Ornithogalum Revealed!

Now Harvesting Bird’s Milk!  What? What kind of bird has milk?  Is it like milking a cow?  Do their wings get in the way? 

 

Don’t worry, Sun Valley hasn’t gone into the bird milking business.  Birds Milk is actually the root of Ornithogalum’s botanical name.  Ornith pertaining to birds; galum pertaining to milk.  It is a tall spiked flower, with star-like florets grouped on a leafless stem.

Florets Galore!

The season for this durable and versatile flower is really heating up at our Oxnard farm.  The crop is predominantly the white variety; however, we are also harvesting orange and yellow.  Different varieties are native to South Africa, Southern Europe and the Middle East.  There are many references to Ornithogalum woven through history.  The ancient Greeks boiled, then ate the bulb and also prepared the young shoots as a substitute for asparagus.  It has been a staple of peasants in the Middle East for centuries, right up to current day. 

 

The idea of “Bird’s Milk” has come to symbolize something very rare.  The origin of the name has been attributed to old Slavic folk tales, where a beautiful princess tests the ardor and resourcefulness of her suitor by sending him out into the wilderness to find and bring back the one fantastical luxury she does not have: bird's milk.  Bird’s Milk even has it's own Facebook page which has over 6,000 fans, due to the term also being appropriated by a Polish candy maker.  Who knew?

Lucky for you, we have plenty of Ornthogalum coming in, so no need to tramp around in the wilderness, just call your sales rep.

Many of you know this beautiful flower as “Star of Bethlehem.”  However, our varieties are a bird of a different feather; our sales rep JW Brown described our Ornithogalum as “Star of Bethlehem on steroids.”  A traditional Star of Bethlehem's unopened bud is about the size of your pinky finger, our ornithogalum buds are as big and long as an Oriental lily bud, reaching 6 inches long with serious girth.  Once the florets start to open, the show begins.  Our white variety features wonderful straight and thick stems, with a long series of  blooms. Our orange variety, named Ornithogalum Dubium is known for it's wild nature and it's strong personality.  The orange is also known as the Star of Africa.

Dubium Ornithogalum

All the varieties of Ornithogalum share a common trait.  Unlike most flowers, they do not need a lot of water in the vase.  Coming from arid regions, they are used to dealing with dry weather.  That said; it is still wise to keep your Ornithogalum in water.  Ornithogalum is also known for an exceptionally long vase life.  The florets open up progressively, and this process can take up to three weeks.

I called down to Gerrit VanderKooy, our lead grower in Oxnard.  I got him on is cell phone, as he was out in the iris fields overseeing a great harvest (Psst! It’s iris time!).  He was kind enough to explain a few key points in growing Ornithogalum. He explained that water and nutrients are important, but the two factors that really make the difference are light and temperature.  These plants want it warm with lots of light, making this crop really blossom as we move into the longer days of spring. This plant is native to hot, dry climates so we do our best to mimic these conditions.

10 stem bunches

After cutting the flower the work doesn’t stop, since these bulbs will have multiple year-long crop cycles.  He makes sure that the energy keeps going into the bulb, by maintaining optimum growing conditions, even without flowers to harvest until next year.   In the fall and winter, we will do our best to mimic a winter desert climate, which is light and cold...this is where things get tricky!

Gerrit is very proud of the crop we have this year, it is the best in Sun Valley’s long history.   This crop will be coming in strong through May, so better get, while the gettin’ is good!