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Heirloom Camassia
If you are looking for heirloom flower bulbs, you’ll be thrilled to find out that there are several varieties of Camassia that date back to as long ago as the 1800s!
3040 C. cusickii (1888)
3042 C. cusickii Zwanenburg (1969)
3045 C. leichtlinii Alba (1853)
Horticultural Zone Hardiness
Camassia are generally hardy in zones 4 through 8. If your garden is in a horticultural zone that is either too cold or only marginally appropriate, you may want to apply no more than a 2" layer of mulch after the ground surface freezes in the fall. The mulch should trap the cool temperatures into the soil, not warmth. Mulch helps to protect the bulbs from arctic temperature spikes. Good mulching mediums include straw, salt marsh hay or oak leaves. In the spring, you can loosen the mulch in the area in which the bulbs will be sprouting.
Bulb Inspection
Check your shipment against the packing slip and make sure that everything is as it should be. Occasionally, bags of smaller bulbs may be placed in the inner boxes of other bulbs to reduce jostling during shipment. If you can’t find something, open all of the inner boxes. If there is a discrepancy, please call us immediately so that we may resolve it with you. Since every bag or box of bulbs in your order has been scanned using its UPC barcode, we can usually tell you in which box each variety is located.
Inspect your bulbs carefully. We make every effort to ship you only healthy, firm, top quality bulbs. It is natural for some types of bulbs to develop a transportation mold when they are exposed to oxygen. It is a natural gray-blue-green mold that occurs when they are exposed to air, and that disappears as soon as the bulbs are planted. The soil naturally wicks it away. If you prefer, you may spread the bulbs out in the sun, or brush it off with a paper towel, although it is not necessary.
Little cuts, scars, discolored exteriors and dimples are normal marks from the flower bulb harvesting, cleaning and sizing processes in the Netherlands. Some bulbs may have a fully intact, papery skin while others have partial skins, and others may be skinless. The existence or condition of the skin has nothing to do with the performance of the bulb. The most important factor is the way that the bulb feels. As long as the bulb is firm, it is a good and viable bulb. Some bulbs may already have tiny baby bulbs developing on the basal plate (root base) of the bulb while others may even have a little top shoot. Some bulbs are prettier than others, but you can rest assured that all of the flowers will be gorgeous!
Bulb Size
Camassia bulbs are generally at least 14 cm wide. If you find that one bag contains larger and smaller bulbs, it is a glass half full or half empty issue. Each of the bulbs is, at a minimum, the top size specified for that variety. They are sized on conveyor belts in the Netherlands that have holes the centimeter size just below the top size measurement. Smaller bulbs fall through these holes and are not included in our stock. All of the larger bulbs are included in our stock, and, as a result, there can be size variation. But it is definitely a glass half full! (If any variety in any season produces a smaller top size bulb than expected, we note it on our website. If a price change occurs as a result, we post the new price and make an adjustment on every order.)
Bulb Storage Before Planting
After you’ve received your order and inspected it, keep the exterior carton and the inner boxes open to give the bulbs some air. All bulbs love good air circulation. Store them in a cool, dry place with low humidity, away from heat, frost and strong sunlight at about 50°F to 70°F. Never put flower bulbs in the freezer! Poor storage conditions could cause bulbs to dry out, or to become moldy.
Select and Prepare the Planting Site
You’ll need about four bulbs per square foot. Square footage is determined multiplying the planting site’s length by its width.
A valuable Pacific Northwest U.S. native that’s been cultivated commercially in the Netherlands for a long time, Camassia is best grown in moist, fertile soil in full sun to partial sunlight. Unlike most bulbs, Camassia prefers soil that has a bit more moisture. This stands to reason since it enjoyed soil with good moisture retention in the plains, slopes and foothills west of the Cascade Mountains. If Camassia is planted near a stream or pond, make sure to plant it above the high water mark. Even though Camassia likes soil with a bit of moisture, it can not be submerged in water.
