Crocus: November 2010

[Tony Willis]

Kees very nice pictures,the last one is a sight I would love to see

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wonderful images Kees Jan !
By the way, your website is utterly fantastic !! 

[Hans A.]

Wonderful images Kees Jan !
By the way, your website is utterly fantastic !!  

How right you are Luc!

Here some pics of a few Crocus - a relative new addiction thanks to this forum and especially Hubi.
A blue form of Crocus cambessedesii, C.laevigatus, two forms of C. mathewii (second from a very genorous forumist!), C. sativus and C.speciosus. As C. sativus is known as triploid clone I am surprised about the variation in colour, C. speciosus is nothing special for most growers in the north but here it survives hot and dry conditions during summer without any problem.

[tonyg]

Here is C. pulchellus in the wild on Uludag, following a recent visit to W. Turkey. C. pulchellus is a woodland plant, so the meadow pictures are exceptions to the rule. The butterfly is supposed to be Polygonia c-album (strange name isn't it!). I've uploaded pics of 3 autumn visits to Turkey on my site now.
KJ

Great to see such abundance in the wild.  As others have already said - your website is a feast for the eyes.  Thanks.

[YT]

Tony, thank you and how nice you see C. mathewii in wild! I’m looking forward to showing us your photos of the trip

KJ, thanks for sharing with us your nice wild C. pulchelus pictures!

Hans, your blue form of Crocus cambessedesii is a real beauty and paler C. sativus is very unusual. And that's good news for me C. speciosus can survive summer at your place. I thought my place is too hot for speciosus to live long but I will try them.

[YT]

YT what is that stunning yellow and brown flower on the first page of your log?

Mark, that is Hesperantha vaginata, a spring flowering South African small bulb. Sorry I don’t have any surplus seeds now. Perhaps you can find bulbs on net shops but I suppose you should get seeds better, because you’ll be able to enjoy a range of different yellow/black patterns on flowers and pick up favourite one. It takes 2 or 3 years from seed to flower at my place. The new harvested seeds will be available at Silverhill in coming December or January.

[Thomas Huber]

Kees - welcome back and many thanks for your great (as always) photos from the wild. Just had a look at your website - congratulations for this great work!!

YT - welcome to the world of croconuts. Great to have the first crocusgrower from Japan with us. Did you ever try crocus in the open garden? In your climate it should be no problem I guess. Most of them will feel like in their native habitat around the Mediterranean Sea.

Hans - What has happened to you? I remember you telling me, that you don't like to grow crocus  The dark blue cambessedesi looks really great! But I've never heard of a white sativus - please separate it and observe if this feature is still present next year.

[Armin]

Tatsuo,
thank you for telling us more. Your web pages show many interesting plants
I can only comply with Thomas to motivate you to try to grow crocus in the open garden.
Your climate seem to suit to much more species compared to my wet conditions in my garden.

Tony W,
did you already doctor your croci?
I found out rape oil as a very good and harmless method to minimize infestation i.e. on my rose bushes.

Kees,
it is a great pleasure to see pictures from the wild habitat. Your web pages are great too!

Hans,
it is a pleasure you joined the croconuts

[Maggi Young]

Armin....please tell us, how do you use the rape oil ?

[Armin]

Hi Maggi,

I mix 100 ml rape oil (from discounter, < 1,-Euro/ltr) with ~6 Ltr water. In order to get an emulsion I add a few drops of liquid soap concentrate (<1,-Euro a bottle from discounter) and shake it well. Then I immediately spray my roses from all sides.
Causion: do not spray when it gets/is hot and sunshine as the oilfilm can burn the leaves!
The best is to my opinion to spray in the late afternoon.

Above mixture helped 100% against heavy mites infestation on my roses (sprayed every week, 3x times ttl) and also against aphids. The emulsion (oil) encapsules the parasites and they die. It also suppress the growth of downey mildew (in an early stage of infestation) on young shoots.

The challenge is to keep the oil in an emulsion for good surface distribution and I still try to optimize the recipe. If you add to much soap it harms the leaves...
Therefore I'm thinking of to use i.e. lecithin (=natural tensid, (in egg yolk)) (from drog store or pharmacia) instead of the soap next season...
I will make a trial next season to use it proactively biweekly.

In case of crocus I can imagine a good result in case they are in leaf status. I would not spray when they are in blossom.

[Maggi Young]

Thank you Armin. This is most interesting.

[mark smyth]

Lecithin - I use this to keep my cholesterol down

[Tony Willis]

Armin

yes I have treated them with a systemic insecticide. As most of the pests are under the top dressing a contact one is not effective.

[Darren]

Mark & YT,

I donated seed of Hesperantha vaginata to the SRGC exchange this year so watch out for your seed list! 

[Pascal B]

Dutch commercial nurseries usually use a combination of mineral oil and systematic insecticides (based on synthetic pyrethroids) because, eventhough the aphids might die after sucking up the sap with the insecticide, possible viruses might already have been transmitted, the mineral oil makes the plant less attractive to aphids so it prevents them from even start sucking.

A virus takes only 24 hours to spread in the entire body of an aphid and once on the mouth parts there is no stopping the virus if the aphid makes a hole in the plant and comes into contact with the plantsap.

A combination of the 2 therefore is the most effective method. It depends on how precious the plants are because it is quite labor intensive. Although most systematic insecticides only need to be applied a couple of times during the season, mineral oil needs more frequent application. It also depends on the insectide, the emulsion concentrates get in the wax layer of the plant and are less likely to be washed away, the ones applied through waterings generally only need 2-3 applications during the season.

One of the latest insecticides is Sumicidin, an insectide that also has a small repellent effect but I am not sure if it is available for gardeners in the various countries.

The sprays from the garden centres based on fatty accids as an alternative to mineral oil also work quite well, they just smell of an old sock...