Ep. 242 The big, colorful world of Crocus | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:05

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. It is the year of the crocus. At least according to the National Garden Bureau, it is. So we're gonna dive into the crocus, which is more than just a plant.

Chris Enroth: 00:28

It is a genus of plants. It is a I mean, it is a overflowing genus of plants. So, you know I cannot do this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson and Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:43

Hello, Chris. Yeah. Looking at this stuff, I thought it was gonna be a relatively straightforward podcast. But the more I started reading, I started getting into deeper and deeper water, and I am I I am adrift at sea right now.

Chris Enroth: 01:00

Yes. It it does not make matters any better. So I got a question about, a Fritillaria question. Fritillaria imperialis, which is also it is so many things are intertwining in my head right now. So I'm gonna try to get this right.

Chris Enroth: 01:20

I'll do my best. But I did another deep dive into Fritillaria to answer that question, but then I switched back over to Crocus today. And so, yeah, we have we got a lot to talk about. I mean, I don't think this will be a two parter, but we the notes are extensive, everybody. It's there's a lot here.

Chris Enroth: 01:41

So I I think we probably just need to dive right into this. So National Garden Bureau, they, every year, they have their their plant of the year. And this year, they said crocus, which as we already remarked is a genus comprised of over a 100 different types of plants. That people have been studying for a long time. So there's a lot of books. There's a lot of documentation, research, avid hobbyists who are incredible experts at this topic.

Chris Enroth: 02:22

But not everything is as it seems. Right, Ken? So we also I think maybe first, let's just touch on some things that are called crocus that aren't crocus crocuses. And we also learned that it is crocuses and not croc eye. I guess it could be either or.

Chris Enroth: 02:39

But we but but crocuses is the popular plural term.

Ken Johnson: 02:43

Yes. But according to the Internet, it could be croci as well.

Chris Enroth: 02:47

Yes. Mhmm. I do like croci. But what what about what about some of those things that are called crocus but aren't crocus, Ken? Like, what let's start off with this first one, the autumn crocus.

Ken Johnson: 03:01

I Yeah. Think this is probably the most common one that is called a crocus. That's not actually crocus. This is Colchicum.

Ken Johnson: 03:10

That's the way it looks like it's pronounced anyway. So this is this is a fall blooming plant. So, again, it'd be autumn crocus. And the flowers look very similar to crocus species except with the the fake autumn crocus, the Colchicum. They have six stamens, whereas true crocus have three stamens.

Ken Johnson: 03:32

And the kind of the reason this is kind of a could potentially be an issue is that colicum are toxic, and they may look relatively similar to saffron crocus, which you are would which you would be eating parts of that. So make sure you're identifying it if you think you've got saffron crocus. Make sure you're getting it from a reputable place. And if you're not sure, make sure ID it so that you are harvesting the proper thing. Because they've got the the autumn crocus, the fake stuff, has toxic glock glycoalkaloid, which can cause stomach upset, severe gastrointestinal effects, side effects on humans and pets according to I think it was University of Missouri listed that there.

Ken Johnson: 04:20

So that's that's kind of the biggie. There's also a prairie crocus, which is native to North America, but it, again, it is not a crocus species.

Chris Enroth: 04:32

That's right. I I even looked up the prairie crocus, Pulsatilla nuttalliana And it has it I mean, it gets the name crocus, and also autumn crocus has the name crocus because they have those crocus like flowers, these purple to lavender, sometimes going into, like, the color white. But the prairie crocus is really interesting. Now it's more of a northern species. I don't know if I I think it's listed as exist in Illinois, but where it's found in specific counties, I think it's up in Northern Illinois specifically, not really in my or Ken's neck of the woods.

Chris Enroth: 05:10

So Yeah. It's really a northern species, but it has a neat feature in that it sells on its, like, wings, you know, the the frill, the fringe, the the fluff of the seed are hydrophobic, and it creates this twisting motion that actually will pull it into the soil. It's not the only prairie plant that does that. There's others that do, but this is one of them that actually will, like, drill itself into the soil. It that's kind of a neat neat feature of prairie crocus.

Chris Enroth: 05:39

So I almost wanna just get one of those and just check it out.

Ken Johnson: 05:44

As you know, I didn't go that far down the rabbit hole on a prairie crocus.

Chris Enroth: 05:47

Well, I just don't know when to stop, Ken. I just went down the wrong rabbit hole over and over again here. So so, yeah, there there's a lot of things called crocus. I think is autumn crocus also called I think I've heard it called naked ladies or something like that. It's like because it's has bare stems when it's blooming for the most part.

