Bulb Log 17-01-07

[jim divers]

Maggi and Ian, Well done!!!!!    ;DCongratulations to you both on this superb award.
Jim

Details of Caley Awards 2007 and pix, citations etc :
http://www.royalcaledonianhorticulturalsociety.org/awards2007/awards2007.htm

[Diane Whitehead]

One topic I'd like to see you cover is how to tell when to water pots with
all that grit on them.  I don't use grit, and can tell at a glance by the
colour of the compost whether it requires watering.  A friend sowed my
seeds for me once when I was travelling and topdressed with grit - I dried
out a lot of pots before I finally tipped the grit off the remainder.

[Susan]

Maggi and Ian, heartiest congratulations.  You both deserve it for all the work you put in to what is simply the best plant forum in the world.  I have learnt so much from the bulb log over the last few years.

As for those prints - are you going to have them for sale???  Surely you won't want to carry them back as excess luggage.

Susan

[Ian Y]

Thanks for the suggestion Diane, I will cover that topic in the next few weeks.

Any more suggestions from anyone?

Susan, yes indeed if I bring prints out they will be for sale. Some editions are already sold out but by this time next year I will have printed a few more as I am working on several new blocks just now.

[Susan]

Ian, That's great, look forward to that.  Maggi will have to come out to share bringing the excess luggage!  Prints, whisky...... It'll be a hard job but you obviously need someone to carry the bags!

Susan

[tonyg]

Just want to add my congrats on the gong - and on the exhibition.  Having had the priviledge of seeing one or two of the works close up and 'in the flesh' I imagine the whole set on display must have been very powerful.  I only wish I could have been there.

[Diane Whitehead]

Thanks, Ian.

Another topic: how to tell when your plant is old enough to flower.

I can go around my rhododendrons in August, count the number of
flower buds and plan next spring's crosses.

I can see when erythroniums have two leaves and know they're mature
enough to flower.

Other plants are a mystery - like seedling narcissus. They have masses
of leaves for years.  I hope and keep looking for buds, then the season
is over and it's too late for another year.

[Lesley Cox]

Another topic: how to tell when your plant is old enough to flower.

The best way to tell is actually observe that it is in flower - at last.

[Ian Y]

Narcissus that produce masses of leaves and do not flower is a very common complaint that I hear as I go around lecturing.

The reason for this is, and there is no easy way to say it, you are not growing them properly.
They need more water and food, especially potash than you think to produce flower buds.
I also think that once a bulb gets into this habit of producing many small offsets it is difficult to get it back on the right track.

Thanks for these pointers Diane, I will cover them in future logs.

[snowdropman]

They need more water and food, especially potash than you think to produce flower buds.

Ian - would be very grateful if you could expand on the use of potash, or more precisely when & how it should be applied

[Maggi Young]

Chris, try some of these pages for starters, then tell us what else you need to know:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/300103/log.html

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2005/160205/log.html

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2005/080305/log.html

http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/321/369.html?1109366439
I think these should be quite a help,
m

[snowdropman]

Chris, try some of these pages for starters, then tell us what else you need to know ...I think these should be quite a help

Thank you Maggi, very useful & they certainly made me think.

In the last year I have started to grow my snowdrops in lattice baskets which I then 'plant' out in the garden. I use a basic mix of john innes, multi compost, sharp sand & some bone meal (to give a mix of both short term & longer term nutrients) & the aim is to repot every 2 to 3 years.

Extra bone meal is added to the surface in the autumn & I was going to give a liquid feed of tomato fertiliser, after flowering, which seems to fit with the advice given in the Bulb Log.

However, I still remain unclear as to whether a separate feed of potash is desirable as well and, if so, when.

[Maggi Young]

Chris, it is all there in the Logs.  See the dates of the logs, that gives you an idea of when it is happening up here, and at what stages. I give you this quote from this log, from a link given above : 
 
http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2005/160205/log.html

"I start adding potassium in the form of sulphate of potash to the bulbs when the flowers are just going over in mature bulbs. With seedling and non flowering bulbs I add it when I think the leaves have reached a normal size, this is always much earlier than with the flowering bulbs. ......Nowadays, potash is chemically produced and comes in the form of a soluble white powder which I add to the top dressing of the pots and every time I water a little is dissolved and taken down to the bulb roots. I add it at the rate of a teaspoon full to an 8cm pot, two to a 13 cm pot etcWhen I have added it very early in the season on seedling bulbs or autumn flowering bulbs I often add a second dose in the spring.
Since I have been growing more bulbs in plastic pots, which require less watering than the same bulbs in clay pots, I have to remember to get the potash on quickly because there is less opportunity to water and so to feed the bulbs, although, as long as there is moisture in the pot, some of the potash will leach down to the roots."

That whole log is mostly about feeding with potash, all you need should be there... there is comment on autumn flowering bulbs etc and their feeding, too.

[snowdropman]

Hi Maggi - I did read the logs - honest!

Perhaps it was the way I asked my follow up question - I was just trying to find out if, given the nutrients in my pot mix, the subsequent feeds of bone meal & tomato fertiliser, and the re-potting every 2 to 3 years, it is still appropriate to use Potash - whilst I don't want to underfeed the bulbs, I don't want to overfeed them either.

[David Shaw]

Last year I read this log and bought a box of sulphate of potash (me, an organic gardener) to use on our narcissus and other bulbs. On the first watering the powder set like lumps of cement on top of the grit! People kept asking what it was and it was still there at repotting time. Previously I have tried an organic potash from Chase and this ent mouldy on the top of the pot .