Crocus September 2007

[mark smyth]

I would like to grow more of mine outside but our weather is so unstable they get destroyed so quickly

[Boyed]

Thomas,

I have already put you in the list of spares for cr. speciosus 'Cloudy Sky'.

Thanks for the wonderful pictures of your garden. Your photos are always admiring!

I also have a small white form of crocus niveus and will post the photos when it blooms.

Your rock garden is just splendid and I like the way it is arranged with those nice stones. Isn't it time-consuming to take those stones away when harvesting the bulbs and then palcing them back? I am not sure, but I suppose that it's gonna be a hard work.

[Thomas Huber]

Thanks everybody - great you like my rockgarden 

Zhirair, I don't harvest my corms each year - only if there are too much in
one basket or if I need corms for friends. But it's no problem, I just put
the stones beside, take the basket out of the soil, empty and replant it!

Lesley - its good that you still enjoy my calendar 

And finally I have the solution for the mousetrap problem of Martin:
If the cats take away the traps - feed them and they will not need to
take them away anymore !!

[Maggi Young]

And finally I have the solution for the mousetrap problem of Martin:
If the cats take away the traps - feed them and they will not need to
take them away anymore !!

I don't think it is that easy, Thomas. None of the cats around here ARE hungry, really, it's just what they do. Also, hedgehogs will take away the mouse and the trap.. at  least these creatures usually leave the trap somewhere where one can find it again, not too far away!

It is hard with some of the modern plastic type of traps to efficiently make an attachment or such to allow a method of securing the trap from "theft".
Ah, the gardener's life is seldom simple

[Maggi Young]

Interestingly, at  our local group meeting last night ( speaker was some small bearded chap, quite cute, talking about an Introduction to Rock Gardening) there was a bit of chat over tea and biscuits about animal pests.... one member having lots of deer eating everything and quite a bit of rabbit trouble, though less in the last week or so... others said that too.. that rabbits and mice have been less obvoious in the last couple of weeks... now, why would that be so? Any ideas?

[Martin Baxendale]

Maggi beat me to it - I was just going to say that in theory you could secure the moustraps against 'theft' with wire fixed to something buried in the ground. Problems - 1) I never find the time to do it. 2) You need to move the traps around to where the meeces are active at any particular time 3) You'd need to anchor the traps to a boulder to stop your average fox making off with it 4) as Maggi says, some traps don't have a hole to fix them by, so you'd have to drill a wire hole - like I've got the time to do that!

Still, for a quick answer to a localised problem with just a small number of meeces or a single meece, a trap is quick and you see the results and so know the culprit's been dealt with! It can be a small cost to lose a trap or two if you save valuable bulbs.

I always put traps under heavy clay pots to keep birds off, propped up on a small stone with a small gap on one side to let the meeces in. You can add a heavy stone or slab to weigh it down more, to try to deter bigger mammals, but foxes are pretty persistent.

[Maggi Young]

We "hide" our traps as Martin does, or put them under one of the weldmesh/perspex-lidded "hats" we use to give overhead cover to some plants in winter ( we have these in all sizes from about four inches square to trough-sized) and weight these down with a stone to try to keep the thieves off, but , as Martin says, some of these felons are most persistant... I just hope they are catching and eating as many meece "on the hoof", as it were, as they do from the traps! At least the hedgehog can make it under the shed to find the nests as well as to live there.

[David Shaw]

We only use the traps in the greenhouse or similar space. A few years ago a bemused neighbour wondered why there was a trap lying on her kitchen floor! We did not own up (they are quite cheap).

[Boyed]

Thomas,

You forgot one important nuance, relating cats. If the cats are fed well, they start not caring of mice that much and don't catch them. Why to do so, if there is a better and tasty fed for them.
Anyway, neahter traps nor the cats don't solve the mice problem completely. 

[Lesley Cox]

Thomas, you calendar has been a great pleasure for 9 months and when I have to put up a new one, I'll leave yours beside it and enjoy iy all over again.

[Anthony Darby]

I seem to be able to grow only two autumn crocuses outside successfully: Crocus banaticus still in its seed pot and C. kotschyanus 'Ares' in a trough. A dull day has made the second pic very dark, even though it was taken soon after the first, which is more its true colour. The rest I grow in the alpine house. Here is C. serotinus clusii.

[Staale]

Great pic's, everyone. Interesting that several of you also mention that the Crocus and Colchicum are late this year. I too find that they come later than usual. A couple of the Colchicums havent flowered at all, but that might be due to moving them last year.

Here are some pictures of my plants:



Off for Scotland tomorrow!

[mark smyth]

discussion weekend?

[Staale]

Sorry, no discussion weekend for me, Mark. My fellow travellers did not like the idea of me having a vacation from the vacation, so to speak. But for Edrom and a hole day in RBG Edinburgh permission is granted (I did the booking, in a B&B very close to RBG, of cource 

All the best for all others attending the discussion weekend. Hope to make it some other time.

[mark smyth]

Glasgow and Edinburgh are only an hour apart - I think. Maybe you could come for a couple of hours one evening