Good for you. Congratulations. They should multiply. Mine are not blooming yet. I planted the late blooming kind. Just added 5 'Giant' & 7 'Waterlily' this weekend. :-) They should bloom soon. :-D

Hope they will do well.

Aren't they gorgeous to have! A sprinkle of bone dust when they finish flowering helps them to put out some lush leaves, too.

I just saw this morning that mine is sending up buds too! I'm also very excited. I thought for sure it would die between now and last fall when I planted it.... it did get alot of abuse, I couldn't bring myself to plant the bulb until after it was finished blooming and then the hot dry spring made it seem wilted and unhappy... but it came through!

I may go out this weekend looking for a waterlily. I have the Giant and remember they had both available last season. I was too cheap to buy multiples of the giant, so I hope mine settles in and multiplies! Do they set viable seed? Now that I have one I want a bunch of them!
Kato

Colchicums, at least the ones sold in local nurseries, multiply like MAD. I have to divide about every 3 years. How do I know when? They get so crowded they push some of the bulbs right out of the soil. I probably should divide them sooner, but I never do.

ljmiller,
Do you have the name variety of your colchicum? I would like to get it. Mine does multiply but very slowly. I WANT MORE! :-P

My colchium was The Giant but the vote is out on it multiplying here in New England. Unfortunately the blooms wilted in our late summer heat. Its ok though I have a soft spot for flowers that are short lived.

pitimpinai, unfortunately I don't know which species are the most rampantly multiplying--C. bornemuelleri rings a bell, though. I simply bought whatever the nursery had. The "fancier" varieties I've planted since are much slower to increase (e.g. C. tenorii, which is charming and blooming right now).

C. speciosum multiplies very rapidly, but most of the commonly-sold types are quite vigorous. Price really is a good indicator. Cheap means vigorous, expensive means slow at best :)

Thanks, everyone. I should go nosing around at Lowes & Home Depot today. Was planning to go yesterday, but with the gas price as it is, just hated to just go browsing not knowing whether the trip would be be fruitful. Maybe next year I'll order speciosum. Right now my mail order supplier is out of colchicum. :-D

I was also unsuccessful. Apparently my garden center did not get any in this year. As a consolation prize I bought myself some other fall flowering bulbs, 10 crocus sativus... they look colchium-like but may not like my heavy soil. I'll try and find a good spot for them.
Later!

Went to HD & Lowes this evening. No colchicum at all. Most of the bulbs are actually more expensive than the ones that Van Engelen offers. So I did not pick up anything.

I'll wait for my other bulbs to arrive and hold off additional Colchicum until next year. Have fun, folks. :-)

C. sativus look like Colchicum in pictures but they are much much smaller.

Which reminds me of the bad thing about Colchicum. Do you like plain green messy Hostas in spring? :)

"Which reminds me of the bad thing about Colchicum. Do you like plain green messy Hostas in spring? :)"

LOL. THAT's the reason I did not want to add any more Colchicum to my garden for the past 15 years! It is painful to watch them wither away and they take SOOOO long........just like a primadonna. Geesh...

A glutton for punishment as I am I like them in front of the border so that I don't miss the blossoms in fall. :-(

With so few it did not bother me but their foliage really did not add anything of beauty to the garden. I remember when the foliage started comming up l kept looking at it and wondering what that weird thing was. Anyway for me they died back fairly quickly and was forgotten....not so for the iris next door.

I have had very rapid growth with 'Giant' and this year planted 5 C. byzantium bulbs from B & B. I had to separate the giant in 2 years as they pushed some bulbs out of the soil.

I actually love the foliage, as it's pest proof, and the rodents and deer don't eat it like they do everything else. My hosta can mostly be described not as plain green, but as green sticks, since the deer eat all the flowers, and many of the leaves.

George

I've also got a bunch of them blooming right now and the pink/purple is just so wonderful this time of year :o) I have no idea what they are and they are almost all on top of the soil for the most part, but they seem happy so I just leave them there and they grow a bit more every year....nothing like a totally easy, care-free fall flowering bulb to warm the heart. I'll need to check into more varieties next year I guess as they are nice. I've never seen them at the local nurseries so I should look into the catalogues or just import them myself like they do. They cost maybe $2 each for the typical 20-30 variants from overseas, although the species are more :o) Dan

Jackie, that's funny. I thought the same thing when mine put up foliage..... what is that? Then it dawned on me that it was the colchicum. I guess I really expected it to die. Please please please don't die, please please please multiply. This is my new colchicum mantra.

Bluebonsai- don't taunt us with low overseas prices. I have enough trouble coping with cutting back the US orders. How can you possibly have any more room in your garden with all the aroids etc.?

k

Hey Kato B, Here is a taunt for you..I can tell you what they have and you can decide if you want to go in with me next summer for a nice big order. I do not go in with people too much because most people are leery of the importing thing, but since you are a fellow PA person then maybe we can work something out. I offered earlier this year to import stuff from South Africa for people but no one wanted to go in on it so I just bought the Eucomis, Crinum and Nerine for myself....I buy so much it doesn't impact me one way or the other to be honest. You usually have to add maybe 50% to the cost of a bulb to account for shipping, phytos, check cashing fees, etc. , but if I'm remembering correctly that still only makes them $3-4 each...or is that way too much for these...I have no idea what I paid several years ago for mine. Drop me an e-mail if you want to see what they have and I can atleast give you an idea :o) Dan

Now you are just being mean. I think $3-4 for a colchicum is still a decent price, I might have paid $5 for mine.

They're one of my favorite fall bulbs along with Sternbergia lutea. With so many squirrels and chipmunks around, all the crocus have been eaten.
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Absolutely beautiful. Aren't they precious especially this time of year when the garden kind of looks tired? I am waiting for mine to pop up. They usually do well after others have faded, though. I also hope my Crocus speciosus survived the squirrels and rabbits this spring.

Great photos too, Carol. I peeked at your member page. Do baby cardinals usually have no tail? I saw one like that last week and thought a cat had gotten the tail ?!? and felt like crying.

Sorry, jackie, for hijacking your thread. :-)

Hi Carol,
The colors in the first photo are amazing, it could be framed! I was just wondering yesterday if colchiums looked best if grown in plain mulch or rather with short groundcovers around them.... I never thought to use them in a color combo.
I missed your posts recently, I was afraid the "chestnut incident" left a bad taste in your mouth. You can put something right in front of some people and still they don't see it.

My colchicums are still putting out blooms even in the 80+ degree days. I thought they'd be over already... I'm pleased.

Pitimpinai, the cardinals, all three, had no tails and no feathers around their eyes. However, I am pleased to report the babies appeared to have grown up as I see an entire group of youngsters around my feeders. I tracked the progress of the nest against my porch from the day the eggs were laid until the day the babies were out of the nest. Here's how they looked a few days after hatching.
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Kato, thanks for the compliments. Having something fresh in the garden at this time of year is a bonus when many plants are turning yellow, full of insect damage and on the decline! Afer taking the Hardy Spring and Fall Bulbs course at Longwood, I decided to incorporate lots more bulbs in my garden. With an overabundance of chipmunks and squirrels here, these fall-flowering charmers have been wonderful and are unscathed by the rodent population.
The Hardy Plant Society, Midatlantic Group, has a new brochure with a few of my photos which include Colchicum and Leucojum.
Carol