Secrets of caring for a crocus from planting to flowering

Colchicum, aka colchicum, is an amazing creation of nature, whose flowers bloom in late autumn, when the rest of the plants has already come to a dormant period, and frosts occur more and more often at night. Perhaps there is no better way to revitalize a garden preparing for a long winter, to unexpectedly fill a dull landscape with gentle beauty and charm.

How to plant croppers? These plants, popularly also called autumnal plants, despite their external fragility, have an amazing will to live, and they need minimal care.

Choosing a place and time for disembarkation

Highly appreciated by lovers of perennial flowers, the exceptional unpretentiousness of crocus flowers, thanks to which they can be successfully grown in any corner of the garden. Planting them will not take much time, because you will not have to look for the most suitable place for the kolkhikum and specially prepare the soil.

These plants prefer light, loose soil with an admixture of sand, through which air and moisture pass freely to their roots. In such conditions, their flowering will be especially lush. In stagnant water, colchicum bulbs quickly rot, so the land must be well-drained. Planting crocus is possible in acidic and alkaline soil. It is able to develop even on clay soil, provided that it is relatively light and does not retain moisture in it.

The illumination of the site for autumn people does not play a big role. They tolerate bright sun and light shading equally well. The only thing to avoid when choosing a permanent place for a flower is the areas located under the spreading crowns of trees. In the dense shade, an invasion of slugs can destroy it.

Planting of crocus, which blooms in autumn, is carried out towards the end of summer. The optimal time for her is mid-August. In the life cycle of a plant, this is a dormant period. If you miss the recommended planting dates for colchicum, its corms, despite proper care, can release arrows with buds already during storage, without waiting for disembarkation. Then there is a high probability that they will not survive the frosty winter.

Breeding features

Colchicum can be propagated in two ways:

• seeds;
• daughter bulbs.

When sowing colchicum seeds, you will have to be patient: such plants will please with flowering only after 5-7 years. All this time, their bulbs will accumulate vitality in order to release buds. Therefore, planting in a generative way is almost never practiced. It is carried out most often only for those varieties that do not form daughter corms.

Advice

The advantage of seed propagation of crocus is that it allows you to bring out a large number of plants at once. Experienced gardeners use it as an addition to the vegetative method. While flowering plants from year to year will decorate the flowerbed, gradually aging, young croplands obtained from seeds will gain strength to form buds.

Ripe seeds are sown in the ground immediately after they are harvested. The longer they are stored, the less chance they will germinate. The soil is slightly moistened before planting. It should be loose and contain a lot of nutrients. You do not need to bury the seeds deeply.

Secrets of rooting bulbs

The vegetative method of reproduction of the crocus is simpler, and its result becomes visible faster: planting a large bulb can end with its flowering in the first year. They begin to prepare for it in the middle of summer.Carrying out the usual care of plants, they carefully monitor their appearance. The ideal time to harvest the bulbs is when the flower seeds are ripe and the leaves have withered and settled to the ground. It is not easy to get to the future planting material, it is located at a depth of 30-35 cm. The corms are dug out very carefully.

After extraction, they are thoroughly cleaned of soil, leaf debris and old mother bulbs. This is done carefully so as not to damage the scales covering the tuber. The tubes that they form are not cut off very much, it is along them that stems with buds will pass in due time. Then the bulbs are washed with water and kept in a cool solution of potassium permanganate for 30 minutes for disinfection. Preparation for planting is completed by drying. The tubers are laid out in a dry, well-ventilated, semi-dark place, where the temperature does not rise above 24 ° C, and stored there until placed in the ground (at least 2-3 days).

Correct planting of crocus leaves takes into account the size of the bulbs:

• for small tubers, make holes 6-8 cm deep, leaving a gap of 10-15 cm between them;
• large bulbs need a lot of space for germination and harmonious development of seedlings. The depth of the hole is brought to 12-15 cm, and the free space between them is increased to 20-25 cm.

The soil requirements are minimal: it must be loose and fertile. After planting the plant, all that remains is to provide it with proper care.

Fertilization and watering

Colchicum trees are among those rare flowers that do not need watering. It is even harmful to them: in moist soil, the bulbs become very vulnerable to rot. For most of the life cycle, the plant has enough water, which it receives naturally. Even in the sultry summer, caring for crocus leaves excludes watering. But it may be needed when the colchicum blooms, if the autumn turns out to be dry.

