Colchicum Patrol: Week 4

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

Colchicum giganteum 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.

Colchicum speciosum ‘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.