The Bulb Maven

The Morning Walkabout

Our local county fair has ended, marking for me the winding down of summer.  Some Amaryllids are blooming, although most will come later as the days shorten and the nights cool.  This morning there was a sharpness in the air with mist hugging the ground which cleared as the sun arose.

Shipping continues at a brisk pace and caring for the bulbs has to be squeezed in whenever I can.  the bulbs should come first, of course, but customers needs are important also, and I sometimes get plaintive e-mails asking when the bulbs will arrive.  I will be leaving for my annual trip to Oregon in a week for a few days of hiking in the mountains and a two day agility trial with my dogs.  I will be taking Arlo for his first camping trip, but will leave him with friends while I take longer hikes with my two terriers.  This, of course, puts more pressure on me to clear as many orders as possible before I leave, including several large international orders.  Here is Arlo, worn out from helping in the greenhouses.

Cyrtanthus sanguineus is now in bloom in the greenhouse.  I grew these from seed, and was rather unexcited about them until they bloomed, since the flowers are orange, a rather common color in the bulb world, and I had not seen them in the flesh.  Well, they are outstanding, an almost glowing creamy orange, with very large flared trumpets.  Really beautiful.  Also blooming is Veltheimia deasii, sometimes thought to be a subspecies of V. capensis.  It is very similar, but more compact and with leaves that are much more crisped along the margins.  Very nice.

I often work until evening these days, my pets usually wanting to be near at hand.  I have to keep an eye on the puppy, who has energetically dug up entire flats of seedling bulbs, but the cats tend to curl up and nap in the warm temperatures.  The evenings are beautiful, all golden with the setting sun, the sea fog lifting this time of year.  Here is a picture from my office.

www.telosrarebulbs.com

A New Year Dawns

This morning it actually stopped raining, our first non-rainy morning in many, many days.  The dawn sky was beautiful, with a sliver of moon floating in an almost clear sky.  The property is still flooded with pools of water everywhere, but the greenhouses are dry and the bulbs are flourishing.

The year was a good one here at Telos, with many exciting bulb events, like the first flowering of Paramongaia weberbauerii.  I have been growing rare and unusual bulbs from seed for almost twenty years now.  Learning about the bulbs and how to grow them (and where to get the seed) has been an exciting adventure, made much easier these days by the Internet.  At first it was an uphill stuggle (but then, I used to be a rock climber!), and a lot of trial and error - LOTS of error, and much wasted seed - but these days you can Google just about anything and come up with useful information.  I am happy, for although I have most of the information under my belt now, my customers may not, and the more information that is available about these wonderful treasures, the better it is for all concerned.

In looking back at the year that has passed, I feel very blessed to have the life I do.  I have work that I love, work that is constantly exciting and challenging, work that results in beauty, and in pleasure for other people also.  I am past the age of 'retirement', but hope I will never retire from growing bulbs.

The new additions to Telos have grown.  Take a look at Mamie (the grey and white one) and Lucy (the black and white one).  They have learned their jobs well, and I have had NO LOSSES TO MICE!!!!   I have to say that again - NO losses to mice.  Each year I have lost valuable bulbs, some that I have not been able to replace, to the depredations of mice.  Now, with no effort on my part, they are at bay.  The dogs have accepted the cats and even seem to like them, but terriers are not to be trusted with cats, so I never leave them alone together, but when I am working with the bulbs they are mostly unsupervised and do very well. 

The dogs won so many ribbons last year I have stopped counting, and Hannah is very close to getting her championship.  Along the way we have made many great friends, and even when we don't win we always have a wonderful time.  In September we took a trip to Oregon, first to an agility trial near Salem, then the following week to another in Bend, spending the five days in between hiking in the Deschutes National Forest.  It was absolute heaven being in the mountains for five whole days hiking the trails surrounded by spectacular scenery.  Those strange collars are GPS collars (not shock collars), since the little devils love to take off after squirrels, and I don't want to lose them.  Now I always know where they are, even if I lose sight of them.

Oxalis season is well under way, the earlier Oxalis starting to bloom in October, so here is a picture of one, O. pulchella, to end the year, with many more to come.

Happy New Year, and happy bulb growing in 2011.   

www.telosrarebulbs.com

The Morning Walkabout

Summer has finally arrived, the morning mists clearing to sunny days.  As the sun arises, bands of mist lie like veils over the fields, disappearing to leave the grasses sparkling with beads of moisture.  It is the best time of day, the world awakening with roosters crowing and birds singing.  My work day has not yet commenced, and my head is free of the lists of tasks to be achieved as I wander around the garden.

I had written before that I had installed a small herb garden and put a fountain base as a focal point.  It now has its own little ecosystem with plants and fish, and this tiny pool has given me a lot of pleasure.  I planted a waterlily, intending it as shade for the fish, and it obligingly sent up two fat buds, one of which opened a few days ago.  There are even tadpoles, which probably came with the plants, now growing bumps on their sides where their legs will develop.

