Crocus crossing

[Guff]

Hello everyone

I was wondering if Specie Crocus "Snow Crocus" and Crocus Vernus "Giant Crocus" cross to each other?

I did try crossing these last spring, not sure if my "hand pollinated" attempt worked, but I did get seeds. I did find that the Giant Crocus did better making seed pods. I only collect a handful of pods from the snow crocus.

I have around 700 crocus around the yard in different spots. Just your normal everyday type from mail order catalogs. Next fall I will be purchasing 1500-2k snow crocus, 100-150 each of each form I can find for a good price. These will be planted in a sand/compost bed for bulb and seed production. I figure in 3 years I should have enough to start the smallest of my three grass banks, and work from there. Growing from seed takes 3-4 years to flower from what I have read, so I would like to get a good start this spring and next.

Is there a link I could be pointed to, that tells what can be crossed with what forms? Or maybe that tells which are sterile pollen/pod and which are not. I don't want to get caught up trying to cross things that won't work.



Thanks.

[mark smyth]

Guff, Thomas and/or Tony will have views on this. They'll get the email query and will reply in time. Welcome to the forums

[Thomas Huber]

Hello Guff and welcome to the SRGC Forum!

No, you can NOT cross Snow Crocus (C. chrysanthus/biflorus) and Giant Crocus (C. vernus)!! The seeds you have are surely Crocus vernus, but they may be hybrids of different vernus variants.

You only can cross different chrysanthus and biflorus cultivars like Ard Schenk, Goldilocks, Blue Pearl... Some of these variants have defective anthers (Aubade, Cream  Beauty, Dorothy, Elegance, Fuscotinctus, Ladykiller, Moonlight, Prins Claus, Romance,  Snowbunting, Skyline, White Triumphator) which means, they can not be pollinated with their own pollen but with healthy pollen from other variants. I have a good seed set on the following: Ard Schenk, Cream Beauty, Princess Beatrix, Skyline, Zenith, EP Bowles, Herald, Jeannine and all vernus cultivars, and in my impure crocus lawn lots of beautiful Hybrids appeared in the last years.

You could cross C. tommasinianus and C. vernus, but this is not easy, as the tommies are very early in the year and C. vernus are always the last crocus that get into flower!

In trade you can also buy some C. sieberi cultivars, which also can be crossed - exept Hubert Edelsten, which is sterile.

If you want to avoid selfpollinating of the plants you have to cut the anthers!

Hope this helps!

[Ian Y]

Welcome to the forum Guff,
As you can see from the comprehensive repy above from Thomas we have experts in all fields.
Can I ask that complete your signature strip so we can know your real name and where you are in the world. We try to keep the forum friendly and personal and if you will add that information to your profile we will all be better off, a picture is nice as well.
Keep posting and enjoying the site.

[Maggi Young]

Hello, "Guff", glad to have you with us!  Thomas, who has replied to you, and Tony Goode are our main Crocus experts, and leaders of the  "Croconuts" here. Tony has a great site which you may access from the links pagge or from the globe icon on any of his posts. Might I also suggest you take a look at the many crocus pages on the old SRGC froum, now archived,(Main pgae here:  http://www.srgc.org.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi ) which will show you just how fantastic these plants can look when grown naturally in the garden... it will surely inspire you to be patient for your seed programme to come to flower!! Another of our Forumists, Franz Hadacek, has a stunning meadow with all sorts of bulbs naturalised and looking truly spectacular... his photos are a joy to see. Have fun with your  project, we look forward to seeing how it comes along.

[hadacekf]

Welcome to the forum Guff,
It is a good idea to grow crocuses grown in a grass bank. Many crocuses will there grow happily, if the grass does not become too close and high. They look most natural in this setting. In any case the bulbs should be carefully labelled, and similar ones not put next to each other, so that you know what is what. In the grass one loses easily the overview where the species stand.

[Guff]

Thanks for the welcome.

Hello Mark, Thomas, Ian, Maggi, Hadacekf

This is my second try posting, my first attempt said I timed out and did not save what I had wrote. I hope I can remember everything again.

I'm pretty new to crocus, I have had some here and there in spots. Added another 200 Giant Crocus this past fall. Most of my time has been spent trying to get a sea of cyclamen growing. Now that I have had some success, I hope " first winter" seedling have been planted out, it's time to move on to a sea of crocus. Thomas, I have seen your pictures on your sea of crocus lawn, beautiful. I'm not sure if I like them more mixed or grouped like yours are. Maybe I will try both ways.

I have 3 large grass banks, that I would like to fill with crocus. The smallest is about 20 foot x 15 foot slope bank, the other two are much larger 60+ x15 foot slope. I plan to start with the smallest and work my way to the next, and so on. I'm not really sure how many crocus I will need, but I have a feeling the number is big. I also have daffodils and snowdrops growing from seed, so I may or may not add these in time.

Thomas, very interesting information, that is going to help me a great deal. Now that I know what will work and what won't, I should have many more seeds this spring and next, thank you.

