Rodger Whitlock wrote in message
...
On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 12:53:31 +0100, Spider wrote:

I am renewing some planting in my woodland garden, and I need to move
some
colchicum bulbs. Although they are not yet showing, they must be
getting
ready to flower by now. If I lift them in the next week or so, I am
risking
losing the bulbs? I appreciate that I could lose the flowers this year
~( , but could tolerate that provided the bulbs survive.

Any ideas or experience?

My practice is to lift and divide colchicums when they come into
flower. At that point, they've only pushed out a fraction of an
inch of new roots, so as long as you don't leave them out of the
ground for very long, they re-establish perfectly well.

Note that my climate differs from yours: much, much drier in
summer, hence possibly deeper dormancy in such bulbs.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
[change "atlantic" to "pacific" and
"invalid" to "net" to reply by email]


Dear Rodger,
Thank you so much for your prompt reply. Phew, I feel much happier about
moving them now, and shall do so as soon as possible. I shall probably have
to pot them up while I do all my earthworks, but at least I now know
they'll be safe.
You're a gem.
Regards,
Spider