![\"oxblood](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/RhodophialaBifidaBulbs2.jpg\")
Clump 2002e-13 was in serious need of dividing. From 13 bulbs to 128 bulbs in five years: almost a 10-fold increase.<\/i><\/p>\n
I don’t really think of myself as a gardener, not in the sense of designing with plants or creating beautiful garden spaces. I just like to putter around outside, especially if it means digging in the dirt. I’m turned on by turning compost. I like growing plants from seeds and collecting seeds from plants. Most of all I like harvesting crops from the earth, like potatoes, or flower bulbs. My most extensive collection of bulbs is my oxblood lily, Rhodophiala bifida<\/i>, collection. Someone called it my signature flower. I like that.<\/p>\n
In 1995, I dug up 64 bulbs in my front lawn, 28 of which were flowering size and the rest which were very small and took several years to flower. Today, as near as I can make out, I have over 1400 bulbs in about 64 different clumps. The growth is, well, exponential. And that was great when I had only 100, then 200, then 400. But this year I’ve reached the breaking point. Not only do I not have enough room in the garden to plant them, I don’t have the time to dig the holes, to divide them, count them, catalog them, and find people to take them. (Calling Austin bloggers. Also, Steve and Bill. Will they grow up in North Texas?)<\/p>\n
Clump 2002e-13 was in serious need of dividing. From 13 bulbs to 128 bulbs in five years: almost a 10-fold increase.<\/i><\/p>\n
I read somewhere that oxblood lilies don’t need dividing. Although it is true they will continue to live for years with complete neglect, the bulbs will get smaller and smaller crowding each other out and eventually the flowers will decrease. That’s one reason I take counts and keep records– to track when I planted each clump and how big the bulbs were and how many flowers each produced and the habits of the plants (multi-stems, seeds, more offsets than flowers). This year I lost track. I don’t like not knowing. It makes me feel uneasy and not in control. I even had four clumps left over from last year I never got replanted. That’s bad management! This year I’m going to have to be brutal. In the past, I saved every sliver of a bulb and put it in the nursery where it might take four or five years to reach flowering size. Today, into the compost pile. (Oh! that hurt!) I must focus my attention only on the clumps that need dividing most desperately.<\/p>\n
Where to begin? Instead of anticipating my inventory and looking forward to dividing my bulbs and multiplying my holdings, I just stare at the faded flower stalks with a heavy heart. The task at hand seems overwhelming. I attribute my garden grumpiness to the weather. We’ve gone from an unusually cool and rainy summer to an unusually hot and dry fall. Temperatures are still in the 90s and we haven’t had a good rain for three weeks. It’s hot out there and I’m not having any fun tackling fall gardening tasks. I admit that I was completely spoiled by our great summer. But this is October and I get cranky when the grass dries up in the heat and none of the self-sowers have sprouted and the pecans are filled with webworms and the caterpillars are attacking the roses and I haven’t finished turning the compost pile or weeding the meadow. I don’t have time to deal with any of it because I have all these bulbs to divide. Yep, I’m cranky and tired of the heat and wanting a little breath of crisp northern air to liven me and the garden up.<\/p>\n
Does this mean I threw in the trowel? Indeed it does not. We gardeners are made of sterner stuff. We press on. Bad moods pass and when the weather turns so will my mood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![\"oxblood](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/photos\/320\/RhodophialaBifidaBulbs1.jpg\")
Inventorying the oxblood lilies and digging up bulbs to replant is usually one of my favorite garden tasks. So why is this year different?<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[406],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5516,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2297\/revisions\/5516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}