Cold Climate Gardening

Yes, colchicums again. Or still. I can’t help it. When I start a project I like to finish it. And the box with all my colchicum books and notes has been banging around first the dining room, and then the living room, for far too long. Ask Collin, who has to clean the dining room, or Lachlan, who has to clean the living room. On second thought, don’t ask them. I–oh, never mind.

Colchicum atropurpureum has surprisingly slender leaves, especially compared to say, C. byzantinum, which has smaller flowers, but much wider and more plentiful leaves. In fact, I thought it was an offset of one of the other colchicums I have in this ell-of-the-house bed, but a consultation with Russell Stafford of Odyssey Bulbs persuaded me that C. atropurpureum might not be missing in action.

Mr. Stafford calls it “the deepest hued colchicum,” but, I don’t know, it seems to me that ‘Dick Trotter’–or was it ‘Nancy Lindsay’?–was equally rich in coloration. {Sigh} This is what I get for posting so long after the fact. Anyway, I think it’s really elegant. Its long perianth tube perfectly supports the blossom with the grace of a ballerina–no flopping over like ‘Lilac Wonder’ does–and it really is a deep, rich, beautiful hue. One thing all my sources mention is how it is white in bud, but I have seen other of my colchicums start out white and then color up, so I wonder why it is considered significant for this plant? Highly recommended.

Update 2006: I now believe this to be ‘Zephyr,’ and C. atropurpureum may never have bloomed. It should be quite a bit smaller than this plant.

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