It's Autumn Crocus flowering time
The first autumn Crocus is Crocus hadriaticus hadriaticus, seed from Marcus Harvey 2010 a lovely globular shape with a good yellow centre. Growing in full sun and a well drained position. I find when I grow bulbs from seed and they germinate in your micro climate of your own garden, they do so much better for you than buying bulbs. They do not turn a hair when planted out. Ian Young from the Scottish Rock Garden Society is alway's advocating this as well. I really only grow the easy Crocus in the garden, I raise a lot of the rare ones and keep them in pots just to kill them off, I either water too much or not enough. So now in the second year form seed I am planting them into the garden, its still to early to see if I am going to be more successful this way as they are not up yet.
Crocus laevigatus above and below flowers for such a long period from early autumn through into winter, will tolerate a little shade and does not need a baking to flower well. My bulbs came from Felice Blake one of our founding members.
Crocus pulchellus another one from seed from Marcus Harvey, a very easy Crocus and will self sow when happy.
Crocus longiflorus multiplied well in my other garden we will wait and see what it does here.
Crocus serotinus serotinus, looks like silk.
Crocus serotinus salzmannii another crocus from Marcus seed as Crocus ex salzmanii albus but as with most plants from seed you get variation.
Crocus serotinus salzmannii a lovely large clump that I inherited in the garden. Of course most of the Crocus have had a name change, so I have been working from the English AGS web page as they have a wonderful amount of information on Crocus. I find it very difficult to keep up with all the name changes and Crocus seem to have more than any other genus of bulbs.
I do not feed my Crocus in the garden as they seem to flower well with out any additional fertilisers, you will need to see if bulbs flower well for you to see if you need to fertilise or not.
Crocus nudiflorus above and below from Otto more years ago than I care to remember. It is stoloniferous and multiplies well forming patches. Likes a little shade.
Crocus boryi a lovely soft pale pinkish-lavender flowers with white anthers and orange stigma divided into about 5 branches and a yellow throat, where as C. hadriaticus only has 3. I originally have had this Crocus named as C. hadriaticus and have had it for years named as that, it loves a very hot sunny position mulched with Camellia flowers. Otto thinks its C. boryi so I will go with that.
NEW. I have sent photo's to Mr Tony Goode of the AGS Crocus web site, of the above Crocus flowers, he thinks it may be Crocus tournefortii after having a look on the internet again I feel he may be right. It was from seed from Archibald I think? as I can not read the label fully and have not kept a proper record of this Crocus I am cross with my self. I do not want to lift the bulbs to look at the tunic as I do not want to loose these Crocus, I will wait until it is dormant then dig them up to have a look.
Crocus boryi seed from Marcus Harvey 2010 above and below, this one looks similar to the C. boryi on the AGS web site on crocus.
Crocus boryi a few days later with more flowers out.
Crocus laevigatus alba above and below from Barbara and Philip Gordon. It has had two name changes since I have had this Crocus, I received it as Crocus laevigatus alba then it was Crocus laevigatus cretensis and now it is back to Crocus laevigatus alba, I have no idea how to sort these crocus out. Christopher Grey-Wilson say's in his book called Bulbs "The plants from Crete have often incorrectly been referred to as C. cretensis. They are often slightly smaller than the forms of C. laevigatus found in the rest of Greece. The true C.cretensis is a synonym of C.boryi".
Crocus thomasii that I haven't managed to kill in a pot.
Crocus nudiflorus above and below from Otto more years ago than I care to remember. It is stoloniferous and multiplies well forming patches. Likes a little shade.
Crocus boryi a lovely soft pale pinkish-lavender flowers with white anthers and orange stigma divided into about 5 branches and a yellow throat, where as C. hadriaticus only has 3. I originally have had this Crocus named as C. hadriaticus and have had it for years named as that, it loves a very hot sunny position mulched with Camellia flowers. Otto thinks its C. boryi so I will go with that.
NEW. I have sent photo's to Mr Tony Goode of the AGS Crocus web site, of the above Crocus flowers, he thinks it may be Crocus tournefortii after having a look on the internet again I feel he may be right. It was from seed from Archibald I think? as I can not read the label fully and have not kept a proper record of this Crocus I am cross with my self. I do not want to lift the bulbs to look at the tunic as I do not want to loose these Crocus, I will wait until it is dormant then dig them up to have a look.
Crocus boryi seed from Marcus Harvey 2010 above and below, this one looks similar to the C. boryi on the AGS web site on crocus.
Crocus boryi a few days later with more flowers out.
Crocus laevigatus alba above and below from Barbara and Philip Gordon. It has had two name changes since I have had this Crocus, I received it as Crocus laevigatus alba then it was Crocus laevigatus cretensis and now it is back to Crocus laevigatus alba, I have no idea how to sort these crocus out. Christopher Grey-Wilson say's in his book called Bulbs "The plants from Crete have often incorrectly been referred to as C. cretensis. They are often slightly smaller than the forms of C. laevigatus found in the rest of Greece. The true C.cretensis is a synonym of C.boryi".
Crocus biflorus ssp melantherus seed Marcus Harvey 2010 above and below.
1 comment:
You have a lovely collection of autumn crocuses Viv. I don't know why they're not more readily available (commercially) in Australia because for most of them we have ideal growing conditions.
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