So I can cross Tricolor and Firefly both sieberi and c. Tommasinianus to any Giant Crocus  "c. Vernus", or just certain forms?

Very interesting about the "antlers" that does explain why I had so few seed pods grow on the snow crocus. When I purchase my snow crocus next fall, they will be planted in groups. It will then make it easier for me to dap pollen from form to form.

Can crocus pollen be frozen for later use and put into the freezer? I do this with daylily pollen, and it works out well. I store the pollen in Microcentrifuge Tubes.

When I plant my snow crocus next fall, would you suggest I plant them 3 or 5 inches apart? Digging and replanting isn't a problem, I figure that every 2 years I would do this and make another bed. I do know some forms multiply very fast. This fall, I could see one crocus that came to the surface, it turned into 6.

Maggie, thanks for the link. I have looked over all the crocus thread there. Lots of information and great pictures. Yes I have also looked at Tony Goode site as well. Lots of information there. I also have ran across Hadacekf site.

Hadacekf, very nice web site. I ran across your site about one year ago, maybe two, I forget. I was looking for information about cyclamen.

[mark smyth]

If I were you I would buy species Crocus to plant on your banks. If you look at the Crocus per month on the old site and buy what you like you could have 6 months of Crocus in flower http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/5012/5012.html?1163445358

[Guff]

Mark, 6  months of crocus flowers would be awesome sight. I don't think my neighbors would like the high grass, if I didn't mow.

I plan on ordering from John Scheepers and K.Van Bourgondien & Sons. They seem to have the best price on crocus , that I have come across.

If these links are not allowed, please edit them out.

http://www.johnscheepers.com/catview.cgi?_fn=Product&_category=Crocus


http://www.kvbwholesale.com/wholesale/crocus/specie-crocus/index.html

At K.Van Bourgondien link, they have some crocus left and they are real cheap, most are 50% off. I'm tempted to order some at those prices.

[mark smyth]

Guff, Is this your real name?, your grass will not be long as it will have slowed down by the time the first Crocus are up and wouldnt be too high by the time the Crocus are dormant again.

[Guff]

Mark, Guff is fine, it's part of my last name.

I'm in the USA, so I had thought maybe you meant flowering from Spring to Summer. I didnt think you meant from Fall to Spring, my mistake. Looking at that way, your right the grass wouldn't be a problem.

I don't have any fall flowering crocus, are they really crocus? I had thought they were something else, but were called crocus?

[Joakim B]

The short answer is Yes there is aytumn flowering crocus. Have a look for example in Marks webpage.
And Yes there is a lot of calling Colchicum for "autumn Crocus". To add to the confusion there is spring and Autumn flowering Colchicums.
You might ge a more elaborated aswer by the more knowledged
Kind regards
Joakim

[mark smyth]

Tony G or Thomas H will give you more accurate flowering times. They vary depending on where you live. Mine start in September  and finish in March. Colchicums can be in flower from August to February. You can have small Colchicums planted with your Crocus on the banks

Crocus and Colchicums arent related. Crocus belong to the Iridaceae, Iris, family and Colchicums belong to Liliaceae, Lilies.

[tonyg]

Welcome Guff.  All the advice so far looks ok.  The 6 months of crocus talk is a bit over played!  Here in SE UK I have two peaks of flowering, one autumn and one spring.  Exactly when they occur is becoming harder to predict as the climate changes but October and February are the best months.  Outside these peak times ther are just a few species in flower so it will be harder to achieve a bold show in the garden for the whole six months.  I would suggest that you take a look at the Alpine-L archives as these will contain more references to growing crocus in the USA. The Pacific Bulb Society also have lots of info from gardeners your side of the pond and John Lonsdale at Edgewood Gardens has a great collection of crocus.

http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/alpine-l.html

http://www.edgewoodgardens.net/

http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Crocus

Good luck with your project ... we await the pictures of your successes!

[Guff]

Hello Tony, you have a very nice web site. Thanks for the links.

I have many more questions about crossing different forms, so I will be asking more as they come to mind.

I went ahead and pickup some crocus at K.Van Bourgondien's. I'm alittle disappointed though, seems that that the ones they have listed as buy now, not all will come this year. But I did get the 50% discount. I messed up I should have gotten 10/100 of the mixed specie, maybe I will call monday and see if I can add one, to get another 9% off.

I was wondering over there are the crocus any cheaper or are they more expensive? The price listed below are 50% off normal catalogs price.

Heres what I picked up.

1. SPECIE CROCUS PRINCE CLAUS (CH (10331) Qty 1 (Bag of 100) 
     Price $7.50/each $7.50 Ships After 12/16/06 
 
2. GIANT CROCUS SILVER CORAL (10016) Qty 1 (Bag of 25) Price $3.25/each $3.25 
     Ships After 09/12/07 
 
3. SPECIE CROCUS MIX (10335) Qty 9 (Bag of 100) Price $4.00/each $36.00 
     Ships After 09/12/07 
 
4. SPECIE CROCUS SNOWBUNTING (CHR (10334) Qty 1 (Bag of 100) 
     Price $4.50/each $4.50 Ships After 09/12/07