Sacha wrote:
On 2009-07-08 15:15:14 +0100, Freedom_Spark
said:


Hi everyone, this year I moved my lupins to a different area of the
garden & bought some 'crocosmia crocosmiiflora' bulbs to bring a splash
warmth and colour, we planted them in late april at the spacing of ten
centimetres. The problem is I see no sign of the flowers, I've left the
area un-weeded (aside from those which I am certain are weeds and not
flowers, as I keep reiterating I'm a complete gardening novice) What do
young crocosmia look like? What should I be seeing at this stage? I
followed the instructions to the letter, is there any reason why they
wouldn't show up? The flowering time is supposed to be July to
September. Any advice very welcome.

They should certainly be not just showing now but in the case of C.
Lucifer, be flowering or preparing to do so, depending on where you
live. Our C. Lucifer are in flower now, our C. Krakatoa are in bud
and will be taking over from C. Lucifer. The leaves are a dull green
and quite broad maybe 3" to 4" across, straplike coming to a point.
The flowers are on racemes i.e. long 'spikes' of flowering heads. I
think either you've dug them out by accident, mice have had them,
they've rotted away in the wet, or perhaps frozen to death if you live
in a very cold area. The corms need to be planted in a sunny, well
drained spot.

And then treated with a several doses of glyphosate if you don't want them
coming up in you and your neighbours' gardens for the next umpteen years...

There are some very invasive Crocosmia plants out there. Not all, perhaps,
but you have been warned!

--
Jeff