Crocus crossing

[Thomas Huber]

Thomas, thats a great idea, any flowering size? Would like to see some hybrids pictures of the giants.

I just made a few photos, but here they are:

[Tony Willis]

Nice pictures Thomas.

This is not crocus crossing but self pollination I am writing about. I have only one clone of crocus scardicus purchased as a single corm in 1996 from Pilous which is now up to six.Two flowered this year and my understanding is that they would not self pollinate but I worked hard at the pollination.Both have produced a seed pod with a total of seven seeds which ripened today and look plump and viable( the day before we leave for France which is good as they would have been lost)

They are sown and I now wait to see if they germinate next spring

Guff the only hybrids I have are chrysanthus,biflorus natural hybrids so I think they are quite straightforward to produce.

[Thomas Huber]

Tony, do you grow Crocus pelistericus near the scardicus pot?

[Tony Willis]

Thomas yes I do but the pelistericus were not in flower this year at the time scardicus flowered and I moved  the pot in to the greenhouse to keep the flowers fresh.They were not pollinated by pelistericus.If they had been in flower  I would have been doubtful and thought they may have crossed.They grow outside all year in an open plunge and last summer I let them get a bit too dry and it messed up the flowering times.

I have three years of seedlings from 05,06 and 07 of both scardicus x pelistericus and pelistericus x scardicus and also an 07 sowing of straight pelistericus. I am hopefull the 05 sowing will flower next spring

[Thomas Huber]

I am hopefull the 05 sowing will flower next spring

Good luck with the 05's!!! I'm waiting for photos next spring 

[Guff]

Thomas, very nice giants.

Well I dug up the bed with the Twilight, Blue Pearl, and Firefly's today. I only counted the Twilight's corms, 192 total. Not too bad almost doubled from the original 100. They look nice and big, can't say that about the Blue Pearl, and Firefly's though, lots of tiny corms, which I had expected.

I did pack them in, just didn't feel like making another bed. I figured next fall 09, I may start on my grass banks anyways.

Question, after I took the picture, I covered them up with 4 inches of the same soil, compost/sand. Should I water them in or just let nature and the rains do it?

[Guff]

Planted the crocus seed, hoping for lots of seedling come spring.

I left room for the seeds at the top of my new Hellebores bed, that I planted last month. There are 15 plants, 3 each of 5 different colors of the Lady series. Should be an interesting spring.

[Thomas Huber]

Wish I had as much space as you have, Guff! Great job 

[Guff]

Thomas, I'm slowly running out of spots/space for full sun plant types, but have lots of room still left for spring woodlands types plants.

I'm very happy, lots of crocus seedlings popping up. If I can get this many or more seedlings every spring I will have my banks covered in no time.

[Guff]

Chrysanthus and tommasinianus seed. Still need to collect the Dutch Giant's, only have 30 or so seed pods from them this year.

[Maggi Young]

That's quite a crop of seed!

[Guff]

Maggi, thanks. Now if I can double it next year..........LOL 

[tonyg]

No Picture but I have a little Crocus crossing victory to report.
After 15 years of growing a single clone of Crocus cyprius and getting seed just once (5 seeds ) in 2007 I begged a few corms of different clones from a fellow grower.  This year I had several fat pods and the seed count is 62.  I did assist by hand pollinating the plants which were grown under cold glass.  Now if I can raise these to flowering size I should be able to make more seed and perhaps corms available for other growers.

[Paul T]

Congratulations, Tony.  Always nice to have a win like that.  I bought a Crocus cvijicii this year to try to get seed in the future as mine came from a friend who grew it from seed years ago and it is self-infertile.  I'd like to get a few more of them but it is very very slow to multiply.  Fingers crossed that I can get them to flower together one of these years and carefully cross them for some seed set.  Not that important for others, but would be wonderful if I could do it.  So I can understand to a degree just how happy you must be having been successful.

[tonyg]

I only have 2 or 3 corms of each variant, your 2 cvijicii will be enough if they flower at the same time (given the usual need for luck and the weather.)  I should have added that this first seed set is hopefully going to give me more plants to enjoy.  If I am successful then the next generation should provide a good surplus