Forum home› Plants

Cut and come again bulbs?

bellevallenderbellevallender Posts: 21
in Plants
I have just learnt that anemone coronaria bulbs produce cut and come again flowers - so will be an exciting addition to my cut flower patch!

Are there any other bulbs/corms/tubers like this? 

Posts

  • micearguersmicearguers Posts: 625
    I started growing Alstroemerias last year, and they were fabulous, kept producing flowers. These are very good as cut flowers. Just noticed they came up again. There must be hundreds more species. Is there any reason you are interested in bulbs/corms/tubers; perhaps that they are perennial?
    I assume that most (all?) cut and come again plants like that need to be well fed.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,479
    Dahlias (tubers) would be an obvious one, keep cutting/deadheading and they keep coming. Anything that reflowers regularly,  whether shrubs like roses, perennials like echinaceas, or bulbs like anemones as you have discovered, is suitable for a cutting patch. Acidanthera are good for later flowers for cutting, but not sure if they repeat...

    Is it perhaps lack of space for larger plants that is making you think bulbs? Maybe you have everything else already.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 86,917
    Anemones grow from corms not bulbs.

     No true bulb will cut and come again as the flower spike exists in each bulb. If you cut a bulb vertically through the middle you can see the immature flower spike. 

    It’s why I get irritated when nurseries etc, who should know better, call all corms, tubers and rhizomes, bulbs Grrr 😖 
    How are new gardeners supposed to know what to expect?




    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,479
    You are of course, right @Dovefromabove - I knew they were corms, but even Gardener’s World online calls them bulbs, but I shouldn’t perpetuate the myth just because they do. Some corms repeat flower, others don't, to add to the confusion. Crocosmia corms are ones that are not supposed to repeat, but mine did last year.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 86,917
    edited April 2020
    Yes @Nollie ... all sorts of folk who should know better call them the wrong thing ... they think they’re simplifying then and making gardening ‘less elitist and more accessible’ but it doesn’t work like that in my experience ... it just confuses new gardeners and alienates them, and it’s patronising  ... they wouldn’t dream of using the wrong terms if they were talking to experienced/trained gardeners ... well that’s my experience of talking to new gardeners anyhooo 🙄 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bellevallenderbellevallender Posts: 21
    Thank you all - yes this makes much more sense to me to separate out corms/tubers from true bulbs rather than thinking of them all as one - that was what felt suddenly so confusing! Thanks for the tip re Alstroemerias - I will certainly give these go :)
Sign In or Register to comment.