Cold Climate Gardening » Colchicums

Colchicums Sprouting in the Bag: New Garden

Kathy Purdy — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:15:03 +0000

When we first started the process of buying our new house, I thought we’d be moving in August. In early July I started digging up colchicum corms as the leaves died down, indicating they were going dormant. It turns out the first date proposed for closing on a house is usually wildly optimistic, and my first opportunity to plant the corms in their new homes was Labor Day weekend–when it was raining.

I dug these colchicums in early July, when they went dormant.

Long story short–I am still planting colchicums. It is disheartening to see them blooming in the bags. I’ve been told that it doesn’t hurt the plants in the longterm, as long as they get planted soon after. But it is a visual reminder that everything on my Moving To-Do list is not getting crossed off in a timely manner.

The weather has not been cooperating, but neither is the soil. This is what the native soil at the new place looks like:

The saturated clay soil is heavy and difficult to work with

The heavy clay is saturated from record-breaking rainfall in our area, making it hard to remove sod and weeds to plant these fall-blooming flowers. But this is exactly what the soil was like at our current home when we moved in over twenty years ago. It is much improved now, which gives me hope for the future. But it still makes it slow going now.

For the Plant Geeks Among Us: Colchicum Botanical Structures

The silver lining in this horticultural cloud is the opportunity to see how colchicums “work.” Compared to other bulbous plants, they have an odd structure–a foot–that extends below the base of the corm. You can see in the photo below that the primary flowering shoot emerges from this foot.

The primary flower stalk emerges from the foot of the colchicum corm.

In this next photo, you can see the dried up leaves from spring, one flower stalk emerging from the foot, and a second stalk emerging from the corm proper.

The leaves are from this past spring. If the ovary is fertilized, the seed capsule will emerge with next spring's leaves.

The stalk, by the way, is not a stem, but a perianth tube. It is all part of the flower. The ovary of the flower is down there at the bottom of the foot, buried underground under normal growing conditions. If it gets fertilized and seeds develop, they will emerge the following year in the center of the foliage.

Rose ovaries--the hips--are right behind the blossom.

Compare that with rose ovaries, which are right behind the petals, and form what we call the hip. That’s where you’d normally expect to find the seeds in a typical flower, not buried in the ground, only to emerge six or more months later, as colchicum seeds do.

That’s one reason why I like colchicums. Besides being pretty, they are seriously weird.

Colchicum ‘Beaconsfield’

Kathy Purdy — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:27:34 +0000

'Beaconsfield' colchicum

This is a recent acquisition from Odyssey Bulbs, in full, though battered, bloom on September 15th. It does not seem to be as tesselated (checkered) as Colchicum agrippinum. But since this is its first year, and since I was out of town for its peak bloom, we’ll revisit that issue next year. It appears it will be an early bloomer, as it couldn’t wait until it was planted, but was blooming in the shipping box.

Colchicum Sprouting When Received: Three for Thursday

Kathy Purdy — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:13:48 +0000

Sometimes when you get a mail order colchicum it is already sprouting in the bag. I have read that if that happens, you should cut off the blossoms and plant the corm. I decided to plant the corm at the appropriate depth, but leave the flowers uncovered until after they bloomed.

Day one

Day two

Day three

Please remember this is an experiment. I have no idea if this is helpful or harmful to the plant. This is Colchicum ‘Beaconsfield’, by the way. More on that tomorrow.

Three for Thursday is brought to you by Cindy of From My Corner of Katy: “Pick 3 pictures of plants from your garden … tell us about 3 books you’ve read that you want to share … rant about 3 things that bug the heck out of you … show us 3 pieces of garden art or 3 photos of egregious crimes against gardening … you choose what your three will be.” Just have fun, be creative and leave her a comment when your post is up!

Earliest Colchicums Ever

Kathy Purdy — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:26:42 +0000

I've never seen colchicums bloom this early

After two days of much-needed rain, I decided to walk around the garden to see what I could see. I wasn’t really expecting to see colchicums blooming, because they usually start in September. Perhaps the extended hot and dry spell, followed by the cool, rainy weather encouraged them to break dormancy early. At any rate, it was a pleasant surprise. These ones should be the variety ‘Zephyr’.

Colchicum interview on Web Talk Radio

Kathy Purdy — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:10:41 +0000

I join Helen Yoest of Gardening With Confidence this week to talk about Colchicums on Web Talk Radio. They will be blooming in about a month, you know.