There is little in bloom in the greenhouses this time of year, but about a year ago I acquired Ipomoea bolusiana from Dylan Hannon.  It comes from the Transvaal of South Africa and grows from a tuberous rootstock, part of which is exposed, so I think I should describe it as a caudex.  I am very fond of morning glory-type flowers, so I was thrilled when it opened its first bud yesterday, and now am stricken with a desire to acquire more such plants. I know very little about this genus, but that is the joy of growing plants, there is so much to explore that you never run out of new adventures.

I have a few Hippeastrum in bloom.  Here, to the right, is a beautiful cross between H. papilio and H. cybister.  I am not myself prone to make crosses, and the seed came from a friend, but I certainly appreciate the results.   To the left is a species, H. mandoni, a very large Hippeastrum that can grow to three feet with stunning flowers.  In mild climates this can be grown in the garden.  One day I will post on Hippeastrum, but my collection is somewhat limited, and the genus itself somewhat overwhelming, plus I am still waiting to get blooms on some of the rarer species.

The kittens are growing at an incredible rate.  They no longer both fit in my lap, so there is a good deal of competition as to who gets the prime spot, but since they only stop moving for about a half minute at a time, this is not yet a serious problem.  Fortunately, I have great patience with animals, so when they dash across the keyboard, or toss all my carefully organized papers all over the floor, I mostly laugh and put things back.  They have reorganized some of my computer files, by hitting some of those strange keys I never use that have 'F' in front of them, and that took a bit of sorting out!  I want them to be good mousers, so I found an electronic mouse that squeaks when you tap it (it sounds very life-like, or maybe throes-of-death-like), and I feed them raw beef occasionally to get them to like the taste of raw meat. Without a mom to teach them these skills I am doing my best to substitute.  Willie, my male terrier, desperately wants the mouse, and on occasion has got one and thoroughly killed it, so we are now on our eighth mouse.  I am totally amazed when people say (usually pursing their lips while they say it) that they don't like cats.  What is there to dislike?  They are beautiful, endlessly entertaining and extremely affectionate.  And .... they get rid of your mice, and when you have greenhouses full of bulbs, that is a very important consideration, so here at Telos they even earn their keep.

My day ended yesterday with a pleasant half mile walk to my neighbors' house for a barbecue.  These are the wonderful neighbors, Wayne and Rashell, who leave meals in my mailbox, among other kindly things they do for me.  A great evening with good friends, walking back at sunset with a great ball of fire sinking below the horizon.

Today I will work on international orders, and continue with the unpotting of the California native bulbs.  It is a busy time of year, with long work days, and our local agility trial is next weekend, so I don't have a second to spare.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

www.telosrarebulbs.com  
  

The Morning Walkabout

Although the solstice has passed, and officially it is now summer, I would hesitate to describe it as such here in the northernmost part of California.  We have had almost no spring, with rain until early June and much cold windy weather when it wasn't raining (in this 'Mediterranean' climate it usually stops raining in April).

This has confused my bulbs, and, even more so, confused the wildflowers, with many species being at least six weeks behind in blooming.  The extra rain is needed after at least three years of reduced rainfall, but the grey weather, after a long cold winter, has made me feel cheated and worried that we will go right into winter feeling as though summer never happened.

Returning home from a dog trial in Oregon this week, I found Lycoris chinensis in full bloom, about four months ahead of schedule.  Well, I am not complaining!  It is hard enough to get Lycoris to bloom in containers, and this lovely bloom was very welcome.  I am growing some of my Lycoris in very large containers, in the hope of encouraging them to bloom.  I am not sure why they don't bloom in pots, there are so many variables; root room, soil temperature, soil mosture, microorganisms, etc.  Growing anything in a container is subjecting a plant to a very abnormal environment, with extreme swings in moisture, nutrient availability and temperature.  I am surprised they tolerate it at all.

There are new additions to the nursery.  A month ago I made my regular visit to an Indian reservation where I have friends.  A stray cat had shown up and had a litter under the house of one of my friends.  The kittens were about two months old, and my friend said she didn't want to take them to the animal shelter since they would surely be killed.  My adult cats died over a year ago, and I certainly need cats here to keep the mice in check, but my dogs are cat killers, so I had hesitated to take the step.   Well, here they are, two little girls I named Mamie and Lucy after Indian friends.  Mamie is the grey and white one, Lucy the black and white one. 

I had a friend many years ago who told me that every time she got depressed she got a new kitten, being a sure cure for the blues (she had five cats).  Well, it's lot better than taking pills, and I can vouch for their mood elevating properties, since they never stop playing, and curl in my lap purring and gazing at me with adoration (at least, that is how I choose to interpret it).    I haven't had a kitten for about thirty years, since my previous cats lived to very ripe old ages and the two that died a year ago came to me as adults (from another reservation).  So now we are in the very slow process of introducing the dogs to the cats, under close supervision.  It is going well, but the danger will be when they are loose outside and the cats run, triggering my dogs' rat hunting instincts.  At that point they are just prey as far as my dogs are concerned, so we are putting up hog wire fencing that will allow the cats through but will prevent the dogs from following.

