Bulb Log online 2015

[Maggi Young]

Well done to you all on another smooth and easy seed ex from the user end. We're like swans - the users gliding thought he system and the web team frenetically paddling away behind the scenes to make it work.

Hope to finish my seed packeting to get them back in the post by the weekend.

    All over the country there are SRGC members beavering over  boxes of seed to be packeted ready to be sent around the world  - it's all such a huge system, with so many  volunteers involved.

 I always think it's a dangerous time of year - some seed is bound to be spilled  and if  a drink is then spilled on the rug - will the seed packeters end up with a green carpet? 

[Maggi Young]

Bulb Log  49 of 2015 : Comments on  SRGC success in  embracing the internet and  news of friends' Crowdfunding efforts - as well as a chapter of Erythroniums in Cultivation - this time it's E. oregonum

http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Dec091449666371BULB_LOG_4915.pdf

[Chris Johnson]

The link doesn't work for me, Maggi. I have accessed it via another route but your might want to check it.

Chris

[Herman Mylemans]

Chris this one will work http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Dec091449666371BULB_LOG_4915.pdf

[Maggi Young]

Thanks Chris  and Herman    - I have edited  my post to add the correct link - not sure how the first became  wrong! 

[Ian Y]

This week Bulb Log 50 has three more chapters from Erythroniums in Cultivation.

Erythronium californicum
Erythronium citrinum
Erythronium howellii

 http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Dec161450265242BULB_LOG_5015.pdf

[ramato]

Thank you so much Ian for all these bulb logs !!!
I'm now fond of Erythroniums, and I've sown my first ones this autumn !
Please give us more and more logs !

[hadacekf]

Ian,
Amazing are your Erythroniums in pictures and comments. Thank you! In your garden, my dreams come true.

[Ian Y]

Thankyou Ramato I know you will enjoy growing your Erythroniums.

Thank you Franz for your kind words, I also dream that I could have a garden like yours full of many plants we cannot grow here.

Ian

[Maggi Young]

Penultimate Bulb Log for 2015 is now online featuring Narcissus and Erythronium hendersonii and a link to Ian's latest video diary.

http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Dec231450868200BULB_LOG_5115.pdf

[Diane Whitehead]

Your picture of etiolated narcissus leaves made me realize that the extra length gives them
extra chlorophyll to compensate for dim light.  I wonder if someone has measured photosynthesis
at various latitudes to see if this really works.

[Ian Y]

Yes the plants grow  to compensate for the low light, it would be an interesting experiment for someone Diane.

[ramato]

Ian,
I've read almost all the bulb logs but I didn't find the way you keep your strains pure...i.e. how do you avoid hybridizing?
I can see you grow most of your Erythronium oudoors...do you keep some of them in the greenhouse well protected? Do you wrap the flowers in a bag or something else?

[Ian Y]

Ramato,
Good question, none of the Erythroniums are grown under glass they are either in open frames or the garden. I grow all the bulbs raised from collected seed in plunge baskets or pots so I know they are pure. If I want true seed I make sure that I am the first pollinator so most of that seed will be true species although there is still a small risk of an occasional hybrid from a later pollination.
Other times I just let nature do the pollination and see what grows and surprisingly there are relatively few hybrids,among the Erythroniums.
It is much the same in the bulbhouses except the Natcissus are so promiscuous that I have to control pollination when I want true seed. Old tea bags are great to protect pollinated flowers.

[Ian Y]

The last Bulb log for this year no. 52 is now online and features three more chapters on Erythronium montanum, E. elegans and E. klamathense.
I have more chapters to write so I am moving the date for the full combined book Erythroniums in Cultivation going online to the end of January.
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2015Dec301451476368Bulb_log_5215a.pdf