POTTING ON THE SPRING AND SUMMER BULBS.

A blue sky with just a few scattered clouds and early morning sunshine pushing the temperature up to a comfortable 12º c is a sure sign that Spring has finally arrived, well at least in this part of the world.

After the coldest January for twenty years there is a lot of catching up to be done in the garden. Priority must go to potting on the spring and summer bulbs, as some of them are already starting to make new growth.

Calochortus barbatus that had been drying out under the greenhouse staging all winter was first on the list. Most Calochortus start growing in November but not this one. Because it doesn't flower until late summer it is best not potted until the spring. Calochortus fall into two categories, those that flower in the spring and those that flower in the summer.

The spring flowering type are potted and started into growth in November (The foliage is now eight inches on these plants) And the summer ones are potted in the spring, so it is important to know which type you have if you want to be successful in growing them.

When they knocked out of their pots the bulbs were nice and plump and had over wintered well in the dry soil. (If you take them out of the soil and store them dry they can get too desiccated and may not start into growth again) An eight-inch pot was filled with ten bulbs for stock plants, and the surplus was then potted into small plastic pots for plant sales. I then discovered a mixed tray of small bulbils and seed of the same plant, which took fifteen minutes to separate. The seed was sown in the usual manner and placed outside to get some rain, and the bulbils were placed five to a three-inch pot and put under the bench in the greenhouse. With a little care and attention some of them will even reach flowering size by the end of the summer.

Had to dash of to the garden centre and buy one hundred seed trays and a box of white plastic labels. These small pots must be individually labelled to avoid confusion at a later date, if you have ever tried to figure out what type of a bulb was in a pot with no label you will know what I mean.

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