07-11-2003, 02:02 PM
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These autumn crocus were REALLY ready
In article ,
pamfree (Zemedelec) wrote:
Autumn crocuses will never supplant my esteme for cyclamens as the best
autumn bloomers, but they are definitely also wonders. Both are kind of
necessary, cyclamens brinbging blooms to shade, autumn crocuses to sunny
spots.
Omigawd, if ONLY I could get some cyclamen to thrive here--I planted several
bulbs in likely spots but so far, not even a variagated leaf. I'm
afraid it's
just..too.. hot and wet here.
zemedelec
I forget what's your zone, but you should be able to get them to thrive
down to zone 5. But if you bought tubers, these have been abused by drying
them out & storing, which they dislike even more than they disliked being
dug up in the first place. Tubers frequently take two or three years to
bounce back if they ever do. If you obtain instead either two-year-old
seedlings or young potted plants, they'll start performing immediately.
Avoid dried tubors because (a) they sometimes die before they can regain
strength, (b) they are universally stolen from the wild & put horrifying
pressures on natural populations, (c) they aren't as varied & unusual as
cultivars even when they do take h old, (d) they are frequently mislabeled
as to species so you may not even have the species you intended to buy &
what you have instead might not be as hardy in your zone.
Before I wised up about tubers I had several planted that produced nothing
for over a year (or through at least two autumns when they should have
showed themselves). I never disturbed their locations, however, & by their
third autumn, even the comparatively delicate (wild) C. persicums did
finally appear, & it appears that only one of these tubers for certain
simply died though for that first year I thought almost all of them had.
In the meantime, the seedlings I'd planted have spread & done
spectacularly well, as the seedlings just do better than the tubers from
word go.
The other trick is to choose well their location. The best place you can
plant C. coum & C. hederifolium is right up close to the root-crown of
trees & large shrubs. You'll never be able to dig a hole big enough for
one of those tubers that close in amidst roots of big shrubs, but
seedlings will slip right in. I prefer them under deciduous shrubs & trees
so that I can see them autumn & winter, but they'll do fine under
evergreens too. The cyclamens will not thrive in soil that remains moist,
but amidst tree roots they not only get the amount of shade they prefer,
but the roots also dry out the soil so that it never remains too moist too
long at a time. Up next to root-crowns is also a good place for them in
terms of nothing else likes ot grow in such a location so you're less apt
to accidentally disrupt them when dormant in summer.
I swear they're easy. Even the tubers you planted may yet perform, once
they get over having been dried & stored before they were marketed.
-paghat the ratgirl
--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/
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