Early blooming bulbocodium.JPG

Someone was asking about the bloom times of bulbocodium a couple of weeks ago. Looking back through digital photos year to year I was seeing the same clumps of bulbocodium in large patches that were blooming a week to two weeks ahead of the rest of the patch. In this case this selection was given to me by Celia Jones from Sisters Bulb Farm in Louisiana which the bulbs actually came from her Grandmothers bulb business dating back to the early 1900’s.
Last year I began moving the earliest blooming clumps out of the big batches to another spot just a few feet away and the early blooming appears to be a variation in the bloom times through variations in seedlings.
We have done this for years with the n. Jonquilla strains that we grow segregating them by bloom times. But we have never bothered with the bulbocodium. This shows only one clump out of about 400 that is in full bloom while most of the other clumps are just having their buds clear the soil. This strain from Cecelia is a multiplying fool. The bulbs NEVER really get big enough to sell but they really bloom from English Pea sized bulbs. They go from one bulb to 200 in just a couple of years. Notice the gently fluted edges of the trumpets.
We have now had 938 hours of winter chilling below 45*F or 7*C. This is from October 2008 >February of last week. Most areas of the USA will have a government tracking location where you can compare chilling hours for your region back a dozen years or so. Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas

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