Colchicum & relatives 2020

[ArnoldT]

Colchicums pushing up here as well in NE USA.

Two unknowns and Colchicum byzantinum Alba

[jshields]

My early Colchicum species are in bloom now, these past few days:  autumnale, byzantinum, and cilicicum.


Colchicum autumnale
My #448, from Potterton and Martin in 1998


Colchicum byzantinum
My #449, from McClure & Zimmerman, in 1998


Colchicum cilicicum
#1912, from Brent and Becky's in 2004

It has been pretty dry this past week and warm, so they mostly still look very fresh.

Jim

[Gail]

Later the true colour developed and showed that it is ´Lilac Bedder´, which I actually planted there. This appears to be a newer variety, does anybody know about its origin?

From Colchicum The Complete Guide (the excellent new monograph); Lilac Bedder "This little-known cultivar has flowers that stand up to the weather reasonably well. It has relatively large, lilac to light violet-purple flowers with slightly darker veins, the tepals amethyst-violet inside and with a prominent white centre. At one time it was sold by Ingwersen's Birch Farm Nursery in Sussex but is no longer readily available. It is not particularly distinguished and certainly inferior to many other more recently named selections." The full botanical description follows. Introduced by Visser, 1974

[Gail]

In case you haven't seen it, an essential purchase for anyone interested in colchicums is the new RHS monograph;
Colchicum: The Complete Guide, by Christopher Grey-Wilson, Rod Leeds and Robert Rolfe. 

It covers the botany and classification of the genus, including its relationship to Androcymbium and Merendera. All 104 species are described in detail with a key to aid identification. More than 80 of the most widely grown cultivars are illustrated and described.

It is a beautiful book, lavishly illustrated with many photos taken in the wild - I particularly love the image of massed C. szovitsii turning a mountaintop pink. And of course my 'wish list' of plants is increasing exponentially as I go through - who wouldn't want to try that deep coloured figlalii with the amazing maroon cataphylls? Any book billing itself "the complete guide" is of course asking for trouble but I was delighted with how thorough this one is. Fragrance is mentioned which is important to me. And lovely to see images of the new C. luteum hybrids. As someone who struggles to get Sternbergia to flower, I have wondered about getting that yellow colour into the autumn flowering cultivars and I would have liked more on how to go about hybridising, likely time from seed sowing to flowering etc but note that tantilising sentence "It is rumoured that Bondarenko has succeeded in storing C. luteum pollen under refrigeration and has used it to pollinate autumn-flowering hybrids, resulting in successful seedlings."
(as an aside, another thing I struggle with is ordering from Leonid Bondarenko. Has anyone succeeded? I can't get the website to work for me and have tried emailing him without reply)

So if you haven't yet bought a copy, make sure this book is on your Christmas list!

[ashley]

Thanks for this review Gail.

[Leena]

Thank you Gail. I will have to put it in my christmas book list.

[Leena]

(as an aside, another thing I struggle with is ordering from Leonid Bondarenko. Has anyone succeeded? I can't get the website to work for me and have tried emailing him without reply)

I ordered from him in June (from his website), and paid at the same time with Paypal. Then heard nothing until late August a parcel came here with bulbs (not Colchicums this year). 

[Steve Garvie]

I also placed an order with Leonid in June, paying with Paypal. The full order was delivered about 3 weeks ago.

[Mariette]

From Colchicum The Complete Guide (the excellent new monograph); Lilac Bedder "This little-known cultivar has flowers that stand up to the weather reasonably well. It has relatively large, lilac to light violet-purple flowers with slightly darker veins, the tepals amethyst-violet inside and with a prominent white centre. At one time it was sold by Ingwersen's Birch Farm Nursery in Sussex but is no longer readily available. It is not particularly distinguished and certainly inferior to many other more recently named selections." The full botanical description follows. Introduced by Visser, 1974

Thank You so much, Gail! I knew the book was in the pipeline, but not that it´s already available. Definitely one I must have!

´Lilac Bedder´does well for me and is very reliable. Today it seems to be mainly offered by Baltic suppliers.

Scent is important to me, too, but the bees seem to be lured to the colchicums by it as well.

[Mariette]

Another insect making use of naked ladies in a nature reserve after rain - Tropidothorax leucopterus enjoying a dry spot.

[Yann]

Colchicum psaridis, a little jewel with running corms, leaves are >15mm large.
At the opposite the xxl Colchicum speciosum, i planted it under shade and after several years the bulbs are huge.

[Mariette]

Both are very interesting, Yann - does the C. speciosum always show more than 6 tepals?

[Gail]

I went to East Ruston Vicarage Garden on Saturday to see the National Collection of colchicum. This is an amazing, very theatrical garden with always something of interest to see but I was frankly somewhat disappointed with the colchicum. The walk up to them has a spectacular white potato vine in flower but the wall plantings and shrubs are overshadowing the colchicums.  There is no information and poor labelling. The area was overgrown and had recently been sprayed with weedkiller which had affected some of the emerging flowers. Obviously it has been a difficult year for everyone and hopefully next year they will be able to get a bit more attention.

[Gail]

The collection;

[Gail]

A spectacular clump of 'Innocence' was demonstrating just how good colchicum can be in the garden, and how attractive to honey bees - I watched one honey bee head down in a flower for a good five minutes...