h ello presley,

I sometimes lift the ranunculus out of the ground but it is a FAIR amount of
work!!!! It takes quite a lot of organizing and
planning of the flower beds too.

OK, I'll tell you how I do it.

First off- try and buy the ranunculus corms? tubers in late Spring/early
Summer- when the shops are having massive discounts on the Winter/Spring
bulbs and tubers.

I try and buy packs where they sell 80 or 100 small ranunculus corms for
US$3. Or US$3 for a more mature pack of 20 -30.

Over here in Melbourne, I plant them in autumn.

I have heard that some people try and stick them in the fridge with the
vegetables (2 to 5C) for a few days to simulate Winter conditions- then when
you plant them - they think its the start of Spring and you get a nice
Winter bloom. (Our Autumns tend to be warm 10- 20C).

We don't have much frost here in Melbourne- not in my area anyhow. Its quite
rare for our Winter to get below zero... except for our mountains and
coastal regions. Surburbs and Melbourne city is usually about 5C but we get
a lot of cold wind which makes it feel like the Antartic.

Fertilizers... best ones to use would be the seaweed spray stuff- or the
black yucky seaweed mix that you can pour into a watering can and water
them. Ranunculus seem to love the stuff.

You should cut the flowers regularly- for display in your homes- apparently
one good corm can produce twenty flowers in on season.

If I can- I lift the ranunculus in Summer when they finish flowering and to
allow the seeds to dry on the stalks.

But owing to the need for tidiness - and good gracious the roses and dahlias
need attention in Summer/late Spring- I cut back the raunculus or pull them
out

Why. If I don't- many of them will get wet in the ground when I water the
dahlias and roses - and rot.

I keep the uprooted combs in a dry place- minus the dried out stalks of
course. Then plant them again + reinforcements from the nursery shop next
Winter.

Cheers!

WW

P.S. This year I'm leaving the ranunculus in the ground cos I'm working
overseas and my mother is now running my - scratch that- her garden and
claims to know more than me and so is running things HER WAY... or rather
THE ONLY WAY.


"presley" wrote in message
...
Wylie, do you lift your ranunculus every year? In my climate (zone 5-6)
they usually die over the winter, unless it's unually mild. I think that
in Coastal California they might be perennial, because they seem to like
moderate temperatures year round, with a fairly long dry spell in summer.
Where I live, I generally have to guess when the best time to plant them
is. Too early and a frost will kill the tender new shoots. Too late and
the hot weather will do them in before they even get a chance to bloom. I
think I have had the best luck planting them between April 15th and May
1st - but I stupidly have never maintained a written record. One year, I
did lift the roots after the tops died down, and some of them had gotten
pretty big compared to what I bought in the mesh bags. However, it was a
fair amount of work to lift them, clean them, dry them and store them.
"Wylie Wilde" wrote in message Hello sockiescat,

You're welcome. I found that ranunculies love well drained soil- so
planting them on a slope makes an excellent idea. I've been growing
ranunculies in my garden ever since 1999. They are a lot of work- but the
effort is well-rewarded. I got the idea after watching a computer game
video clip from Final Fantasy8 where they featured similar flowers. its
my dream to one day cover my entire garden- including the boring grass
strip with ranunculies.