I have purchased some Dutch Iris bulb and was wondering whether I could grow pieces/parts of bulb rather than entire/full bulbs? What I mean is: can I cut the bulb in half (horizontally/vertically), in quarters and still hope a flower could grow out of that bulb?

I would love to get some pointers/literature reference on bulb structure and what parts of the bulb are essential for the growing of a plant.

Thanks in advance!

AF

was wondering whether I could grow pieces/parts of bulb rather than entire/full bulbs?
Yes you can.

What I mean is: can I cut the bulb in half (horizontally/vertically), in quarters and still hope a flower could grow out of that bulb?
You would need to cut it vertically and be careful that each newly cut piece would have a portion of the basal plate.

The basal plate is the small root area on the bottom of the bulb.

For several years now I've been wanting to try my hand at propagating daffodils by division of the basal sections of the parent bulb, but just haven't gotten to it. Maybe 2012 will be the year for me to try.

The link below tells about the various propagation methods, along with good pics. I'm not all that familiar with dutch iris bulbs, other than I know they have basal plates just like daffodils, so they should be able to be propagated the same way. Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Good luck and if you try it, please try and report back to us on how it goes.

chemocurl...aka Sue

Most spring bulbs have a flower ready to go inside the bulb. Cutting the bulb as described will most likely destroy the flower bud.