Re: Tigridia/Crocosmia/acidanthera/english Iris

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I forgot to mention that crocosmias form a chain of bulbs and do better if the old bulbs are left on the chain.

Robt R Pries <rpries@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I was sort of surprised that many have found tigridias difficult. My only complaint has been that they are not sold except in mixed colors. I don?t have the room to line them out to sort out colors so I have given up several times. I am told that they will bloom more reliably when the clusters of bulbs are left intact. Most of the time what one receives is a single or double nosed bulb, but by the end of the season they will usually form a nice cluster that appreciates being left intact. Maybe the bulbs everyone has tried were just too small.

Montebretias/Crocosmias. I had a nice collection of these a few years back, about a dozen named varieties. I planted them in late winter, in large 5-10 gallon tall plastic pots. They would begin emerging by early spring and I would place them in a shallow pool so the bottom three to four inches of the approximately 16 inch tall pot was constantly flooded. They performed gloriously and were probably in bloom for about a month and a half starting before the fourth of July. The red varieties are supposedly hardy, but the only one I tested was ?Lucifer? and it grew several years in the ground until shade over took that area. My exuberance in collecting overwhelmed me a couple of years ago and the over 1,000 pot plants I was overwintering just was too much work. So I no longer have the collection. But I can attest that a pot is easy to store dry in winter.

Acidantheras, the main complaint with these is it takes them all summer to develop well enough to flower and they must be started early. I have not tried the shallow pool technique with them but I suspect they would do well also.

English Iris. I have had great difficulty having these persist in the open ground. Last fall I obtained some more and didn?t get time to plant them. They sat in a plastic bag in the basement all winter and this spring I panicked and finally put them in a pot. They already had developed fine roots throughout the sphagnum. I plunged the whole thing into potting soil and sat the pot in about an inch of water. They took forever to show signs of life. Finally late this spring they began growing. To my surprise even into hot weather this summer they still are growing steadily albeit extremely slowly. It appears a flower stalk is forming. If it manages to bloom I will be amazed, but they certainly appear to like the water at their feet.

Neil A Mogensen <neilm@charter.net> wrote:

----- Original Message -----

From: v*@islandnet.com

To: i*@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 1:37 PM

Subject: Re: [iris-species] Tigridia

Montbretia (Crocosmia) needs summer water. -- Diane Whitehead  Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil

Diane, I'm glad you included this information.  I've been making the same error--assuming they needed semi-dry summers.  As I think about their growth and bloom cycles the summer need for water is obvious.  I just wasn't paying attention.  Thank you!

 

Neil Mogensen  z 7 western NC mountains--on the margin between Continental and Marine West Coast type climate zones, something over 40 in. rainfall normal,  2300 ft. elevation, both south and north sloping areas with substantially different peak of bloom times.