Crocus April 2011

[TheOnionMan]

Absolutely fantastic mouth-watering crocus from everyone here on this page; and I'm suffering from crocus fever!

My crocus are getting ready to finish up, but after working all week and not seeing my crocus babies, this weekend is sunny and warm, 63 F (17 C), and a few crocus clumps look nice, I have to share some photos.

1. From a few bulbs in 2002, a clump of Crocus kosaninii is picture-perfect today; hardly a finer spring crocus species.  Glad I found out its true identity here on the pages of SRGC.  No seed was set last year, this year I hand pollinated so hope for some seed.
2. Crocus imperati suaveolens; a very slow grower, also planted 8-9 years ago , it is slowly increasing.  Are "imperati" and "suaveolens" considered separate species?  I'm not clear on this point.
3-4.  Crocus malyi 'Sveti Roc', a wonderful dwarf cultivar with full rounded flowers, reliable grower.

[Maggi Young]

Absolutely fantastic mouth-watering crocus from everyone here on this page; and I'm suffering from crocus fever!

My crocus are getting ready to finish up, but after working all week and not seeing my crocus babies, this weekend is sunny and warm, 63 F (17 C), and a few crocus clumps look nice, I have to share some photos.


2. Crocus imperati suaveolens; a very slow grower, also planted 8-9 years ago , it is slowly increasing.  Are "imperati" and "suaveolens" considered separate species?  I'm not clear on this point.

 Super crocus, McMark... open crocus flowers in the sunshine make my heart sing.

In Tony G's crocus pages you will read that C. imperati  suaveolens is distinguished from imperati imperati  by "the absence of a bracteole. This subspecies usually has less
well marked outer petals and can have a very sweet scent."

http://www.srgc.org.uk/genera/logdir/2010Mar281269808140Crocus_imperati_imperati.pdf

http://www.srgc.org.uk/genera/logdir/2010Mar281269808164Crocus_imperati_suaveolens.pdf

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks Maggi.  I received my corms as C. imperati suaveolens, and indeed the flowers are sweetly scented.  Here are three side views of the flowers in 2011, 2010, & 2009 respectively, but based on the PDF images, I suppose one has to look way down closer to the base of the buried tube to see if a bracteole exists, or would the bracteole be visible at ground level?

[Janis Ruksans]

My open garden beds became free of snow just before I left Latvia for searching of some Crocuses on Islands of Greece - Chios and Samos (by the way - very rich in crocuses - judging by their leaves everywhere where you only step out of car). My crocuses started to flower under snow and many was in bloom when snow disappear, so 10 days later when I returned to my garden most were gone, only veluchensis still are in full bloom.
But in greenhouse bloomed the latest of spring crocuses - Crocus minimus.
Here few forms of it
from Sardinia
Bavella stock received last year from Jim Archibald. By petal color it is identical with my earlier stock, but its stigma is orange. In original plants (and in my earlier stock) it is white.
and last one was received as "very late form" from Dirch.
Janis

[udo]

Janis,
the 'very late form' have since last year the name 'Little Girl',
in flower by me 1-2 weeks after Bavella form, when the last Crocus in spring.
By the way, my name is Dirk ( not Dirch).

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis,
the 'very late form' have since last year the name 'Little Girl',
in flower by me 1-2 weeks after Bavella form, when the last Crocus in spring.
By the way, my name is Dirk ( not Dirch).

Sorry Dirk!
Janis

[johnw]

Last of the early Crocus

Blue Pearl
tomassinianus Ruby Giant
Tricolor

johnw

[Hillview croconut]

Hi,

Would anyone care to take a stab at this crocus biflorus ...... ?

I collected it as seed at a place called (approximately) Kizilkilajabuk about 60km east of Honaz Dag. It grew in exactly the same habitat as C. b. ssp crewii does on Honaz, and at the same altitude, just below C. baytopiorum but is very random in colour and markings and doesn't have black anthers.

Anyone? Cheers, Marcus

[Hans J]

Hi Crocus fans ...

If you are interestet for Crocus versicolor from Vaucluse so please look here :
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=7176.msg199000#msg199000

Hans

[David Nicholson]

Well, given out heatwave at the moment, all of my Crocuses are well asleep and I can only wait until September So a quote from EA Bowles, taken from "My Garden in Spring", is very appropriate.

......."But for me, the very inmost cockle of whose heart glows more for a Crocus than for the most expensive Orchid, every cockle in me (though I haven't a notion what portion of my internal anatomy is meant by that borrowed appellation of maritime mollusc) is full of searchings and divisions how to do justice to my first garden love and avoid wearying and driving away readers to whom my raptures may appear the wanderings of a love-sick monomaniac.........."

With profuse apologies to those friends for whom English is not their first language for having to struggle through "Gussie's" elegant prose.

[Kees Green]

Hi Guys
I am gutted I have lost my Crocus korolkowii, only got it last year at alpine show and did not even see it flower.
I checked it last weekend and thought there should be some sign of growth, at least all the others have survived my difficult year. I guess it likes a dryer summer, well I will hopefully find another this year.

[Thomas Huber]

Kees, I always find Crocus korolkowii difficult to grow in my garden. Some year I have not a single flower and next year they flower like mad. I also have lost many of them, but fortunately never completely except 'Yellow Tiger' 



I have often been asked which plants I have in flower in summer, when the crocusses are sleeping.
Here some photos showing my crocusgarden in the last weeks:

08 - Tulipa chrysantha, Allium 'Mount Everest', in the foreground two small cacti
13 - A hardy Cactus and a 'mini-sequoia' between Galanthus- and crocus-leaves
15 - Overview of my latest rockgarden, built in 2008
07 - Edraianthus serpilifolius, Erigeron compositus and Eremurus leaves
11 - Allium bought as 'Purple Sensation' but in my mind the true plant is much darker than this one
12 - Overview from above
13 - Fibigia triquetra
21 - Aquilegia flabellata
03 - Does anybody know what this is? I thought it's a bad one and killed many of them, but then I saw one eating aphids 
02 - One of many Dianthus - have completely lost their names...

[Thomas Huber]

Some more:

08 - another beautiful Dianthus with Allium karataviense
13 - Allium christophii and hundreds of Aetionema creticum seedspods which has done very well in my garden.
20 - Campanula (poscharskyana?) with Allium carinatum growing through
21 - one more Dianthus between thousands of Sempervivum
22 - Lewisia seedlings growing like a weed in my sandy rockgardensoil
28 - Edraianthus serpilifolius, Allium karataviense, Papaver alpinum (yellow + white) and seedpods of Androsace carnea ssp brigantea
29 - Edraianthus pumilio, Papaver alpinum
32 - Linum campanulatum, Lewisia seedlings
33 - Erinus alpinus
37 - Linum campanulatum, a miniatur larch, and a lonely stem of Tulipa sprengeri - this year not flowering well after last years wonderful colour shows

[Thomas Huber]

The last photos:

41 - Overview from above, 2 weeks after the last one
43 - Erigeron compositus, Allium karataviense, Edraianthus serpilifolius
47 - Sedum pilosum
49 - Edraianthus pumilio
50 - Edraianthus serpilifolius
51 - an unknown Sempervivum from Switzerland, I love their red flowers
57+58 - hardy cacti survived the last two strong winters outside


A big thank you to Franz Hadaczek and Karl Plaimer whos alpine seeds have enabled such a lovely sight in my garden  

[Lori S.]

Beautiful sights, Thomas!
The critter you showed in your first set is the larvae of a ladybug or (correction) ladybird beetle.  Yes, they are predators of aphids.