Saturday, June 3, 2017

Welcome!


Give a person a plant and they'll have a plant. Teach a person to grow a plant and they'll have an obsessive hobby that uses up their free time, backyard, and spare cash.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Moraea hybrid MM 10-02c
This blog is about my favorite plants and how I grow them. My garden is a steep south-facing hillside at the southern edge of San Jose, California, about an acre in total. The soil here is heavy clay mixed with rocks, the water city-supplied and expensive.

My main focus in this blog is on unusual bulbs that can be grown in California.

Moraea hybrid MM 10-16d
These are not the bulbs you find in garden centers; they're amazingly colorful, sometimes weird looking, and almost always surprising.

You can grow these bulbs easily in any part of the world that has a Mediterranean climate, and with some care in just about anyplace else as well.

Moraea hybrid MM 11-15c
In addition to collecting species bulbs, I do some amateur hybridizing. My main focus is on Moraea, the "peacock flower" of South Africa. I also play around with Calochortus (the "butterfly flower" of western North America) and Gladiolus (tough but delicate trumpet-shaped flowers that are utterly different from the vegetable poodles they sell at Home Depot).

Gladiolus hybrid MM 00-00a
If you'd like to learn more, the sidebar at right lists my most popular posts and some other useful links. (If you're reading this on a smartphone, you probably can't see the sidebar, so I've reproduced the list at the end of this article.)

A color form of Calochortus superbus
I'd love to hear from you. Please feel free to post questions and suggestions. If you're just getting started, I'm glad to give advice. If you know about hybridizing, I need your advice!

I am also very interested in trading with anyone who has unusual Moraea species. My wish list is here.

Moraea neopavonia 'Summerfield'
I'm glad to share seeds of species and hybrid plants from my collection, free of charge. Other growers have been very generous with me, and I'd like to give back. Let me know if you want some.

Moraea hybrid MM 12-139b










I would be glad to hear from you:







Yeah, I know, the spam-bots can probably read that. But why make their job easy?


Here's the list of my favorite posts:
New Moraea hybrids, 2021
How to grow Moraeas and other summer-dry bulbs
How to grow bulbs (on the Pacific Bulb Society website)
Growing bulbs from seed (Pacific Bulb Society)

Finally, I'd like to say thanks to the many gardeners in the Pacific Bulb Society, the Indigenous Bulb Growers of South Africa, and the old International Bulb Society who have shared advice, encouragement, and plants with me over the years. In particular, Paul F.X. von Stein, who shared many seeds to get me started; and Moraea king Bob Werra, who gave me many of the bulbs that were parents to these hybrids.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 8, 2017 at 2:14 AM

    Hello!
    Since I first found your blog, some two or three years ago, I love to see your Moraeas and your skills in hybridizing them. I ordered some seed and ... ¿how do you do it? Never ever one grain has grown! I tried in winter, in summer, different soils. No way. In this time I've grown Dietes and Neomarica and even Agapanthus from seed to flower - I grow Iris that are not my climate and lots of diverse plants. But Moraea doesn't want to grow.
    Is there a point I miss? Looking at your photographs of hybrids these plants readily form seeds and sprout. I live in Las Palmas, which is 28ºN, more or less a latitude like where these plants thrive in South Africa. Now I've run out of seeds and ideas!
    Any advice is so welcome!
    Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 8, 2017 at 4:07 PM

      Thanks very much for the nice comments, Arturo. Your blog is fantastic, and you grow some wonderful things.

      I'd love to help with your Moraea problem. A couple of thoughts...

      --I presume the Las Palmas you're in is the one on Gran Canaria, right? Wow, what a fabulous place!

      --I'm sure you know this, but it's worth mentioning: Dietes, Agapanthus, and Neomarica, the plants you referenced, are all plants that want summer water. Most Moraea species (including all the ones I grow) are winter growers that need to be dry in summer. They won't survive if grown in the same conditions as Dietes. But I am sure you know that.

      --Your natural climate should be quite good for winter-growing Moraeas. Las Palmas is a little drier than the places where most Moraea species grow, but so is San Jose, the place where I garden, and I do fine. (For details on the climate comparison, see the article I posted to the Pacific Bulb Society website here: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/DrySummerClimates )

      The prettiest Moraea species grow naturally in places like Caledon and Tulbagh, which as you'll see are a bit moister than Las Palmas in summer.

      --The usual rules for growing the summer-dormant Moraeas are:
      Plant in the fall just as the rains start (late October here in San Jose). Put them in a spot that gets a good amount of sun, but does not cook in the sun all day. Light shade for the hottest part of the day is best.
      Leave the pots outdoors. The seeds need the colder night temperatures to trigger them to germinate. Here in San Jose it gets down close to freezing many nights in winter. Your climate is so mild that I wonder if maybe the seeds aren't getting cold enough at night.
      Use a well-drained soil but do not let it go totally dry at any time in the growing season. It should stay damp but not soaking wet. I use 50-50 peat and sand, and water thoroughly once a week, in addition to the natural rainfall.
      In early summer as the weather warms the bulbs will start to go dormant. Stop watering when the leaves start to go yellow, which should happen in about April-May.
      Keep the pots in a shady cool spot in summer, but do not water them.
      Grow for two years before repotting.

      --A question: Do the Moraea seeds germinate at all? If not, they're either rotting, or not getting enough cold at night, or getting too hot or dry in the day. Or you got a bad batch of seeds. If they do germinate but don't survive, tell me what happens to them and maybe I can help you figure out what's going on.

      --If you want some fresh Moraea seeds, I would be happy to send you some for free this summer. Drop me a note at my e-mail address above.

      I hope this helps! I am happy to keep corresponding until we get some Moraeas to grow for you.

      Mike

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