Now that Oct is here the first frost could come anytime so with 7 whiskey barrels full of bulbs and about 20 mature bulbs planted in the ground I thought I'd better get started!

I had several cybisters that I had planted directly in the ground so I kept as much of the root ball as possible and re-potted them since they are so hard for me to get started. I kept them out of the sun for several days and they've lost some leaves but have kept a few which is a good sign that they have adjusted to their new surroundings.

All of my seedlings that were planted in the ground have been repotted as most of these are 2 years old and I just have to let them continue to grow to blooming size so I can see the flowers and hopefully give some away..I must give some away...I have a few hundred and it was no easy task to do this. I just have to weed these out and in the future I won't plant as many of any single cross as I did in the beginning! And, in the beginning I wasn't as particular about my crosses as I am now..but I've come this far with them and I have to follow through to see if I am lucky enough to end up with anything worthwhile.

I have about 25 large bulbs already dug and drying out on the living room floor with hopes the leaves will turn brown and I can do as Kristi does and cut the neck and store them for a few months.Mine will be out of the pot and hers of course are in the pot.
Most of them are quite huge the largest so far is one of my Ruby Stars measuring 13" in circumference and an Elvas measuring 12 1/2..the rest are about 10 to 11 inches in circumference.

I have loads more to dig but at least I've got a start on this..and of course I have about 75 bulbs that spent the winter in their pots and I wont't have to deal with these, just move them to their spots under the lights in the furnace room. We will be buying a few more grow lights this season...we cleaned out some junk which resulted in two more good sized surfaces that will accommodate at least 40 more pots!!
Here are a few pictures..

These are all my fragrant Ebay # 1 I have given several away and they just keep on multiplying!!

Several bulbs had good sized offsets which I felt I had to just re-pot so they wouldn't dry up..such if the life of a hippie addict...

Donna

And by the way, I was thinking about doing as Bill suggested and re-potting a couple to test his theory but, the leave are just do darned long I fear they will flop all over the place. The bulbs that grew in the barrels for some reason has tremendously long leaves..maybe I'll try it with a few dug from the ground which seem to have normal sized leaves...maybe it was the whiskey?!

And one more thing, I have two good looking seedpods on my Party Animal growing in one of my Maguire barrels.. hope the frost hold off but if not I will carefully lift it back into a pot in hopes I can get some good seeds from this lovely variety...

Luckily mine can stay in ground here, so I don't have all the hard work of digging them up each year. But I thought I'd share this pic:

I had to move this one, because it was getting crowded out by the bush next to it. Check out the size of the bulb! It looks like a crinum it is so big. Didn't really know that they could get so huge! This is a noid. I got it from Southern Bulb Co - it was supposed to be h. johnsonii, but it bloomed pink. They sent me a replacement that was true to type, and I got to keep the lovely bonus bulb. No idea what it is though - they couldn't id it either. It skipped blooming this year, and now I see why. It was busy putting on massive bulb size - it is easily twice as big as it was when I planted it in this spot.

Angela

Xuan