TOW Crocus Species
J.E. Shields (Tue, 04 Feb 2003 15:00:37 PST)

Hi Tony and all,

Well, I guess I'll have to settle for that answer. Thanks.

Can anyone give me a source, preferably in the USA, of a flowering strain
of Crocus kotchyanus?

I have from time to time added other strains of C. tommasinianus, and I'm
happy that they survive and bloom. One batch of tommasinianus is
interplanted in a naturalized area with Narcissus and Cochicum. I think I
will try some more types of crocuses in the same planting, maybe some more
fall blooming types. Here's to confusion to our enemies!

What are some recommended sources for such crocuses as Crocus ancyrensis,
Crocus baytopiorum, C. grargaricus, and C. cvijicii ? I don't mind
importing when I buy enough to justify the cost of a phyto.

Might my luck with Crocus banaticus have been better if I had planted it at
the edge of my woodland garden, which gets watered during dry spells,
instead of out in the open, where it goes from very wet to bone dry and
back again several times in the course of a normal year here?

Jim Shields
in cold and snowy central Indiana

At 09:40 PM 2/4/03 +0000, you wrote:

..........

Jim S "wants crocuses that bloom and grow like weeds!" - Hmm ...
Could you ask me another question?! :) I guess the first answer is to
buy lots of the cheap ones, at least your expenses will be low and
they are cheap because they increase quickly for someone else! The
clumping of that one small corm of C tommasinianus is encouraging -
deffinately worth trying more of those. Several cheap cultivars are
forms or hybrids of this species. Whitwell Purple is one that comes
to mind. The dutch hybrid crocus should be possible (?) but are
perahps too gaudy?

Crocus kotschyanus is often cheaply available in the UK from Dutch
stocks. This is known by the cognescenti as the "Non-flowering clone"
It carries a virus and although growing quite vigorously from large
rather irregularly shaped corms it never produces a flower. Perhaps
this is what you have Jim? I have seen it in prolific self seeding
good form in a local garden but that was before the local squirrels
discovered a new delicacy.
............
Tony

Tony Goode. Norwich UK Mintemp -8C
http://www.thealpinehouse.fsnet.co.uk/

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. +1-317-896-3925
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