seed starting question

[victor]

greetings,

I got a bunch of seeds from my spring crocus this year.

I recently put them in a pot.
any one have an idea of how long until I see greens shoots ?

victor

[Mick McLoughlin]

Welcome to the forum Victor.
I don't know the answer to your crocus question, but I'm sure one of the croconuts will be by soon.
Whereabouts do you garden?

[Maggi Young]

Hello, Victor!
I would expect you to see some growth in your pots of crocus seed around next January, you should have flowers in about three years. It is great fun to grow from seed, there's no telling what interesting colours you might get!

[victor]

Hi Mick McLoughlin,
I live in Baltimore Md usa
I have been watching my crocus for a few years
and trying to get seeds and learn how to launch them.

Reliable info is a lot like crocus seeds....
ya gotta keep looking.

Hi Maggi Young,

ummm,
If they won't come up till spring, shouldn't I just refrigerate the pot now?

some how I thought they'd do some fall growing....

victor

[Maggi Young]

Here in North East Scotland, Victor, we just sow 'em and leave 'em outside.  I don't know how your weather is in Baltimore, that's Maryland, is it? One of the Crocus Gang, or Croconuts, will surely be around with their opinion soon.... if they are not all on holiday!

[victor]

Hi Maggi Young,

I think my winters are milder than yours.
I have been trying to grow a lawn full of spring crocus
and have found that the kinds I get from suppliers
do ok for two or three-ish years and then ... quit...

I have been out hunting 'escapers'.
any where in the 25 miles from around my home I often travel.
some neighbors of a friend have a kind that got across the sidewalk.
and another friend had some walk out if his flower box.

I will not claim to be a great crocus classifier,
they seem to be tommies,  most times.
While I can often get permission to take a few,
...I want them ALL..... I am not allowing myself more than a few.
So I am trying to learn how to encourage the ones that seem
to do well around here.

This year they gave me SEEDS!


victor

[mark smyth]

I still have seeds, lying on the soil pots, that should have been collected and sown

[Lesley Cox]

Fresh seed from my own corms and left to self sow, is coming up now - just as the crocuses themselves are coming up and starting to flower, so about 6 months after the seed ripens and falls. Seed from other sources will usually take a year longer or even two! Seed which Thomas sent to me in the northern summer of 05, freshly harvested and sown right away, is for the most part, just beginning to germinate now. A few - the easier and commoner species - came up in part last spring, so after about 15 months. If I sow my own seed rather than letting it fall, it may come up in 6 months or so but maybe not. Put the pots outside as Maggi says. Keep them damp and learn to be patient.

[victor]

Hi Lesley Cox,
ok... so about 6 months....

My beloved Sarah said "ha!" when she read the advice for me to be patient.
   don't think I get a choice here....

Since I moved here seven years ago, I've been poking crocus corms into the ground.

I thought I'd add more each year and soon, waving crocus lawn.
has not happened.

Now I am looking for whatever seems to do well in my lawn.
I have the escaper plants in a well prepared bed.

I was hoping to raise a batch of corms and try them out front

I am hunting agood picture.

 

[Lesley Cox]

Victor, for a really good Crocus lawn, look in the older topics for Crocus threads (including on the old, archived Forum) and find posts from Thomas and Franz. The Europeans seem to do bulb lawns very well. But I think they'd both tell you that it all takes TIME, for the bulbs to establish and gradually increase (with some help from extra plantings) and begin to seed down and look "natural." Good luck.

[Joakim B]

Far from being a crocus expert we also have some crocus in the lawn and they selfseed and are moved there by moles.
I think a problem could be if the lawn are to "good/thick" so that the crocus can not compete with the grass.
We have quite a bad lawn so the crocus competes well.
Maybe You need to take away the grass from the part where You have the crocus even if that makes it "less natural" but atleast untill the crocus get going.
Good luck
Kind regards
Joakim from Sweden

[David Shaw]

I would have thought a thick layer of grass would be beneficial for the bulbs. The grass will use a lot of the water falling on it and give the bulbs a dryer summer dormancy. I occaisionally find I have bulbs growing up through a mat of something or other and it seems to encourage the flowering.
This argument may be more valid in wet and dreary UK than in hot sunny Portugal. Again, I don't know about Baltimore but guess it may be an area that has very cold winters and hot, dry summers?

[Joakim B]

David the crocus in the lawn is in Sweden where the weather is colder than UK in the winter but not much warmer in the ummer and almost as wet. I was thinking that if the lawn is to thicl there migt be problem to get the crocus seed germenating and surviving the competition. It is as You say all depending on how the over all circumstances are. A good lawn is often cut more than a crappy one and that is not a favorit for the crocus either.
Interesting to here how good grass/lawn Thomas and Franz have. Then they have really warm summers (atleast Franz) and also cold winters so it may vary.
Scottish lawns have a tendensy of looking like golf courses at least what I have seen and there I bet that the crocus has to work to survive. It was actually a cow medow next to a golf course that had this great grass so I thought one could even play golf there (for free) if one is into golf (and I am not). This creeping grass (do not know the name but I calle it fake grass) we have here in Portugal will not even let grass grow threw it so I do not think It would be any point to plant bulbs in the lawn in Portugal. I might be totally wrong but maybe it is something to test having or not having grass on top of the bulbs.

Kind regards
Joakim

[victor]

Hi all,
I have been reading this forum for a while (off and on) for a few years now.
I must have missed the lawn crocus thread....

So far I have discovered that most kinds of crocus are
still growing and staying green when I must finally mow the lawn.
That does not help them survive.  My soil is clay and the summers
are not particularly dry.  The lawn in sloped slightly away from the house,
I hoped that would be enough drainage.

The later blooming crocus will not make it out there. ( they haven't yet....)
I have purchased earlier bloomers, garden store varieties, not too well labeled that say early spring.
My guess is they were Dorothy and a light purple kind.
Next spring is their third year, If they come back, they are doing well.  As there were fewer this past spring,
I am not expecting them back....
I may not be able to keep crocus out there.  but I am going to try a while longer.

I think three years ago, I noticed that a few crocus were blossoming around four feet from the nearest flower-box
at my friend's house.  This fellow does not garden.  at all.
He has ignored them for the last 12 years.  For those crocus to be where they are, they walked over there.
I dug them up.  They are in a bed at my house growing seeds.

While I don't like waiting, I will.   
However, this leads me to a strong interest in making sure the seeds both launch and grow.

When I look at the seeds they remind me of miniature crocus corms.
do they act like their parents? grow roots in the fall and winter and green up in spring ?

victor 

[Lesley Cox]

In Australia I saw some lawn in a reasonably moist and shaded area where the Crocus seortinus ssp salzmannii had self seeded from a patch in the garden edging the grass. They looked lovely and were very happy, increasing nicely year by year. The only problem was that the lawn had to be mowed around them (for expected visitors, who still stood on them ).