Colchicums: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day October 2009

Kathy Purdy — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:06:42 +0000

You might think after a 26F freeze there would be nothing left blooming in the garden, but you would be wrong. The colchicums continue to shoot up new blossoms. Pictured above is Colchicum autumnale ‘Album’.

A vigorous but nondescript colchicum lines the shrubbery and looks fine from the house.

Early on in my colchicum acquisitions, I discovered three different varieties that, to my eye, were indistinguishable. It turns out a mongrel colchicum has infiltrated the ranks, and no one knows exactly what it is, but less discerning bulb houses send it out without question. The color is a bit washed out, but it is tall and vigorous.

These are the mongrel colchicums. They grow well in grass and make a good show from a distance.

I find that I enjoy these as an anonymous mass planting, though they had annoyed me greatly when I thought of them as incorrectly named cultivars–impostors.

Colchicum speciosum 'Album' peeks out from hosta leaves.

In general the white forms of normally pink species seem to bloom later.

'Lilac Wonder' colchicum blooms in a mass of catmint leaves.

‘Lilac Wonder’ is a reliable bloomer. Since it tends to flop, I plant it where the catmint foliage can give it some support.

Colchicum autumnale 'Alboplenum' looks like a carpet of stars.

Those are the colchicums that are more or less at their peak. Many other varieties have one or two blossoms lingering.

My one and only chrysanthemum, an unnamed passalong.

The chrysanthemum’s shaggy appearance fits right in with the last of the flowering tobacco and a few stray catmint blooms.

Mysterious Blue Flower Hanging Out with the Vegetables

Mysterious blue flower showed up in the vegetable garden. (Click to enlarge)

Can anyone tell me what this blue flower is? My two best guesses are bottle gentian and blue lobelia. Not sure how it wound up in the vegetable garden.

The Johnny-jump-ups are thriving in the cooler weather. The tall border phlox, especially the white one that came with the house, has just enough bloom that I hesitate to cut it down. The frost ruined the opened blooms of black-eyed Susans, dianthus, and flowering tobacco, but new blossoms have opened since then. I appreciate the stubborn hangers-on, the ones who are willing to give it one last shot. But I know the party’s over. Time to clean up.

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens, and leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.

Colchicum Design Ideas from Montrose Gardens

Kathy Purdy — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:35:47 +0000

Many gardeners complain that it is difficult to place colchicums in the garden because of their unusual growing cycle, in which their leaves grow in the spring, die down in the summer, and then the flowers emerge in the fall. The colchicum bed at Montrose Gardens in Hillsborough, North Carolina, pictured above, contained many colchicum design ideas that could be implemented in any garden.

Approaching the bed from this direction, we are actually leaving the house and gardens proper and moving toward the entrance gate.

There are several different kinds of colchicums in this bed as well as other plants. (Red Dirt Ramblings has a nice close-up shot.) At the far end of the bed are several clumps of a plant that has bluish flowers with a mauve cast which complements the varying lilac-pink shades of the colchicums very well. (I think it is hardy ageratum, Eupatorium coelestinum, but since that is “hardy” to Zone 6 I am going more by the pictures I have seen of this plant. You Southerners help me out here.) These plants anchor both ends of the bed and also echo the flower color of a different plant in a bed further along, thus tying the two beds together with color.

Colchicums star in this bed, but the other plants were carefully chosen to work with them. (Click on the photo to enlarge)

A bright magenta petunia and dark purple foliage plants echo the color of the colchicums. They share the same hue but their values are quite different. The grey-green of some of the foliage plants is the opposite of the colchicum’s bluish pinks and flatters them by contrast. Similar interactions are going in this photo from my own garden:

Different hues of pink and green play off each other.

There are white colchicums in this Montrose Gardens bed, too, but they get a different design treatment:

The black grass makes the white flowers stand out.

I am pretty sure this is black mondo grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’, but again, this is another plant that is not hardy in my area. I get the same dramatic contrast by growing white colchicums with a dark leaved ajuga:

Colchicum autumnale var. alboplenum stands out in a bed of dark ajuga

Without the dark leaves for contrast, the white flowers are not as visible, especially when there is a lot going on, as in the Montrose bed. But you know, pairing plants based on flower color is relatively easy. What stumps a lot of gardeners is how to handle colchicums in the spring, when their foliage emerges and then goes dormant.

The hellebores are background plants now, but were in their glory when the colchicums were leafing out.