Bulb harvesting is in full swing.  Most of the South African bulbs have been lifted, but the native bulbs are still ripening seed, with a few still in bloom.  The late blooming Calochortus are the last to be harvested, as are the Brodiaeas.  Here are the lovely Calochortus gunnisoni (left) and Calochortus macrocarpus (right) still in full bloom.

www.telosrarebulbs.com  

Titus

We had two wonderful weeks together before Titus started declining, and they were a precious gift. He is buried next to One-Eyed-Jack, for they were always together in life, and it is fitting they should be near each other in death.  I truly feel he died of a broken heart, the stress of losing his partner triggering the virus that had probably lain dormant in his system for years.

They were my office cats, and were always with me here as I worked on the computer.  I miss them terribly. 

Frost

I have neglected the usual courtesies of wishing readers a happy Holiday Season since the year ended with such difficulties crowded into December the season seemed irrelevant.  But now, things are looking up a little, and I offer wishes of hope and happiness for the New Year.

This morning everything was coated with frost, and I crept around the garden trying to take artistic pictures, and pretty much failing.  All I have ever learned to do with my little digital camera is point it at a flower and shoot, since photography has never really interested me.  For me, fiddling with a gadget and trying to think about settings, exposure, light, etc., detracts from my appreciation of the scene.  I have friends who are very expert, and I am sure would say the opposite, but I have little patience with or interest in technological things.  I have an excellent almost photographic memory for the natural world (not so other things), and can remember in detail the sparkle of frost on leaves and stems, and don't really need a digital image to prompt my memory.  Like the New Year, dawn always makes me feel optimistic and hopeful, and the dawn was a pretty one with the slanting rays making the world sparkle like diamonds. 

After I had One-Eyed-Jack put down, my other healthy cat, Titus, stopped eating.  At first it seemed his problems related to a broken off tooth, but as he got sicker and sicker, and with visits to two different vets, it turned out he has something called feline infectious peritonitis, which is fatal.  For two weeks I fed him with a syringe every hour or two, giving him medicine and subcutaneous fluids.  Now he has improved on steroids, although the vet tells me not to be optimistic, that he will start to decline again and will die. I can't help hoping, though, and right now he seems almost normal.  While I have a rather easy going temperament, I turn into a mother bear when my pets are sick, so I am rather hard on vets and have gone through most in my immediate area, but I have found a clinic about 20 miles away that I am satisfied with, although I wonder when I make an appointment if the vets don't draw straws to see who gets me ("oh, no, not HER - I had her last time", etc.)  Here he is in better days.

Christmas, for me then, was a rather sad affair, losing one cat, then close to losing another, and with friends who are suffering much worse things than I am.  I spent a lot of time trying to find things to do that I could manage with a cat in my lap, like reorganizing my oxalis files or watching movies in the evening.  By now Titus has seen two different full length versions of Pride and Prejudice.  He liked the BBC one best, since it last about five or six hours.  At this point I am resigned to losing him in the not too distant future, and I try to treasure each day I have with him.  Over Christmas he suffered terribly (and so did I), and I would have had him put down then if I could have, but there weren't any clinics open.  But then, the steroids worked their magic, and now he feels happy and well and is eating prodigiously.  I won't let him get really bad like he was over Christmas.  The vet gave him about a week, but that was ten days ago, so I am hopeful I will have a few weeks with him.

I have hope for my friends, too, and I am not at all resigned to losing them.  Things are looking up for them, with one or two on the road to recovery, while others are still struggling.  Their courage and dignity is a lesson to me.

So, let us have a hopeful New Year, for happiness is an elusive thing, but hope makes everything possible.

www.telsorarebulbs.com

Goodbye, Jack

I had dreaded so much the day when I would take One Eyed Jack into the vet for the last time, but it is a gentle death, much better than most of us will ever have, and he lay in my arms purring before he lost consciousness.  Without intervention, he would have died in a very horrible way, the cancer eating up his nose.  The vet had records on him that predated the time he came into my life, when I brought him home from an Indian reservation, all bloated with parasites, most of his fur missing, scabby skin, and missing one eye.  He was 19 years old.  I said back then that he was the ugliest cat I had ever seen.  His tail took two right angles, and he had already lost an eye to cancer.  A few months later he looked like a different cat, and his crooked tail and one eye gave him character.    

I had him for six years, and now there is a space in my life bigger than I could have imagined.  I buried him in my front garden in a place he liked to hang out.  I have put a big planter over his grave, and I will fill it with spring blooming bulbs, for spring is the time of resurrection, and I am sure another cat will have found me by then.

Goodbye, Jack.