PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY BULBS

[Madiha Humbal]

great advice adnan sahab. ill check the soil from the bottom now. shall i use NPK to feed the bulbs? i dont have DAP available in my area. or shall i use water which has leaf manure soaked in it for a few days. i read somewhere it makes an organic liquid fertilizer

[Syed Adnan]

"Leaf Manure" I believe you are talking about compost tea, this is the best you can give to the plants. DAP and NPK can be used but they are very harsh if overfed, for my bulbs I use compost,sand,spagnum moss mixture in equal ratios with the addition of charcoal, vinegar,beneficial fungus trichorderma and corn meal. I feed liquid fertilizer after 15 days. This is not a common recipe but for conditions I have here it is required. I have successfully grown hycinths , narcissus , glads, ranunculus, anemones and Lilliums.

The bulbs you have can easily grow in Bhal and cow manure. I believe you can start with it , if you have NPK just sprinkle it a few grains once a month and mixed it with surface soil and give a deep watering. Liquid fertilizer is preferred method.

Good luck.

[Madiha Humbal]

for my bulbs I use compost,sand,spagnum moss mixture in equal ratios with the addition of charcoal, vinegar,beneficial fungus trichorderma and corn meal.

Thank you very much Adnan sahab for your advice, but i dont know half of the things that you have mentioned above. So, to keep thing simple, i shall use compost tea for my bulbs. Ido have some more questions also, where your valuable advice will be deeply appreciated.

1. how often should i feed my tuberoses with the compost tea, and any other bulbs that are going towards dormancy?

2. how often should i feed my winter bulbs with the compost tea, during thier growing stage?

3. i plan on planting my winter bulbs, what should be the optimal soil compositon for better flowering and growth? two parts sand and one part leaf manure?
i ask this question, as a few of my bulbs didnt flower last year and i was told that my soil composition was not correct.

4. i want to propogate one of the hyacinths, to achieve more bulbs as the bulbs are expensive. for that i want to try the basal plate method. the bulb i want to practice it on will be flowering for me the second time. my question is when should i make the cuts on it to speed up the propogation? before planting it or after it has flowered and is giong towards dormancy? the bulb is around 2 inch in diameter, how many slits should i make on it?

5. i also need to know the optimal pot size for planting the following bulbs. the pots that i have available are 7inch diameter, 9 inch diameter and 12 inch diameter pots.

The bulbs that i have chilling in the refrigerator are,
3 hyacinths, 2 tulips, and 6 gladioli.

other bulbs are,
1 narcisus ( with two baby bulbs growing on the side)
4 anemone
4 iris

i plant on planting the hyacinths in 7 inch pots (one per pot), it worked for me well, the previous year.

which pot sizes are preferrable for the following plantings. (the smaller the pots the better, due to restriction of space)
1 narcisus
2 anemone together
3 gladioli together
1 tulip per pot
2 iris together.

waiting anxiously for your reply.
JAZAKALLAH

[Syed Adnan]

For bulbs please note that they store energy already to get a bloom next year, it is only a matter of providing them right environment to bloom, if bulbs of last year not healthy they will struggle to bloom even how good an environment is provided to them. 50% of bulbs not bloom because they are not healthy and not ready to produce a bloom.

Hycinths, narcissus, daffodils, tulips are cold loving bulbs, it is very difficult to get a bloom out of them next year, even fridge chilling cannot help much, Karachi is having mild winter, i have doubts they will bloom 2nd time.

"to keep thing simple, i shall use compost tea for my bulbs". A weekly dose is good, if you only have pots liquid fertilizer or compost tea is a good method, how you are getting the compost? if you are expert in making it thats well and good else drop the idea to only keep them on commercial compost and add manure or other fertilizering methods as well.

Tube roses is a different case alltogether, they love the warmth and if you give them manure, sand, bhal mixture and a monthly liq fertilizer in addition , they will blom profusely for you in coming April/May.

for glads i recommend 30% sand, 30% compost and 40% Bhal. Reduce the PH of soil by using vinegar if PH is high for your soil.

I haven't tried dividing the Hycinths, i am treating them as disposables , difficult to get bloom next year in KHI winters.

pot size should depend on bulbs size, narcissus have deep roots need space , bulbs can be clumped together in a pot , i prefer to give them space , for a 12 inch size pot i use max. 3 bulbs of any kind but they still they will bloom if sown more closely.

I don't understand why your Glads are in fridge, its a summer flowering bulb.

Feed the bulbs more in growing stage , once a week and in dormant stage no feeding is required, overfeeding can cause fungus problems.

goodluck !

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Tube rose are heavy feeders of fertilizers, provide abundance of manure, compost or balanced 10-10-10 NPK. this is must to get good blooms next year.

Regarding "The one produce flower will not flower again" ....i think it is a myth. It should flower next season again, but remove the dead flower stalk after bloom.
Adnan dear,
I used to grow them a lot. The bulb that blooms never blooms again. It produces multiple babies that do so the next year. For best results dig up the bulbs separate the babies and plant them separately, with in a few years you will have thousands. When my honey moon with them was over I donated sacks of these bulbs to a friend a commercial flower grower.
Arif

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Madiha Humbal
Your thread is getting interesting.
You as a toddler are trying to hop step and jump.
SEHAJ PAKAY SO MEETHA HO

[Syed Adnan]

@ Brig. Sb.

Thanks for busting the myth !

[Madiha Humbal]

so, when should i dig my tuberoses up, now or in the spring????? and since i have never seen the tubers before, how will i differenciate between the old tubers and the new ones????

[Izhar]

when you dig them out in spring, you will easily be able to distinguish between old and new..

[Madiha Humbal]

ok thankyou izhar sahab. and the news that hyacinths, tulips and narcisus do not flower the second year in karachi has deeply upset me. i wish there was a way to get them to flower again. is it possible, that they do if i refrigerate them till the next planting time as soon as they go dormant????