Crocus January 2007

[ian mcenery]

Thomas

the colour does vary a little on the second picture but is reasonably correct on the group one. I am having some difficulty with the camera seemingly making some plants seem bluer than in reality that happened with Etruscus which is more of a lavender shade. I think they auto white balance sometimes plays tricks.  Can't remember buying Barrs purple but I did buy Whitewell purple a million years ago and I may have moved some here as they were not flowering well were they were.

[David Nicholson]

David, no disrespect to you but that looks like a pretty poor potfull of bulbs. As an experienced gardener but a novice at Crocus I would guess that you went to the local garden centre and bought a bag of their stock. I have never known such a bag only contain five corms and looking at the gaps in the pot I suspect that some have not come up. Also, with first year growth of newly purchased corm  I would expect them to flower pretty evenly.
 Given good stock to start with it is difficult not to get a display in the first year so I doubt that the problem is with you. It looks to me as if you have been sold a bag of crocus that have not been properly looked after.

David, I think it was a pack of 15 corms which I split between 2 pots (pots were really a bit on the big side) and an audit today shows 13 have sprouted so I am two down. I really think that I am to blame by being to mean with the water. Next years attempt will be better.

[David Nicholson]

David, your conditions are 'harder' than mine! I would put the crocuses on top though.

Anne, I think I have been rather mean with the water (too used to Auriculas requirements). Next years attempt will be better, and as you say the tommies to come might be better anyway.

[tonyg]

Marks pretty white tommy is a tommy!  I have one form with slightly cream outers (Marks is very nice!) and another 'white' form which has purple flecks on the petals.
There you are - sorry it took a swift kick from Maggi to get me on the case!  Hope the talk goes/went/ ... actually looking at the time 'is going' well Mark

[Maggi Young]

Thanks, Tony! Actually, Talk isn't til tomorrow, Snowdrop maniac is kneeling on floor looking at assorted gull prints, at the minute!

[Maggi Young]

Tony, we remain uncovinced! Shocking I know, but a glass of wine makes some of us very argumentative! Can you post some shots of your white Tommies, please?

[tonyg]

  I thought it was Tuesday .... too much work and no play etc!
Below is the pic you asked for - my memory playing tricks on me the 'two 'forms are infact one and the same.
It looks like a tommy, its the right size and shape for a tommy it IS a tommy.
I have a nice claret form if wine and crocuses do it for you

[Maggi Young]

Oh, all right then, since YOU say so 

[Thomas Huber]

Ian, your tommies are surely NO "Whitwell Purple"!
Please compare here:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/5012/8868.html?1129846074

Sorry Mark - beautiful form of Crocus tommasinianus!!!!

[Maggi Young]

 So, I will have to admit defeat and accept that Mark's lovely buttercream flowers ARE tommies!
Mark's point is : how can they be called "albus", they're lots of colours but not really white!

[udo]

Crocus biflorus ssp. nubigena, or caricus, or???
Crocus sieheanus
two forms from Crocus nevadensis

[Rafa]

Hello,
a Crocus carpetanus

[John Forrest]

My pot Crocus don't seem to be as willing to show their heads above the parapets like the rest of you but quite a few outside are, although the weather is too murky for them to open. Masses of tommies though, which I find very cheering.

Th'only wun trying in a pot is C. fleischeri , with apologies for the background card kept under the staging in the greenhouse and not dusted off.