Crocus in the garden March 2010

[Gerdk]

I thought it was just me in the Alps that had small crocus - my Blue Pearl is tiny but they have all at least come up 

Hey RR,
Please keep in mind:  Small is beautiful !

Gerd

[Thomas Huber]

Spring has come to Germany - great collection, Armin.
But I don't think your biflorus is the cultivar 'Parkinsonii'
I'm missing the yellow hint on the petals.

[Armin]

It seems that you have same problem as I - crocuses suffered from very long and hard frost this winter because my flowers are very small (in general - with few exceptions - smaller than usually), too. They comes up irregularly, but at least at present I hardly hope they will alive. May be some will be lost but looks that slow spring helps recovering.
Janis

Janis,
this year this was an unusual hard winter. All my croci are grown outside. Many cultivars and specis flowers suffered from hard frost and the flowers are smaller and they appear irregularly, especial those who grow still in shadow.
C. imperati is one which had flower buds in January but all withered under long snow cover, similar with C.ancyrensis and C. korolkowii.
But luckily some croci recover and as it warms up they do show new flower buds.
Crocus seem to be temperature and light controlled. Maybe unregular appearing is a kind of safety function to guarantee the survival of the specis? It makes sense for me.
 

[Armin]

Spring has come to Germany - great collection, Armin.
But I don't think your biflorus is the cultivar 'Parkinsonii'
I'm missing the yellow hint on the petals.

Thomas,
anthers and pollen is whitish, probably sterile and there is a soft yellowish hint on the 3 outer stiped pedals.
Therefore I assumed it is 'Parkinsonii' (and not 'Argenteus' or 'Scotch').

[Janis Ruksans]

It seems that you have same problem as I - crocuses suffered from very long and hard frost this winter because my flowers are very small (in general - with few exceptions - smaller than usually), too. They comes up irregularly, but at least at present I hardly hope they will alive. May be some will be lost but looks that slow spring helps recovering.
Janis

Janis,
this year this was an unusual hard winter. All my croci are grown outside. Many cultivars and specis flowers suffered from hard frost and the flowers are smaller and they appear irregularly, especial those who grow still in shadow.
C. imperati is one which had flower buds in January but all withered under long snow cover, similar with C.ancyrensis and C. korolkowii.
But luckily some croci recover and as it warms up they do show new flower buds.
Crocus seem to be temperature and light controlled. Maybe unregular appearing is a kind of safety function to guarantee the survival of the specis? It makes sense for me.
 

Some crocuses looks very well, but many stay at level of ground. Last spring I wanted to relabel some danfordiae - so large flowers they had. This spring flowers in several stocks are only 1 cm long. Something too small even for danfordiae. But all pots which I checked had shoots out of soil below stone-chips, so I hope...  Outside still half-meter of snow.
Janis

[Thomas Huber]

Armin, the yellow isn't visible in your photo, but if it is there, it's probably 'Parkinsonii'.

Spring also arrived in my garden 

[tonyg]

Inspiring as always Hubi 

[Ragged Robin]

What a wonderful show Thomas, so exhuberant  

[Thomas Huber]

Some new hybrids appeared in my lawn.

- The first one (10+73)was yellow and blue when I dug it up and replanted it.
When I made the photo two days later, the yellow faded to soft yellow and another day later it was white.

- These flowers came back after a break of 3 years. They don't look exactly like the true Jeannine so I guess
they are seedlings of the original plant which grew exactly where they are today.

- The best sieberi I have ever seen: 'Cretan Wonder'

- mixed hybrids

[TheOnionMan]

Great display Thomas, and I really like the yellow and purplish hybrid (Crocus chryanthus hybride 2010-03-17-10.jpg). 

Very warm and sunny here today, and many more crocus hybrids showing up, but then discovered that my daughter (home from college on a spring break) went into the city today (Boston) with her boyfriend and took the digital camera with her... aarrrhhhGGGGG!  Now I'm going to ask one of my neighbors if they have a digital camera I can borrow for an hour or so.

[TheOnionMan]

Most of my C. chrysanthus seedlings that are flowering now have regular size flowers, although there are the older corms, maybe 4 years at least.  I have some that look like a first flowering, perhaps 3 years old, with smaller flowers.  But some have flowers so tiny (fully formed but 12-15 mm across) that it makes me wonder; do precocious seedlings sometimes bloom when only 2 years old and thus have the most minute of flowers, or is there a chance that some might have hybridized with C. fleischeri which grows in the same bed... that species having really tiny blooms?  Hopefully I will be able to borrow a camera to show some pics.

[Thomas Huber]

Mark, I'm sure the chance of hybridising fleis(c!)heri and chrysanthus is nearly zero.
I also noticed that some flowers are very small if the small is very small. Might also
have to do with the long cold winter (at least here in Germany). I noticed, that many
large flowers are much smaller this year.

[Armin]

Huberlative garden Thomas

It is a great pleasure to see your garden. It looks you have now more cyclamen and snowdrops as crocus and it seems you have got multiple infections - basket case
The sieberi 'Cretan Wonder' is a very nice one! And I see 'Herald' in best form.
Some of the hybrids (-50 /-03) with the blue blotches are 'nice to have', too.

[Armin]

Crocus biflorus tauri

Arnold

Arnold,
it is not the 'blue clone' typically available in trade - from where did you got this beauty?

[Ragged Robin]

The best sieberi I have seen

Thomas, your Crocus sieberi Creatan Wonder is fabulous (photo too) - do you have a clump of them?