Colchicums late 2008

[Armin]

Ibrahim,
didn't know this species yet. A lovely one.

[dominique]

Hagen you have a great Colchicum collection! Teufelskralle looks particularly well!!

Some more from my garden last week:

- aggripinum and byzantinum Album
- C. autumnale collected on meadows around my hometown
- C. autumnale, white form from Neustadt
- C. cilicicum clump
- C. kochii from Dalmatia
- C. lusitanicum
- C. ? from Greece

Thomas,
your Colchicum cilicicum look better C. laetum with narrow petals to my mind. I like your autumnale album. Mine is more round petals.

[dominique]

Hagen,
Thanks for your site. I send you my list of hybrids

[Hagen Engelmann]

Colchicum VIOLET QUEEN , second group of flowering. Two sources two kinds of plants. But what is the right? Who can help?
BOWLES wrote: "Violet Queen also has long pointed segments closely tessellated on a bluish lilac ground contrasting pleasantly with the conspicuously white throat and central channels of the segments".

[Hagen Engelmann]

Colchicum VIOLET QUEEN , the other souce.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Colchicum POSEIDON, a "must" for every collection.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Early and intensive redpurple colour, Colchicum JOCHEM HOF

[art600]

Hagen

Wonderful Colchicum.  Your garden must be very large, as I find it difficult to fit them in with the large leaves that folow.

They are looking very good in spite of the rain - or have you not suffered the torrential rain that we have had over the last week.  I am fortunate not to be flooded, but I am sure you will have seen on German television the floods in Wales and northern England.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Arthur,
yes my garden isn`t small, 2500m². I plant the cultivars of colchicum all in a small area together with grasses (big carex, luzula, calamagrostis brachytricha). The gras is higher than the colchicum leaves and can survival. When the leaves are yellow I pull it out of the ground and clean the soil. Now naked colchicumflowers and grassleaves are a fine couple.

[Jim McKenney]

Colchicum VIOLET QUEEN , second group of flowering. Two sources two kinds of plants. But what is the right? Who can help?
BOWLES wrote: "Violet Queen also has long pointed segments closely tessellated on a bluish lilac ground contrasting pleasantly with the conspicuously white throat and central channels of the segments".

Hagen, I’m really enjoying these pictures of colchicums.  I'm not sure this will help, but I have long puzzled over the identity of various plants received under the name 'Violet Queen'. The plant I grow as ‘Violet Queen’ is like the one in your images labeled “Violet Queen Dutch”.

I’m inclined to think that this is the true one. I’ve seen two pictures of this from the first half of the twentieth century  in Gartenschönheit: one shows this cultivar alone in an image which is not  clear but which does have the shape of this “Dutch Violet Queen”. The other image is a painting by Esther Bartning of several colchicums: I’ve attached it here for everyone to see.  The plant I grow actually looks more like the one labeled 'Danton' (bottom center)  in this composite picture. In this composite picture 'Violet Queen' is in the second row on the left.

I suspect the caption to this image will not be legible. If anyone would like to see an enlargement of the caption, please let me know.

There is an interesting mistake in this painting: take a look at the white flowers at the lower left in the painting. According to the legend they are identified as  Crocus speciosus ‘Albus’. And they do look more like crocuses than colchicums. But what is wrong about the picture?

Those who would like to see some of the large-flowered colchicums I grow might take a look here:
 
http://www.jimmckenney.com/colchicum_page.htm

The little photo gallery works best in Internet Explorer; in some browsers it displays as an annoying left to right spread which requires a lot of scrolling.

Here is Esther Bartning's painting.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Jim

you are a big help. Thank you so much. Bowles told about the picture in GARTENSCHÖNHEIT. I was on the way to search for the book. Now  I know the flowers of the important picture. This VIOLET QUEEN has the deepest colour of all my colchicums. The first time I saw the flowers in the bulbfields of netherland. Asked for the name and a year later I got the bulbs.
Tomorrow I will have  a view to your site. I`m curious.
For your joy, but also for the all other colchicumfans here is Colchicum speciosum ALBUM.

[Jim McKenney]

This VIOLET QUEEN has the deepest colour of all my colchicums. For your joy, but also for the all other colchicumfans here is Colchicum speciosum ALBUM.

Yes, Hagen, 'Violet Queen' has dark flowers. They darken as they age; fresh, newly open flowers are a much brighter color. As they age they acquire a sort of gray tinge.

Your Colchicum speciosum 'Album' are very lovely. This plant, and typical C. speciosum, are very difficult in my climate: they generally rot during the summer unless kept very dry. But they are worth the trouble.

You seem to be having a very good season this year. Here in Maryland, so far only C. alpinum and the hybrid 'Grazia' are blooming.

[arillady]

Jim what a wonderful website you have - I can see myself returning often to see your photo galleries.

[Boyed]

Hagen,

I agree with Jim and also think that true 'Violate Queen' is the one labeled Dutch in your photos.

[olegKon]

Hagen,
What wonderful Colchicums you have. Here are some I know the names of already in bloom here
"Dick Trotter"
Colchicum cilicicum?
Colchicun autumnale album