I think we are at the peak of colchicum season. The very earliest ones are finished, the mid-season ones are in their prime, and the last are just getting going!
The white ones seem to bloom later than their pigmented counterparts.
In the very
first Colchicum Patrol, I came upon
Colchicum autumnale. Now her pale sister is blooming. I know I planted more than just these few. Perhaps they are just getting started.
Colchicum giganteum has a different shape, more like a lily, less like a tulip or crocus
is not very gigantic if you ask me. And it is a species, not the hybrid ‘The Giant’. It has a different shape from many colchicums, looking more like a lily than a tulip or crocus.
Some say Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ is the fairest of them all.
‘Album’ won an
Award of Garden Merit. She is an elegant, spare beauty, and doesn’t seem to multiply as quickly as many of her rosy, rough-and-tumble cousins.
The one other colchicum that started blooming this week was supposed to be ‘Dick Trotter’ but looks just like ‘Lilac Wonder’ and nothing like the pictures of ‘Dick Trotter’ I have seen on the web. So very disappointing; I have plenty of ‘Lilac Wonder’.
So far we have had several light frosts but not one hard frost or freeze. Colchicums take these light frosts in stride. A hard freeze will beat up any blooming flowers, but new ones will emerge unscathed. I am still crossing my fingers for ‘Waterlily’, which is always the last and often looks like brown mush. Still, by now you can see that if you get a variety of blooming times you can have several weeks of fun going on colchicum patrol.
Tagged as:
colchicum,
Colchicum patrol,
Colchicums
About the Author
Kathy Purdy is a colchicum evangelist, converting unsuspecting gardeners into colchicophiles. She would be delighted to speak to your group about colchicums or other gardening topics. Kathy’s been writing since 4th grade, gardening since high school, and blogging since 2002.
In the end, this may be the most important thing about frost: Frost slows us down. In spring, it tempers our eagerness. In fall, it brings closure and rest. In our gotta-go world–where every nanosecond seems to count–slowness can be a great gift. So rather than see Jack Frost as an adversary, you could choose to greet him as a friend.
~Philip Harnden
in
A Gardener’s Guide to Frost: Outwit the Weather and Extend the Spring and Fall Seasons
I am not sure I have album, but I might have to have it in the white garden.