Please do not ever add horse manure, chicken droppings, mushroom compost or other hot manure or compost to your flower bulb beds. If you would like to add compost you’ve made yourself, please make sure that it has a neutral pH and is completely decomposed and healthy. Partially decomposed compost can spread fungal disease, such as botrytis blight and nasty pests. What is good for vegetables is not necessarily good for flower bulbs.
Camassia requires full to partial sunlight.
Easy to Plant
Camassia bulbs are so easy to plant and are low maintenance. We'll ship you the bulbs in time for planting in your garden in the fall, once the ground has chilled down to about 55°F, after about two weeks of sweater weather when night time temperatures have hovered in the 40s. This is the best time to plant Camassia bulbs. Flower bulbs do everything in response to temperature and sunlight.
Plant Camassia bulbs 5" deep and 5" apart. Please do not put anything in the bottom of hole that you’ve dug for the bulbs. Nestle the bulb into the hole, fill in the hole with soil to the level of the bed, and tamp down the soil lightly, making sure that individual holes are no longer apparent and that the garden bed surface is level. This will help to prevent water from filling up any of the individual planting holes excessively. All flower bulbs hate to get wet feet.
Fertilizing
Never put anything, including fertilizer, in the bottom of each bulb planting hole. Plant the bulbs to the proper depth and spacing, tamp down the soil and broadcast a 5-10-5 or 4-10-6 granular organic fertilizer over the surface of the bed as if you were feeding the birds.
While all flower bulbs are nature’s perfect little packages and will bloom beautifully the first year, we recommend broadcasting fertilizer three times a year for all perennial and naturalizing flower bulbs. First at the time of fall planting to help grow the roots, second when the sprouts emerge in the spring to help nourish the foliage and flower, and finally when the flowers start to die back, to help feed the bulb itself. (Bone meal is incomplete nutritionally and can attract animals to some varieties of bulbs.)
Do Not Plant Camassia in Exterior Containers or Raised Beds
Flower bulbs should never be planted in outdoor containers, window boxes or raised beds where bulbs experience temperature spiking and repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. This results in root growth failure, root system destruction, frozen bulbs and/or bulb rot from poor water drainage. Flower bulbs must have a consistent cold winter temperature with good water drainage in order to produce a mature root system that will permit foliage growth and flower production in the spring.
Bloom Times, Size and Color
The bloom time listed for each variety is for horticultural zone 5 in normal spring conditions. The warmer the horticultural zone, the earlier flower bulbs will bloom. The colder the horticultural zone, the later flower bulbs will bloom in the spring.
Flower bulbs do everything in response to temperature, sunlight and site conditions. Bloom times, heights and colors are approximations affected by temperature and site conditions regardless of the calendar date. If it is a warm spring, bulbs will bloom earlier. If it is a cold spring, bulbs will bloom later. If it is a long cool spring, followed by rapid warming, you may find odd bedfellows: earlier blooming Galanthus flowering right along side later blooming Crocus, Species Tulips and Narcissi. Each spring can offer a different sort of garden surprise party.
In the event of a mild winter or a warmer-than-usual spring, flower bulbs that have emergent stalks with set buds may bloom early, small and short, although they will likely grow taller and larger as temperatures moderate. Temperature spikes can also affect mature root development, the actual form of the flower or the process of flower color maturation.
Spring Care
The most important thing to remember in the Spring is to enjoy your garden! Create big and little reasons to be outside, hold an annual Spring flower party, take notes on what you love and how all of your bulbs are doing, and take photos of where you need to plant more. Don’t forget that Camassia make good cut flowers too!
Once Camassia bloom and start to die back, make sure to keep the foliage going until it dies back naturally. A maximum period of photosynthesis allows the bulbs to regenerate for the future. When Camssia is happy where it's planted, it can naturalize by bulb offsets (baby bulbs on the sides of the mother bulb you’ve planted).
Blooming in May/June in a horticultural zone 5, deer- and rodent-resistant Camassia grow from 24" to 30" tall, depending on the variety, with substantive clumps of linear, strappy foliage. After the flowers die back, the foliage continues to grow, which is a good thing: a prolonged period of photosynthesis helps bulbs grow and multiply with little baby offshoots for even more flowering spikes in future years. Once the foliage dies back, it may be raked and discarded.
