Crocuses Take Five Years To Bloom
 

Crocuses "Snowstorm" and "Rememberance", planted 2001, nice striped foliage
year after year . . . .no blooms. BUT, this year, finally! Big, big showy
blooms, prominent stamens.

Why the delay?

Never babied them, no watering, no fertilizer, never disturbed or crowded
with other bulbs.

Maybe a little water and a little fertilizer might help, huh ????


--James--


----------------------------

Never babied them, no watering, no fertilizer, never disturbed or crowded
with other bulbs.

If winters are extremely mild or bulbs are right up close to the house
where they stay a bit warm, many crocuses will not bloom because they did
not have a sufficient dormancy period, then if suddenly they get a real
winter chill they do fine that spring.

If bulbs were cheap & tiny, they could have taken a couple years merely to
mature sufficiently to bloom.

If the crocus grass was mowed or cut back every year, that would've kept
the bulbs too weakened to bloom, since they need the grass the entirety of
spring in order to charge up with enough energy to bloom the year after.
So too if slugs ate the grass before the bulbs were recharged, no blooms
the following year.

Snails, slugs, moth larvae, beetle larvae or even mice or a squirrel, may
have eaten the flower buds as they emerged; mice LOVE crocus buds, & the
bulbs too if they're planted too shallow.

Or they did flower but weather patterns (like hard beating rain & zippo
for sunlight) caused them to last only a day or two instead of two to four
weeks, so they were beaten down & bug-eaten before you noticed them. This
happens easily with crocuses which can be spectaculous one year & duds the
next depending on timing of sun & rain patterns.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
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"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden
people maintaining a free civil government." -Thomas Jefferson

"paghat" wrote in message
...
If winters are extremely mild or bulbs are right up close to the house
where they stay a bit warm, many crocuses will not bloom because they did
not have a sufficient dormancy period, then if suddenly they get a real
winter chill they do fine that spring.

If bulbs were cheap & tiny, they could have taken a couple years merely to
mature sufficiently to bloom.

If the crocus grass was mowed or cut back every year, that would've kept
the bulbs too weakened to bloom, since they need the grass the entirety of
spring in order to charge up with enough energy to bloom the year after.
So too if slugs ate the grass before the bulbs were recharged, no blooms
the following year.

Snails, slugs, moth larvae, beetle larvae or even mice or a squirrel, may
have eaten the flower buds as they emerged; mice LOVE crocus buds, & the
bulbs too if they're planted too shallow.

Or they did flower but weather patterns (like hard beating rain & zippo
for sunlight) caused them to last only a day or two instead of two to four
weeks, so they were beaten down & bug-eaten before you noticed them. This
happens easily with crocuses which can be spectaculous one year & duds the
next depending on timing of sun & rain patterns.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
Get your Paghat the Ratgirl T-Shirt he
http://www.paghat.com/giftshop.html
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden
people maintaining a free civil government." -Thomas Jefferson


No, no, and no.

These are in a flower bed, undisturbed, for five years. Suddenly they're
all blooming. They were quite expensive, and the blooms are friggin'
enormous. I'm in Zone 3a, I'm thinking they may have been planted a wee too
*deep*, and took this long to work their way back up nearer to surface,
hence the foliage with no blooms.

As I said, for four seasons they had lush long lasting foliage and nary a
flower.

"James" wrote in message
...
Maybe a little water and a little fertilizer might help, huh ????



Nah. I don't think these respond well to babying.

You hit the crocus nail on the head. You planted them too deeply. Rule of
thumb about anything is three times the size of whatever it is (exceptions
are the iris "toes" or rhizomes, which like to sit on top with their roots
just in the soil and the rhizome showing above ground. ) Poppy seeds like
to sun germinate as they're so small, same with any small, fine seed. Crocus
bulbs are corms. They like to be no deeper than a couple inches, or first
knuckle deep. If you got long fingers, the rule of thumb is to just poke
them into the soil until just covered in about two inches of soil. My
friend's clump of crocus are thickening up wonderfully where they were
shallow. Where her husband planted them (a novice gardener and eager to try
out everything, which was neat) he put them five inches in the ground. They
didn't bloom for six years. We discovered them two years ago shallow and
blooming their heads off. He was estatic. We discovered they had worked
themselves up to the surface. Some bulbs need it deep, others like it
shallow. Muscari are another shallow bulb. Be sure to feed them this fall
with granular food where you planted them. Shove in a golf tee of a
noticable color right now where they are so you'll know where to scatter the
bulb food in the fall.

madgardener
"Leon Trollski" wrote in message
news:wwZ9e.1095964$Xk.639703@pd7tw3no...

"James" wrote in message
...
Maybe a little water and a little fertilizer might help, huh ????



Nah. I don't think these respond well to babying.