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!
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 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.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.
I am not sure I have album, but I might have to have it in the white garden.