Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch. I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers. No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them? Now, or spring? Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!
--
Graeme

On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:32:25 +0100, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch. I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers. No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them? Now, or spring? Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!

The latter although it's almost impossible to kill them.
BTW I think they are now called Crocisma if you need to look them up,
--
Jim S

On 24/09/2019 10:32, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch.Â* I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers.Â* No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them?Â* Now, or spring?Â* Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Put them in the ground and leave the foliage to die away naturally. I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them growing.
They are almost indestructible.


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 24/09/2019 11:17, Jim S wrote:
On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:32:25 +0100, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch. I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers. No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them? Now, or spring? Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!

The latter although it's almost impossible to kill them.
BTW I think they are now called Crocisma if you need to look them up,


Crocosmia x crocosmiflora, but montbretia is a perfectly acceptable
vernacular name.

--
SRH

On 24/09/19 11:17, Jim S wrote:
On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:32:25 +0100, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch. I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers. No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them? Now, or spring? Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!

The latter although it's almost impossible to kill them.
BTW I think they are now called Crocisma if you need to look them up,

+1

If they are the true Montbretia they are a noxious weed, listed as a
Schedule 9 species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I'm not
sure how accurate this is (from
https://www.invasiveweedsolutions.co.uk/invasive-weeds/non-native/montbretia/),
but they state:

- It is an offence to plant or allow to spread onto adjacent land and
into the wild.
- Possible fines and prison sentence under the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981.
- It is not an offence to have Montbretia on your land and you do not
need to notify anyone on the presence of this species.
- Soils containing Montbretia are classified as controlled waste and
should be disposed of at licensed landfill.

They spread by cormlets, and sometimes by seed. In my experience, even
glyphosate has difficulty killing them (as it does with many plants
which have a storage organ such as a bulb, e.g. Spanish Bluebell). If
your neighbour still has them, keep an eye out for the leaves suddenly
appearing in your garden. :-(

--

Jeff

On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/09/2019 10:32, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch.Â* I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers.Â* No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them?Â* Now, or spring?Â* Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Put them in the ground and leave the foliage to die away naturally. I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

--

Jeff

On 24/09/2019 12:24, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 24/09/19 11:17, Jim S wrote:
On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:32:25 +0100, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch.Â* I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers.Â* No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them?Â* Now, or spring?Â* Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!

The latter although it's almost impossible to kill them.
BTW I think they are now called Crocisma if you need to look them up,

+1

If they are the true Montbretia they are a noxious weed, listed as a
Schedule 9 species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I'm not
sure how accurate this is (from
https://www.invasiveweedsolutions.co.uk/invasive-weeds/non-native/montbretia/),
but they state:

Â*- It is an offence to plant or allow to spread onto adjacent land and
into the wild.
Â*- Possible fines and prison sentence under the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981.
Â*- It is not an offence to have Montbretia on your land and you do not
need to notify anyone on the presence of this species.
Â*- Soils containing Montbretia are classified as controlled waste and
should be disposed of at licensed landfill.

TBH I'm a bit surprised that it is in this list. It survives OK on my
clay soil but daffodils and narcissi are both more invasive.

They spread by cormlets, and sometimes by seed. In my experience, even
glyphosate has difficulty killing them (as it does with many plants
which have a storage organ such as a bulb, e.g. Spanish Bluebell). If
your neighbour still has them, keep an eye out for the leaves suddenly
appearing in your garden. :-(

I have never seen it escape from gardens around here. Daffodils do!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message , Jeff Layman
writes
On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

That seems a little extreme. The plants are for my own garden, not for
planting out and about in random fields and hedgerows. They came from a
neighbour, who is thinning (not removing) hers and, in 20 years here, I
have never noticed the neighbour's plants spreading outside her garden.
--
Graeme

On 24/09/2019 12:30, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/09/2019 10:32, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch.Â* I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers.Â* No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them?Â* Now, or spring?Â* Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Put them in the ground and leave the foliage to die away naturally. I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

Japanese knotweed is actually seriously invasive. Although I recall from
my youth that there seemed to be a less invasive cultivar growing in the
Victorian garden of a big house I used to play at. A stand of it still
persists in a nearby park. The big house has long since been demolished
and all its land built on. I would never advocate planting it, but I
think the risks it poses in a garden are being a little overhyped.

Montbretia is nothing like so invasive at least where I have gardened.
It might be more of a problem down south but it barely clings on here.
Better coloured crocosmia cultivars are my choice anyway.

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

That seems a little extreme. He certainly shouldn't plant them anywhere
other than in his garden but they are nowhere near as bad as some truly
invasive weeds. I note hotentot fig is also on the same list, but that
is really only a problem on the well drained cliffs of Cornwall. It rots
away completely in our grey wet winters in most other locations.

I can just about keep close relatives of that stuff alive in a dry
hanging basket along with other almost hardy succulents.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In message , Martin Brown
writes

Montbretia is nothing like so invasive at least where I have gardened.
It might be more of a problem down south but it barely clings on here.

Seems to grow reasonably well here (Royal Deeside) but, as I said
earlier, I have not noticed it invading this or other gardens despite
our neighbour having quite a display.

--
Graeme

On 24/09/2019 13:54, Graeme wrote:
In message , Martin Brown
writes

Montbretia is nothing like so invasive at least where I have gardened.
It might be more of a problem down south but it barely clings on here.

Seems to grow reasonably well here (Royal Deeside) but, as I said
earlier, I have not noticed it invading this or other gardens despite
our neighbour having quite a display.


In my experience Crocosmia is persistent where established but not
invasive. Lamiastrum galeobdolon argentatum is worse. And there are
several weedy plants which have been expanding into the region.

