Two plants carry the autumn garden between them. The colchicum throws up big bare goblets in September when the borders are going over, and the autumn crocus follows in October at a fraction of the size, so that between them they hold the ground from the end of August until the first frosts. Neither is difficult. Both are bought and planted earlier in the year than anything else we sell.
When Should You Plant Colchicum And Autumn Crocus
July and August, which makes them the first job of the bulb year. The dormant spell is a matter of weeks rather than months, so unlike a tulip there is no long summer of sitting in a paper bag waiting for the weather to turn, and anything left out of the ground for too long will start into growth without you. Order early. We cannot guarantee colchicum after the middle of September.
Will They Flower The First Autumn
Yes, and sooner than you expect. A corm planted in early August is often in flower by the middle of September, which is about as quick a return as any bulb gives, and if the bag sits on a shelf for a few weeks it will very likely start flowering in there instead. That is not a fault. It is the plant doing what it does, and it settles down once it is in the ground.
Why Do The Flowers Come Up With No Leaves
Because the leaves are still five months away. The flower is built entirely out of what the corm stored the previous spring, and the roots do not appear until after it has opened, when the soil cools and the autumn rain arrives, which is why a corm with nothing to feed on at all can still push out a perfect flower. The old country name for them is naked ladies. It could not be better put.
What Do You Do About The Spring Foliage
Put them where the leaves will not be in the way. Those come up in March, broad and strap shaped and closer to a daffodil’s than to anything else, and they take a great deal more room than the flowers ever did, so a colchicum squeezed between two small plants in a border will have smothered both by April. Twenty centimetres of clear ground each is the answer. Under a shrub does it, or out in grass.
Some are put off by the long months of leaf and no flower. We are not. A clump of colchicum foliage standing about in April is a reminder that they are still there and doing well, and that in September they will be doing the one thing nothing else in the garden is doing. All of it is gone by the end of June anyway.
Spend and Save
The more you plant, the more you save. The discount applies to your whole order, and delivery is free over £100.
Where Do Colchicums Look Best
In grass, which is where they have always looked best. The hay meadows and orchards of the west of England were once full of them, flowering in the mown aftermath when there was nothing else out at all, and a colchicum naturalised under an apple tree or along the foot of a hedge looks at home in a way that one in a bed never quite manages. Wild colonies have grown scarce since. That is one more reason to have them.
Soil is rarely the problem. They will grow in heavy clay and they will grow in a light sandy loam, and the only ground we would keep them out of is the dry shade under conifers, where very little succeeds anyway. Aspect is what decides how many flowers you get. A sheltered corner with the afternoon sun on it, in ground that does not bake hard in July, will give you noticeably more in the second autumn than an open windy bed will.
Are Colchicums Poisonous
Yes. Every part of a colchicum carries colchicine, which sounds alarming and is mostly good news in a garden, because it is exactly why deer and rabbits walk past a clump they would have stripped in a night if it were tulips, and why they came through centuries of grazed meadow when a good deal else did not. Wear gloves when handling the corms. The one real caution is the spring foliage, which should never go where it might be picked in mistake for wild garlic.
How Is An Autumn Crocus Different To Plant
Everything about it is halved. Where a colchicum goes down ten centimetres and sits twenty apart, an autumn crocus wants five and seven, and it asks for the opposite ground as well, sun and sharp drainage and a summer spent dry rather than the moisture the colchicum prefers. Plant in generous drifts. A dozen scattered singly through a border will disappear, where the same dozen at the foot of a tree or in the alpine garden will read as a colony.
The leaves catch people out. They follow the flower rather than coming with it, then stand through the winter and are still growing in spring, so what looks like a clump of coarse grass in February is next autumn’s flowers being built. Tidying it away is the surest way to lose them.
When Should You Move Or Divide Them
July, and not before the leaves have gone. Wait until the foliage has yellowed and begun to die back, lift the clump whole, pull the corms apart and get them straight back in, because the resting spell is short and one left lying in a shed will start growing on the bench. Every three or four years is often enough. A clump that has stopped flowering well is usually only crowded.
Which Colchicum Should You Choose
It depends on whether you are after size or quantity. The big goblets are speciosum, amethyst with a white throat, speciosum album in pure white, and The Giant, which is the tallest of the lot and lavender pink deepening towards the tips. Plant those three where they will be seen. They repay it.
The two doubles are a different thing altogether. Waterlily is fully double and bright lilac mauve, near enough to its namesake that people stop and ask what it is, and autumnale Alboplenum does the same in snow white on a smaller flower. For covering ground, Lilac Bedder naturalises more freely than any of them, and Nancy Lindsay carries more flowers for its size than anything else here.
Which Autumn Crocus Should You Choose
There is very little to choose between three of them. Speciosus Conqueror is violet blue with orange stigmata, pulchellus Zephyr white flushed pearly grey over a brilliant orange throat, and Zonatus heather pink with gold at the middle, all three opening in October at about ten centimetres with no leaves in the way.
Sativus is the exception, and it is not the flower that makes it one. This is the saffron crocus, and the three red filaments sitting in the middle of every bloom are the ones that end up in the kitchen.
What To Plant With Them
Something that has had its moment before the colchicum leaves get going. Winter aconites are over by the end of February, crocus tommasinianus and the reticulata irises by the middle of March, which is exactly when the foliage starts taking up room, so a single square metre can carry flowers in January, in February, in March and again in September with nothing ever fighting for the same space. In grass, daffodils are the better partner. You are holding the mower until June for both of them anyway.
Bloms Private Membership
Free postage for a full year. It comes free with any order over £100, or you can add it at checkout for £9.95.