus uniflorus. It looks like a long blooming year for
Spiloxene serrata that started blooming in December and was flowering
today. And there is the first Scilla and a Hycinthoides blooming too and
the first of my Delphiniums.
Some of the flowers don't seem to be lasting as long as they usually do and
some Oxalis have already gone dormant. I don't know if this will lead to a
shorter season and if that will impact the blooming season next year or if
since there has been more light they will been doing the necessary growing
and it won't make any difference.
Any reports from other parts of the world of successes and plants lost to
the weather?
Mary Sue
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