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/ ************************************************* 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 Member of INTERNATIONAL CLIVIA CO-OP