Growing Flowering bulbs in warm climates - Ranunculus

This is the second article in this series. Ranunculus asiaticus with common name Persian buttercup Bloomingdale series. Here they reach around 10 inches in height and around 15 inches wide. They come in various color including yellow, red, white, blue and some bi-colors. Flowers are long lasting even in vases.
Here in lahore, Pakistan the price of each corm Rs 20 this year. Plants grown from seed germinate late but come to flowering early and have larger flowers. Price of each seedling is Rs 25 in single plastic cell.

1- Buy biggest corm. Soaking will help but not mandatory. I did not soak and result was fine. This was the corm
















2- Plant it 2 inches deep in a well drained soil which could retain moisture. The corm moisture to sprout roots. Remember plant claws down or in other words plant as shown in the above picture.

This is the situation after one month. I planted 3 corms this pot and so far they are doing fine.

















We plant corms in November and it flowers in January/February and flowers go till March. Remember to save this plant from heavy rains as last year one of my big plant having lots of buds (grown from seed) was ruined by heavy showers in March.

3- After flowers have finished blooming, let the leaves gather the energy and store in corm. when leaves also start to fade, cut the foliage and dry them in shade. Save for next year. Although this was not successful when i tried it. I think it is better to keep it in ground and hope it will multiply itself. I was told that fresh corms better results.

Plants from seeds take around three years to form usable corms. They also end their first bud after third or fourth leaf stage. Remember to remove first bud of the plant so that plant could establish strong root system and forthcoming flowers will be larger. Give this plant semi shade. In our mild winters, we try to avoid it from mid day sun specially if planted in a pot.

They are suitable to our zone 10b just like narcissus paperwhite and anemone so do plant them and you will have fun when you will see really large and beautiful blooms.

Update after 2.5 months: Here are the flowers.

  

Next Bulb: Forcing Hyacinth bulbs in water

Growing Flowering bulbs in warm climates - Anemone

I love flowering bulbs and fall is the best time to plant spring flowering bulbs in warm climates like lahore. I avoid planting bulbs like tulip, puschkinia, fritillaria, scilla, hyacinth etc as they do not grow well in our short and mild winters. We do however force hyacinth bulbs easily.

This is a series of more than 10 flowering bulbs suitable to warm climates having mild winters and tough summers. These are the ones which i bought this November from lahore and planted them in containers. You might notice most of them are south african or australian natives.

First one of the series is anemone coronaria. Price of each tuber is around 20Rs this year.I do not plant all tubers at same time but in regular intervals so that supply of flowers is continuous in spring. Remember that most of the plants in Ranunculus family do well here. Here it goes.

1- Selecting the bulb:
This is the tuber which is very tiny. Remember as in case of choosing a bulbs/tuber/corm, choose the biggest and fattest one. Large one will produce big flowers. This is a must in our climate and i buy at least half a dozen tubers of various colors. We buy these in Start of November.
















2- Bury in a pot full of sand (yes, sand only). Bury the tubers few inches deep in sand. Do not worry up side or downside planting, it will work both ways. Water it thoroughly and keep it in sand for about a week or so. do not let sand dry out and keep it moist.

This is the same tuber after 10 days, swollen and roots sprouted. you can also see the leaves shoots sprouting. Now you also know which side to plant down and which side up.
















3-Now plant it in prepared soil having some leaf mold and compost. And plant them 2 inches deep in soil. Do not worry if the shoots of leaves are visible above soil surface. Water the soil and keep it in partially shaded area. It needs bright indirect sunshine and morning sun would be best for it. I mulch it with fine grade coco peat so that moisture is retained in the soil. I water once every 10 days and i still think i am impatient :)

4- This is the situation after another 15 days. you can see leaves, stems emerging.
















They should start flowering in next month i guess, waiting anxiously. Give them mild liquid fertilizer when buds form. I will update as soon as this happens. Remember you can save the tubers for next year as well, although i am not sure they will perform equally well as young and fresh corms are generally more vigorous. After the flowers fade in march/april, and green color of leaves start to fade, cut the foliage and dry the tubers in shade. Keep in cool and dry place.

And last but not least, anemones are also propagated by seeds and guess what the flowers are larger as compared to the ones from tubers. But they take lot of time to germinate and come to flowering.

Update: These are the flowers after 2.5 months

Blue anemone is probably the prettiest of all and early bloomer than other colors .

What about this pink one? looking so lovely but way behind the blue one above.

Next Bulb: Ranunculus - Persian buttercup Bloomingdale series

Geranium and har singhar flowers

Although It has been a while the fall plantings are done, still some late summer bloomers are going all the way into november. And that includes sweet almond vebena, moon flower, sad tree, murraya and rain lilies. Okay i admit the first winter/spring bloomer in my garden is geranium. Sadly pelargoniums are not common here although they suit better to our climate. so here they go. And dont forget to visit Lisa's Chaos for other macro picks

Wordless Wednesday - vigna caracalla