Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Bulbs => Ian Young's Bulb Log - Feedback Forum => Topic started by: mark smyth on September 16, 2009, 08:35:30 PM

Title: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: mark smyth on September 16, 2009, 08:35:30 PM
Can I please be top of the spares list? ;D ::) vallicola? is gorgeous
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: Maggi Young on September 16, 2009, 08:53:54 PM
It's one of our top favourites, too... who could resist it? Some time ago I got a very pretty little watercolour of Crocus vallicola from Rosemary Cox as a present for Ian. I must get it photographed and show it here :)
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: mark smyth on September 16, 2009, 10:39:21 PM
If they could be chipped vallicola? should get the chop.
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: pehe on September 17, 2009, 02:24:40 PM
Ian, your Sternbergia experiment is interesting. Besides getting a warmer summer rest there is another advantage: A longer root run in the pot, where the nutrients is. That must result in better growth.
Some years ago I have seen Sternbergia lutea planted with the neck exposed in a botanical garden in Northern Italy. And there was lots of flowers. So I think your method works.

Poul
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: Janis Ruksans on September 19, 2009, 05:56:16 AM
Wild Colchicum laetum has small flowers, not more than 10 cm over soil. Such it is in wild and it keeps size in cultivation. It is quite rare - I offered it many years ago and after that lost my stock in hard winter. Only recently I acquired it again from my Estonian friend. More widespread and sometimes offered is Dutch garden form which by everything is very similar but size. In size it is close to all large Dutch colchicums and as with Dutch Colchicum kotschyi most possibly it is some garden hybrid with flower color arrangement similar to wild form. As you can suggest from name true wild laetum usually is very late blooming - one of the last in garden. After its introduction 27 years ago in first seasons it bloomed with me only in spring before it acclimatized to our conditions and returned to autumn blooming, keeping very late habit.
Janis
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: Gerry Webster on September 19, 2009, 10:07:04 AM
Ian, your Sternbergia experiment is interesting. Besides getting a warmer summer rest there is another advantage: A longer root run in the pot, where the nutrients is. That must result in better growth.
Some years ago I have seen Sternbergia lutea planted with the neck exposed in a botanical garden in Northern Italy. And there was lots of flowers. So I think your method works.
Poul

Thanks for this Poul, I'll try it. Was the botanic garden in Padua? I have dim memories of seeing bulbs half out of the ground there many years ago.
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: pehe on September 19, 2009, 08:11:41 PM
Gerry, it was in the garden of Villa Carlotta at the Como lake.
I have been there twice. First time was in the summer 1990. In the rock garden I found a bulb on the walking path. I did not know what it was, but it turned out to be Sternbergia lutea. This was the start of my Sternbergia collection.
My next visit was in October, and there I saw hundreds of lutea in flower and I noticed that they were planted with the neck visible.
Two years later my lutea 'Villa Carlotta' flowered for the first time.

Poul
Title: Re: Bulb Log 37 - 16/09/09
Post by: Ian Y on September 23, 2009, 01:29:50 PM

Quote
Can I please be top of the spares list?   vallicola? is gorgeous
Mark I have noted your request for next years re-potting.

Quote
Ian, your Sternbergia experiment is interesting. Besides getting a warmer summer rest there is another advantage: A longer root run in the pot, where the nutrients is. That must result in better growth.
Some years ago I have seen Sternbergia lutea planted with the neck exposed in a botanical garden in Northern Italy. And there was lots of flowers. So I think your method works.
Poul thank you for this information, I think in my garden it is more to do with the heat and drier compost near the surface than the extended root run as the bulbs always root out into the sand plunge.

Janis thank you for your information regarding Colchicum laetum it has confirmed my suspicion that we do not have the correct  plant but what should be called Colchicum laetum Hort.  Or better still given a cultivar name.
It is very difficult to sort out the Colchicums as there is no up to date book available that I know of.

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