Crocus From Seed.

Crocus from seed.

Crocus from seed is so rewarding, I have found it is better to plant the corms into the garden in their second year from their seed pots, otherwise you can forget to water or water too much and loose the babies. They will probably not flower for another year after that, but the following year they will if they are in the right position. I did not grow this first Crocus from seed above and below but Otto did and he gave me a couple of bulbs 4 years ago. It is a very special Autumn flowering Crocus caspius collected by Paul Furse and his wife collection number 5035 while travelling in 1965 in northern Iran, they wrote in their notes "common, dug by pigs" I was looking at Janis Ruksans book of Crocus of the World and he said he went to the same area and hunted for this Crocus caspius and could not find it. I immediately thought the pigs ate the lot, having come from a farm I can quite believe this, but you think a few would have survived. This Crocus comes from a moist position 1,300m above sea level, mine is shaded during the summer months by a Bletilla striata, it grows easily in a semi shaded position.

Crocus gilanicus from AGS seed above and below only one seed has germinated but hopefully this will multiply not sure if it is correctly named, but I need to wait and get some one to look at it, it should have white filaments and mine are yellow.

Crocus hadriaticus from Marcus Harvey's collected seed on Greece, I have included this Crocus in an earlier blog but there is such variation in seed, the other photo of Crocus hadriaticus had no stripping on the lower part of the flower and this one does. Sunny position Autumn flowering.

Crocus banaticus top photo is AGS seed 2015 a very large, deep dark flower, and below is from SRGC  seed 2015 just the regular C. banaticus flowers, it comes from moist meadows 130-700 m from Romania, SE Slovakia, E Hungary, NE Serbia and NW Ukraine. Autumn Flowering needs semi shade in Australia, dig a little course grit through your soil before you plant it, it will grow better if it is in a loose soil, if your soil is heavy like mine.                                                      

Much excitement when I found Fermi's Narcissus obsoletus below not quite out, the slugs always get the flowers before I ever get to see them. I did dig these up in the summer as they had become congested and needed more sun, there are more flowers to come I may get a better photo in the next lot.