In spring when the colchicum leaves emerge, the hellebores, seen in the back in the photo above, are blooming their hearts out. I can see in my minds’ eye that the upward thrusting colchicum leaves would make a pleasing structural counterpoint to umbrella-like hellebore foliage. But what really stumps gardeners, especially the fastidious, deadhead-and-keep-everything-edged sorts, is what to do when those oversized leaves are going dormant:

Colchicums are hard to love when they're going dormant.

Even I, the self-appointed colchicum evangelist, must concede that they are not at their best at this stage. What you may not have noticed in the Montrose photos above, but which I could see at the time, was the presence of hardy geranium foliage. Hardy geraniums are making lovely mounds of greenery, spangled with blooms, just when the colchicums are at their worst. Depending on which hardy geraniums you plant, you can easily camouflage the waning colchicum leaves with some lusty geraniums. And the geraniums are usually due for a cutback shortly before the colchicums bloom. It’s a win-win situation that I first read about in an essay by Brian Bixley in Essays on Gardening in a Cold Climate. (Catchy title, yes?)

I was very happy to find these colchicums blooming at Montrose Gardens. Since so many of these southern plants were unfamiliar, stumbling across these flowering bulbs was sort of like meeting up with your next door neighbor when traveling abroad. I was pleased to see that the same siting and planting techniques that I have used to incorporate colchicums in my garden were also used at Montrose Gardens, though with a southern plant palette.

Colchicums: isn’t it time you planted some?

First colchicum

Kathy Purdy — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:24:16 +0000

My first colchicum is up but hasn’t pinked up yet.

This is Colchicum byzantinum.

Most colchicums emerge white and then pink up over the next few days.

Did you know I am a colchicum evangelist, spreading the good news of colchicums wherever I go? For some of my earlier messages, check out the archives.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June 2008

Kathy Purdy — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:29:12 +0000

Poppies, peonies, and iris: the three Grandes Dames of June

In a cold climate, the gardening season is shorter and more compressed. By the time the spring flowers get going, boom! it’s summer. Consider this: on May 29th we had our last frost. The next day it hit 80F (27C), which we reckon to be summery, and a mere nine days later it was 92F (33C). So anything you wait until danger of frost is passed to plant gets hit with summer before it knows which way is up. That doesn’t happen every year, but it shows why we often have what other people consider spring flowers blooming with summer flowers.

Around here, there are three flowers synonymous with June: Oriental poppies, peonies, and several kinds of iris. I think of them as the three grandes dames of spring. They are all “look at me” flowers, reliable plants that have been in gardens–and memories–for over a century. I’m going to feature the grandes dames in my photos and just list the rest of what’s blooming. I’m trying out a new feature of WordPress that’s supposed to create a gallery of photos. It’s not working quite as expected, but I’m calling it good enough for today. Hover over each photo to see its title; click on each for a larger image.

Also Blooming Now

feverfew
catmint
giant yellow scabious (just starting)
‘Wanderin’ Wind’ rose (my Griffith Buck rose)
German catchfly (Lychnis viscaria ‘Plena’)
‘Sooty’ sweet William
perennial flax
bloody cranesbill
various columbines, including the native one in our field
maiden pinks
‘Joan Elliot’ clustered bellflower
garden heliotrope
‘Miller’s Crimson’ primrose
Lady’s mantle
snowberry bush (very tiny)
native rose (probably Rosa virginiana, photo here)
dames’ rocket
‘Black Stockings’ thalictrum
‘Concord Grape’ spiderwort
pink foxgloves
Johnny-jump-ups
forget-me-nots (on the decline)
mockorange shrub

Check out all the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day posts here.

Frost Damage–or Disease?

Kathy Purdy — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:55:53 +0000

These plants don’t look too happy, but I’m not sure if it’s the cold that put them in a snit, or a viral infection. Left to right: Daylily 2E, Colchicum giganteum, Daylily 4B, C. ‘Harlequin,’ Daylily 4C, C. speciousum

After nearly two weeks of warm, frost-free weather in April, my garden got socked with a 22 degree (-6C) night. I would like to think these poor plants are suffering from frost damage, but I know streaking in the leaves is a symptom of many plant viruses.

Please, faithful readers, if any of you have seen plants with this kind of leaf damage and know what it is, I’d love to benefit from your expertise. If you click on either of the above close-ups, you will get a much larger image that may make diagnosis easier.