Crocus: October 2010

[Tony Willis]

This is a very good time to examine the new shoots on crocuses which may still be under the top dressing as greenfly gather on them out of sight.A look at just a few pots will reveal if a problem is developing and all can be treated.

An infestation can quickly develop in mild weather and so systemic insecticide is a good preventative remedy.

Never met with such problem in my nursery. For me most important now is remowing of old flowers which very easy get mould in such cloudy and wet weather. Botrytis/penicillium quickly goes down from died flowers and infects corm. So remowing is extremely important.
Janis

Janis beautiful pictures again.

As to the greenfly I think you have much colder weather,it was 16c here yesterday and bees are still flying about. Our pests stay active all winter.

[Janis Ruksans]

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As to the greenfly I think you have much colder weather,it was 16c here yesterday and bees are still flying about. Our pests stay active all winter.
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I found greenflies only in very few seasons many years ago and only on shoots of Arum in bulb storehouse, never on crocus shoots although some autumn blooming species develops quite long shoots in bulb boxes.
Janis

[Armin]

I grew outside C. robertianus for several years without serious problems. Impossible here to grow in open garden are species wintering with leaves. All which I tried died. From leafless species here problematic is only C. banaticus - blooms too late and isn't sufficiently hardy, earlier or later I lost all its stocks planted in open garden.
Janis

Janis,
thank you for your experiences. I'll put C. robertianus on my wishlist.

Today got some sunshine at 11°C and some new flowers and a bumble bee appeared:
C. cartwrightianus and C. ligusticus 'Millesimo'. Both from Dirk. Reliable flowering under my conditions.
C. boryi - first time to flower for me. Grown from a few cormlets given by Erich Pasche in 2008. The flower head stuck for days during the low temperatures. Obviously got some frost damages on the tips.
C. ochroleucus - always got only sporadic flowers in the first season. Lifted my remaining small stock of 8 corms last year and planted it deep ~18-20 cm. Now 5 flowers and 2 more buds visible. Thanks for the good advise Thomas.

[TheOnionMan]

Armin, very beautiful C. ligusticus 'Millesimo' and ochroleucus... reading this thread I see that there are many more autumn crocus than I ever imagined.

An odd situation that I can't quite figure out, I noticed that my clump of C. speciosus xantholaimos had been ravaged by gray squirrels, my arch nemesis.  They're busy burying acorns, and typically don't eat any of my crocus (I plant mine deep), although irritatingly they often nip off the floral tubes on crocus, they nipped off all flowers recently on C. thomasii, niveus, and asumaniae.

In the photos, you can see lots of corm tunics, one partially eaten corm, and severed floral tubes, but there's no digging!  Not sure how the corms and tunics came to be on the surface, without any evidence of digging???  Are the corms of this species shallow, do they rise close to the surface, so that pulling on a flower stem would lift the corms out too?  I excavated a little bit (about 2" or 5 cm) and see there are still many more buds coming from underground stems/tubes.  Puzzling.

[jnovis]

two more flowering recently, boryi and caspius.

[Janis Ruksans]

Today again we had some sun and wonderfull weather. I passed time with my crocuses. Not so many newcomers as previous days were cold and muddy and development is very slow. Really most of my autumn bloomers started flowering. Still very few species left with only noses of buds. Sorry, if some plant I showed before. There were so many entries, but all those pictures are maid today.
So the first is almost pure white gathering of Crocus asumaniae, not so bright as stock from Sixtus, but with more rounded flower segments.
Next is pot of Crocus banaticus cv. Snowdrift - now it is at its best.
Crocus boryi is very uniform plant, they looks very similar in different localities. This year they are not so good as usually, flowers are smaller than usually and with something malformed tips of flower segments. Only few stocks looks perfect as this one from Kephalinia. The early blooming stocks were similar, but they are over.
This Crocus cancellatus damascenus comes from Kubbe gec.
Two nice Crocus cancellatus mazziaricus - both different not only by color, but by corm tunics, too. JATU-021 is variable by color (you can see small blue flower on left). The almost white I like for this blue striped rim around throat. Corm tunic of this stock is finely reticulated. Another from Rendina (Greece) has coarsely reticulated corm tunics (such, according Brian Mathew, is typical for this subsp.).
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

One more entry for today.
Crocus laevigatus I showed before, too. Its interesting that all stocks from Crete, grown by me has much smaller flowers than stocks from continental Greece. But may be it is seasonal, my experience with Cretan samples is very short.
The first two are Cretan plants of C.laevigatus (the first stock was shown before, too).
Next pair is stock from Peloponnese (PELO-013), at present I think it is best of my laevigatus. In background (slightly creamy white, not so cold white as laevigatus, is C. boryi).
I showed several pictures of C.longiflorus from Basilicata before, but this one flower fully opened only today.
And the last again is C. mathewii Pink form got from Cyril Lafong, but with more open flower.
Janis

[johnw]

A pot of Crrocus goulimyi seedlings today.

johnw

[udo]

Janis, nice forms Crocus laevigatus.
Here some pics from this weekend:
Cr.banaticus quatro
    biflorus melantherus in several forms
    cancellatus ssp.cancellatus
    hyemalis from Israel

[udo]

and more:
Cr.cartwrightianus
    laevigatus from Cape Matapan, Greece
          ``     dark form, a good grower

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Splendid pictures Janis and Dirk : so many splendid forms !!! 

[Janis Ruksans]

and more:
Cr.cartwrightianus
    laevigatus from Cape Metapa, Greece
          ``     dark form, a good grower

Crocus banaticus quatro - very nice, pity that only one-year lasting beauty.
Very like yours dark laevigatus. I haven't such.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

Few pictures from yesterday:
One of my autumn favourites - Crocus melantherus from Greece
Crocus oreocreticus - stock received from Jim, my own even didn't show noses out of pot.
Today can show you fully opened flowers of Crocus pallasii from Labranda, Tu. This flower was pollinated with form from Chios Island Homeri (see earlier in this topic)
Crocus sativus from Iran opened its flowers, too and another corm formed one flower.
Started to flower Crocus veneris. This stock I got from Mr. Sixtus. Another is taller, but still didn't opened.
And as last - Crocus wattiorum in full bloom.
Janis

[krisderaeymaeker]

What a fantastic show Dirk and Janis.The more I see them ,the more I like to grow them all. 

[Armin]

McMark,
it is a pitty the grey squirrels cause such damage and annoyance to you.
Someone should invent a 'get off' spray for grey squirrels

John,
a nice clump for C. goulimyi seedlings. I would be glad my little stock (1 flower only, flopped over) would bulk up and flower as yours.

Dirk and Janis,
a feast for the eyes