--
SRH

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/09/2019 12:30, Jeff Layman wrote:

Japanese knotweed is actually seriously invasive. Although I recall from
my youth that there seemed to be a less invasive cultivar growing in the
Victorian garden of a big house I used to play at. A stand of it still
persists in a nearby park. The big house has long since been demolished
and all its land built on. I would never advocate planting it, but I
think the risks it poses in a garden are being a little overhyped.

Japanese knotweed is a serious problem but, as far as I can discover,
is the ONLY land plant which is more than a local nuisance. What the
bureaucrats and English nationalist botanists don't say is that almost
all of the UK ecologies are made up entirely of recently invasive
plants. And, despite their dogmas, most distinctions between native
and introduced plants in the UK are ecologically meaningless, and
some are definitely scientific crap[*].

There is a HELL of a difference, ecologically, between merely invasive
plants and those that exclude all others. And only Japanese knotweed
falls into the latter category over most of the UK, with Rhododendron
ponticum and possibly Himalayan balsam doing so in a very few locations.
I have never seen Montbretia do that, but it might in even fewer
locations.

The same is not true for waterweeds.

Schedule 9 has been abused by bureaucrats to introduce completely
ridiculous rules.

Montbretia doesn't like soggy conditions or hard frost, which is why
it grows where it does in the wild. In other parts of the UK, it's
not even invasive.
[*] The most extreme I have seen are the bullace/beech distinction,
and Russell lupin, but there are innumerable others that are classified
by pure speculation.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 24/09/19 13:05, Graeme wrote:
In message , Jeff Layman
writes
On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

That seems a little extreme. The plants are for my own garden, not for
planting out and about in random fields and hedgerows. They came from a
neighbour, who is thinning (not removing) hers and, in 20 years here, I
have never noticed the neighbour's plants spreading outside her garden.

Maybe the Wildlife and Countryside Act doesn't apply to Scotland. Even
so, if you really would like a Crocosmia there are much better cultivars
which are not invasive (according to the breeders).

FWIW, I took me five years to eradicate Montbretia in our previous
garden - and I had planted it without knowing what would happen! In our
new place which we moved into seven years ago a small patch of it was
already growing. I dug it out, but it came back, so I must have missed a
corm. I removed that, and a small plant appeared the next year. That
plant was removed, and for three years I didn't see it. This year, it
appeared again.

--

Jeff

On 24/09/2019 14:45, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 24/09/19 13:05, Graeme wrote:
In message , Jeff Layman
writes
On 24/09/19 11:30, Martin Brown wrote:
I
doubt there is much that you can do to them that will stop them
growing.
They are almost indestructible.

That is a crazy suggestion - apart from it being illegal (see my reply
to Jim S). Would you say the same thing if he had been given Japanese
Knotweed?!

The OP *must* not plant them. They need to be destroyed.

That seems a little extreme.Â* The plants are for my own garden, not for
planting out and about in random fields and hedgerows.Â* They came from a
neighbour, who is thinning (not removing) hers and, in 20 years here, I
have never noticed the neighbour's plants spreading outside her garden.

Maybe the Wildlife and Countryside Act doesn't apply to Scotland. Even
so, if you really would like a Crocosmia there are much better cultivars
which are not invasive (according to the breeders).

FWIW, I took me five years to eradicate Montbretia in our previous
garden - and I had planted it without knowing what would happen! In our
new place which we moved into seven years ago a small patch of it was
already growing. I dug it out, but it came back, so I must have missed a
corm. I removed that, and a small plant appeared the next year. That
plant was removed, and for three years I didn't see it. This year, it
appeared again.

But in that respect it is no different to foxglove, poppy or teasel.
Once you have them in a garden they are pretty much there to stay.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 24/09/19 12:31, Martin Brown wrote:
On 24/09/2019 12:24, Jeff Layman wrote:
On 24/09/19 11:17, Jim S wrote:
On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:32:25 +0100, Graeme wrote:

Morning all,

Just been given Montbretia by a neighbour, thinning her patch.Â* I have
the corms, complete with greenery and even a few orange flowers.Â* No
earth on the corms.

When should I plant them?Â* Now, or spring?Â* Should I cut off the growth,
or just leave it to wither and die?

Thanks!

The latter although it's almost impossible to kill them.
BTW I think they are now called Crocisma if you need to look them up,

+1

If they are the true Montbretia they are a noxious weed, listed as a
Schedule 9 species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I'm not
sure how accurate this is (from
https://www.invasiveweedsolutions.co.uk/invasive-weeds/non-native/montbretia/),
but they state:

Â*- It is an offence to plant or allow to spread onto adjacent land and
into the wild.
Â*- Possible fines and prison sentence under the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981.
Â*- It is not an offence to have Montbretia on your land and you do not
need to notify anyone on the presence of this species.
Â*- Soils containing Montbretia are classified as controlled waste and
should be disposed of at licensed landfill.

TBH I'm a bit surprised that it is in this list. It survives OK on my
clay soil but daffodils and narcissi are both more invasive.

Some daffs do seem a bit "vigorous", but they don't spread in the way
that Montbretia does.

They spread by cormlets, and sometimes by seed. In my experience, even
glyphosate has difficulty killing them (as it does with many plants
which have a storage organ such as a bulb, e.g. Spanish Bluebell). If
your neighbour still has them, keep an eye out for the leaves suddenly
appearing in your garden. :-(

I have never seen it escape from gardens around here. Daffodils do!

I don't know where you are, but I would guess anywhere south of a line
from Bristol to London would be fair game for Montbretia, and I think
that is why it has appeared in the CWA (see Chris Hogg's post).

--

Jeff