Re: Lapeirousia Neglecta
Many thanks to all those who responded to my query. So many ways to start a
fire!
I get the impression from your responses that it is the heat from the fire
that triggers flowering in South African bulbs and not the nutrients being
returned to the ground, as I suspected. Placing ash over the bulbs seems to
be the favoured method. That said, there were some encouraging comments
supporting the idea of a high potash feed. I guess that I will just have to
try both methods and hope for the best.
Sean O'Hara asked me where L Neglecta grows in South Africa. Alas, I am
unable to answer that question. When I bought the seed, I was informed that
it was a South African species, but my interest in habitats hadn't developed
at the time, so I did not enquiry further. Information on Lapeirousia in
the UK seems to be limited to the fact that L Laxa is a synonym to
Anomatheca Laxa (which happily seeds itself around my garden here in
London), and the web isn't much better. The only reference to L Neglecta
that I have found relates the species to that of
L Fabrici, which I can identify as being a species from the Western Cape
from the book Cape Bulbs (Richard L Doutt). I can only assume that L
Neglecta is from the same region. Given the need for fire, The Fynbos seems
a reasonable location, but this is all speculation.
Again, many thanks for your thoughts
David Field.
London UK.
david field wrote:
> Since moving into my new home 4 years ago, I have been replanting my
> garden.
>
> Many of the perennial plants are either Californian or South African.
> Most of the
> plants are grown from seed.
>
> One such plant that has been growing for 2 years now, is Lapeirousia
> Neglecta, a South African bulbous plant. I have now learned that this
> plant will only flower after a period of fire.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to induce flowering without using fire.
>
> In the wild, I assume the burnt vegetation would return nutrients to the
> ground and that these nutrients trigger the bulbs into flowering. If
> this is true would it be possible to give the bulb a potash based feed
> to trigger the flowers.
>
> Any thoughts will be welcomed.
>
> David Field.
