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kenny_bln

Help Crown Imperial´s did not bloom this year

kenny_bln
17 years ago

I have about 150 Fritillaria imperialis (Crown Imperial´s) and only 7 are going to bloom this year , last year all bloomed but 3 . Last year we had a long hard winter the ground was frozen from December until the end of March and this year we have had a really mild winter. this is the second year for the bulbs and they have multipiled like crazy , some of the bulbs have 4 and 5 sprouts . does anyone have any sugestions for me.

Thanks in advance

Kenny

Comments (4)

  • bluebonsai101
    17 years ago

    Hi Kenny, I think that Frit. imperialis is a bit notorious for this and why many people grow F. eduardii which is similar in size but blooms very reliably without any bad smell like F. imperialis. I do think there is something to the temperature though as I have quite a few species (I only keep a few of each species) and many seem to have been put off by our very warm winter we had so they are just not blooming...some had buds, but they refused to develop completely. I have a few F. imperialis 'argenteovariegata' (the white edged leaf form that should not be confused with aureomarginata) and they did the same thing....a few had buds, but none actually opened them up for all to see. Wish I could be of more help, but good luck with them :o) Dan

  • kenny_bln
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Hi Dan , Thanks for such a quick answer :-) , do you think I shoud feed them good during the growing season and divide them when the foliage dies back ? The ones that are blooming are still single steams but not all of them are blooming either , and the ones with the mutiple stems are a lot weaker , it is like they a dividing them selves to death , and they are not growing a straight as last year, a lot of them are really leaning

    Thanks again
    kenny

  • bluebonsai101
    17 years ago

    Hi Kenny,

    I always fertilize all of my bulbs heavy, but that is just me!! The leaning is likely just because they are a bit crowded from the multiple growth spikes. You can easily get multiple growth spikes from a single bulb by the way....I can guarantee you all of my F. imperialis are single bulbs in the pot, but they are all producing multiple growths this year.....completely normal as far as I know. You must really like these a lot to have so many! Do you have multiple variants?? Do you know either Janis Ruksans in Latvia or Leonid Bondarenko in Lithuania?? They have quite a collection of Frits for sale, including some of their own F. imperialis variants. It really sounds like your Frits are doing great, but I think they are sort of famous for this behaviour and I am not sure what it is that they need to behave more nicely. Best of luck finding out :o) Dan

  • sandy50
    14 years ago

    I have crown imperials also. I am wondering how you go about dividing them, I have searched for images of these bulbs with offsets on them but cannot find any. nor can I find a video on it either. Any help would be great.