Crocuses in April-2012

[Janis Ruksans]

Very late to start, but still few crocuses are blooming in greenhouse. May be it will be single entry.
The first two pictures are of Crocus biflorus pulchricolor from high altitudes of Ulu-Dag and late planted as I got this corm from Arnis late in autumn.
Still bloom Crocus minimus. cv. Little Girl, but really I don't like it. Looks something suspicious to virus infection and I'm keeping pot isolated from other crocuses.
Janis

[ronm]

Maybe not only post Janis,  because i have a question, please. This year my C. vallicola has developed leaves up to about 5cm high and then stopped. They reached this height about two months ago and have since not moved!. I am concerned over this behaviour, but am not sure what to do, if anything. Any ideas please?

[Janis Ruksans]

Maybe not only post Janis,  because i have a question, please. This year my C. vallicola has developed leaves up to about 5cm high and then stopped. They reached this height about two months ago and have since not moved!. I am concerned over this behaviour, but am not sure what to do, if anything. Any ideas please?

I can reply with only one word - frost
I have same problem with vallicola pots. Fortunately I have box with flowering size seedlings which will help me to carry out my orders. All were covered in same way, - by 5cm glasswool sheets, but lied on soil protected from sides against frost, but pots were on raised beds and frost entered from sides. Of course - I kept species, but lost (most likely) some 20 different samples from different locations.
More important question what to do?
My recommendation - stop watering, allow leaves to die. Don't touch corms (don't replant) and keep for next year. Of they will form leaves next spring - OK - they will alive. You can take leaves tips between fingers and slightly push up. If shoot doesn't come out - hopes are greater, if it easy comes out the bottom will be rotten and this mean that died not only roots and partly old corm, but new formed on top of old is killed, too. Then not worth to wait following spring.
Janis

[ronm]

  Thank Janis. I really believe you are 100% correct, but I was hoping for alternative view .  Time to face up to the truth and cross the fingers.
Thanks again for your advice

[Lesley Cox]

And there are many crocuses out now in the SH of course. Just need to get the camera going. For me, C. vallicola is turning out to be one of the very best; lots of flowers and lots of seed in the early summer.

[anita]

The seedlings from my first tentative steps into growing crocus from seed are starting to flower.
There were single blooms from C. boryi and C. pulchellus last year, from seed sown in 2009, but this year many more corms from that sowing had reached flowering size.
Crocus pulchellus, Crocus boryi (The precocious corm from last year must be the one that produced four blooms from a single corm this year.. but a number produced 2 blooms),  C. longiflorus and Crocus biflorus melantherus.
I now fully empathise with crocophile Augustus Bowles description of his delight in going down to the crocus beds and seeing what blooms are emerging; even though I’ve got a few dozen pots and he had entire beds!
I’m not sure whether I should be thanking Marcus Harvey for sending me his seed list and encouraging me to try growing from seed or whether I should be cursing him for a new addiction.
Please excuse the unattractive wire mesh in the pics. All my seeds are raised outdoors… the wire while decidedly ugly, stops the wretched blackbirds from destroying the pot of seedlings. I’ve also had to put wire out to protect them from our hens, which are really handsome but can wreak havoc.
Also a few other bits and bobs in the garden C. tournefortii and C. niveus and in a pot C. pulchellus albus… which is now on my must get more list.
I’ve also got C. goulimyi Mani White in the garden but last year I split the compact clump and spread the bulbs around they’ve flowered but I must admit that I preferred the impact of having nearly 20 blooms in one spot to what I have now which is a half a dozen on so in different spots. I know that it’s a good move in the long term and the overcrowding was affecting the bulbs as they had increased in bloom for a couple of years.. but I still miss that WOW factor of a good sized mass.

[Lesley Cox]

So another full-blown croconut in the making. Welcome to the land of crocaddiction Anita. I'm surprised the world's governments have not already banned crocophilia and crocophiliacs.

[ranunculus]

Crocus nevadensis spotted above the snow line in the Sierra Nevada of southern Spain today.

[Lesley Cox]

What beautiful veining and there seems to be a little lamp sitting in the base of the flower, glowing away there.

[tonyg]

Crocus nevadensis spotted above the snow line in the Sierra Nevada of southern Spain today.

  More please!

Also belated thanks for the  excellent lecture last week!  Good to see you, if only briefly.

[fermi de Sousa]

More from the Southern Hemisphere
Crocus ochroleucus

cheers
fermi