Regular feeding will help you get a healthy and strong plant. It is recommended to plant the flower in soil that contains elements useful for its harmonious development. Experts advise using a mixture of wood ash (1 l) and superphosphate (1 tbsp. L.) As a fertilizer for croplands. Spread the prepared composition over 1 m² of soil.

After planting, colchicum continues to feed throughout the spring, capturing the beginning of summer, when the leaves and stems of the flower are actively developing. Nutrient mixtures are added not too often - once every 2-3 weeks. Complex formulations with a high nitrogen content are used for feeding. Such care will have a positive effect not only on the leaves of the plant, which will become strong and large, but also on its bulbs. They will be able to accumulate more nutrients, which means that flowering will be more lush, and wintering will be easier.

Cropping: pros and cons

Colchicum will not bring unnecessary trouble in terms of pruning: he does not need it. Since the plant has a specific life cycle and its leaves wilt and turn yellow in the first half of summer, many gardeners cut them to return the flower garden to an attractive healthy appearance. For aesthetic purposes, they remove dried flowers in the fall.

Advice

In order for the bulb to accumulate more vitality on the eve of winter, and its ripening is completed successfully, it is not worth interfering with the natural process of plant development. Colchicum will be stronger and better tolerate adverse conditions if you let its leaves and flowers die off on their own.

Proper care of a flower garden with colchicum does not consist in getting rid of its faded parts, but in the competent selection of neighbors for it. Bush garden plants with large rich green leaves look good next to crocus flowers. They will cover the yellowed colchicum. It could be peonies hellebore or juniper... Low annual plants, the bright buds of which bloom in summer, will help to divert attention from the autumn garden, which has lost its attractiveness.

Possible difficulties

If croppers are constantly in the shade or in areas with high humidity, they often suffer from slugs and snails. These pests like the juicy leaves and flowers of the plant, which they can strongly chew. In this case, the care of the colchicum includes a periodic inspection for the appearance of the destroyers of the garden. Spotted slugs are collected, and snails are fought by setting traps or using special means - molluscicides (metaldehyde, methiocarb).

To prevent the invasion of gastropod pests, mechanical barriers are arranged. Small gravel, crushed eggshells or shells are scattered between rows with crocuses. Plastic gutters effectively prevent them from moving. They are laid out around the perimeter of the site and filled with water.

If the summer turned out to be too wet or the colchicum was often watered, it can be struck by a very dangerous disease of a fungal nature - gray rot. It is important not to miss the moment and detect its signs in time to prevent further spread. Caring for sick flowers consists in treating them with fungicides (Topaz, Champion, Kuproksat). But this exercise makes sense when the stem and leaves are slightly damaged. If the lesion by gray rot is extensive, then the affected parts of the colchicum must be removed, and watering must be excluded.

Additional recommendations

In addition to fertilizing and pest control, caring for crocus crops includes regular weeding and loosening of the soil. To maintain the attractiveness of the planting, it is important to remove the buds that have already faded. Most species and varieties of colchicum are not afraid of even severe cold, so the bulbs are left to winter in the ground. But some plant species that are particularly frost-sensitive will need shelter. This mainly applies to crock-crops with white and double petals. When they fade, they are covered with dry leaves. You can use a special non-woven covering material.

Advice

With the arrival of spring, do not forget to remove the shelter in time so that water from melted snow does not accumulate under it and the soil does not become waterlogged.

Colchicum grows well, so every 6-7 years you need to change the place of its planting. Professionals advise you to do this even more often, once every 2-3 years. If you neglect the transplant of a plant, then its corms will multiply greatly and begin to interfere with each other, and the flowers will decrease in size. Colchicum may stop producing buds altogether. They transplant it in August, following the same rules as when planting. If the site is left the same, then the earth is dug up on it, after having sprinkled a full bucket of humus and ½ a bucket of sand there.

Colchicum is a very unusual plant, the fragile charm of which cannot leave you indifferent. Not all varieties bloom in autumn. There are those that will delight with delicate buds with the arrival of spring, but they are less popular with gardeners.

Important!

The specificity of the colchicum lies not only in its special life cycle, which, at first glance, contradicts all the laws of nature, but also in its extreme toxicity. All parts of the plant contain the alkaloid colchicine, which causes severe burns when in contact with the skin. Therefore, protective gloves are required to work with crocus.

The exceptional unpretentiousness of this flower makes growing it a pleasure. Even absolute beginners in gardening can plant it. One has only to plant the bulbs correctly and fertilize them several times per season, and the colchicum will decorate the site with lovely flowering. And he will do it at a time when he is not expected at all.