Ornithogalum 2013

[BULBISSIME]

Thank's Oron, and congratulations for your Ornithogalum cuspidatum !

[Oron Peri]

More Ornithogalum today;
O. pedicellare, endemic to Cyprus
O. excapum from Crete
one of my favorites, O. atticum from the Peloponnese.

[François Lambert]

Well, ... here's another lover of Ornithogalum  .  who also has a lot of Eucomis bulbs 

4 years ago I purchased seeds from Galtonia Candicans - renamed to Ornithogalum since then.  The first 2 years they did not grow very well and remained utterly small, until I repotted them last spring (the whole pot of seedlings just placed in a larger one), where they made some more & bigger leaves.  This spring, the bulbs were still very small, but I repotted to a larger container anyway (10 liter).  They have grown bigger leaves than last year and some are flowering for the first time.  There must be dozens of bulbs growing in this container since I never did anything to separate the bulbs and plant them with more space between - that's a plan for next spring.  Although I purchased the seeds as being O. Candicans, the flowers look a bit greenish - which is not how I remember my G. Candicans that I grew 20 years ago (and unfortunately lost to cold wet winter).  Just enjoy the 2 pics below (credits to my wife who is my house-photographer).  The background of the second picture is an entire row of containers with Eucomis (will post some pics on the forum when they start to flower, which shouldn't take very long now).

Until recently i was not interested in Ornithogalum (only in Galtonia) because the species available from the trade here is O. Thyrsoides which I never managed to keep because It's a winter grower, and I can't replicate the climatic conditions that these need to thrive well.  I'm only good at growing winter dormant bulbs that like or even need a dry & chilly winter rest. 

Perhaps this is one of the many reasons why Ornithogalum is not popular here, if your bulbs only flower once and then inevitably die, that's not really the definition of a (garden) bulb.

But now that more information is available on the Internet I discovered there are a number summer growing/winter dormant Ornithogalum species and I definitely have plans (oh well, I often have plans & dreams, but that's what keeps us going isn't it ?) to enlarge my bulb collection with a number of summer growing South African Ornithogalum.  Personally i prefer the taller species, but that's just because these grow higher than the weeds and so are easier to keep.

By the way ... if anybody could confirm that it really is O. Candicans I am growing, that would be great.  The flowers are not green enough to make me think they are O. Viridiflora.  For your information, the flower stalks on the pictures must be something like 80 cm high.

[bulborum]

Here two pictures to see the difference
Greenish O viridiflora
White O. candicans
Roland

[François Lambert]

hello bulborum,


Thank you for the help, I think they must be O. Candicans then.  Not green enough to be Viridiflora, and the shape of the flowers also resembles more your picture of O. candicans.

[bulborum]

There exist a few crosses in-between the two to make it a little more complicate
yours look a little like that

Roland

[François Lambert]

Hello Roland,

Indeed, there is a greenish colour and the shape of the flowers is also somewhat inbetween.  Don't really know how this happened, I purchased the seeds from B & T Worldseeds as Galtonia Candicans.  One of the bulbs seems to be more like O. Candicans, but still not that pure white.  If I get seeds I will sow them just to see what comes out of these, just need to wait for another 3 to 4 years before those seedlings will flower.

Kind regards,

François

[bulborum]

Help me remember in about 6 to 8 weeks and I send you seeds from mine

Roland

[fermi de Sousa]

Ornithogalum arabicum and Ornithogalum thyrsoides are blooming at present in the rock garden,
cheers
fermi

[Armin]

Lovely Fermi,

both make a nice display