Chris Enroth: 06:08

There's no leaves near the base.

Ken Johnson: 06:10

Yeah. And I think there's there's other plants that are referred to as naked lady too.

Chris Enroth: 06:14

Yeah. Yes. Prize Lily, all that.

Ken Johnson: 06:17

Yeah. And there's crocus true crocus that are referred to as Autumn crocus as well.

Chris Enroth: 06:22

So Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 06:23

Fun with common names.

Chris Enroth: 06:25

Yeah. It's gonna be a great time today. So I guess let's dive into this. Let's talk about real crocus now. So crocus is the genus name.

Chris Enroth: 06:37

So it's Crocus and then the specific epithet. And so it's all in this similar genus. And I would say the main thing that people use to identify Crocus is going to be, first, its flower. So let's talk about what they look like. When we talk about flowers, we're talking, like, the fancy scientific term is morphology.

Chris Enroth: 07:02

But when it comes to color, the morphology is sort of like the shape, but first, when we talk color, crocus flowers I don't know, Ken, what did you find? I found mostly purple lilac. There's a couple other colors in there, though, white.

Ken Johnson: 07:17

Yeah. A lot of the lilac, I saw a lot of references to lilac, blue lilac.

Chris Enroth: 07:22

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 07:23

I'm not sure what that means because they're not blue. Yeah. The purple lilac, white, there are some species that have yellow flowers as well, kind of or even a yellow orange. So I think by and far, you're looking at white to purplish.

Chris Enroth: 07:38

Yeah. Yeah. That's that very crocus theme here. That's just what they look like. So if we dive deeper into now, like, kind of the structure of that flower, so crocus are defined as they have six petals.

Chris Enroth: 07:53

They have three inner, three outer, and they're kinda whirled around each other. I can't really can't really do it on the camera, but I think I'm giving gang signs right now. But so there's the three petals, three inner, and then there's three on the outside. I think the the outer petals, just this is kind of based on the reading and also just looking at pictures. Very often, they they will have more distinct markings than those inner petals.

Chris Enroth: 08:22

I think we're talking what's the fancy science words? Teeple versus sepals, but inner versus outer. I'm probably wrong in that one.

Ken Johnson: 08:31

It's been a while since botany.

Chris Enroth: 08:32

It has been. But but so, anyway, usually, not all the time, but usually those three outer petals are more intricate depending upon species and cultivar, variety, all of that. But that that's one distinguishing factor. The other thing is that when we go inside the flower and we look at some of this the reproductive parts here, so there are three pollen bearing anthers. So when it comes to, like, structure of a flower, there's a filament that holds an anther, and that anther is what holds the pollen.

Chris Enroth: 09:11

And there's all different, like, lengths when it comes

Ken Johnson: 09:15

to

Chris Enroth: 09:15

crocus. Sometimes the anther is taller than the stipule, which is the female flower part. Sometimes they're smaller. Sometimes the anther is, like, just it's a different color. It's it's really variable.

Chris Enroth: 09:30

So kind of what I read is that there's three pollen bearing anthers. If you have a white colored anther, you'll have white or yellow pollen. If you have a black or a yellow anther, you will have yellow pollen. That's sort of the rule to that. And then we have our male parts, and then that that stipule, that that that kinda that organ that leads to the ovary, which is where the seed will be formed, as Ken mentioned, that is three branched.

Chris Enroth: 09:57

Now there are again, you'll get into multiple species that have these very elaborate filamentous kind of branching style of that stipule, but it's it it for the most part, we're looking at three primary branches of that stipule that then leads down this long tube that flowers held on a tube down into its ovary where the the pollen then goes and fertilizes the seed. Ken, did I, I hope that was a safe for work description of, flower reproductive parts.

Ken Johnson: 10:33

Yes. Yeah. I made a I I have too many notes here, but there was one species that the styles. Like, it was crazy branched.

Chris Enroth: 10:47

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 10:48

Some of this piece of paper. Maybe it'll come to but it's some of these and if we get into specific species, sometimes they have very prominent, kind of showy, and then very noticeable styles on some of these.

Chris Enroth: 11:05

Styles. I misspoke. What was I saying? Stipules, wasn't I? Styles.

Chris Enroth: 11:11

Styles. That's that's what I meant. We'll just dub that over for the rest of the podcast. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's kind of a a good description of the flower, and I have a a few pictures of crocus flowers that I can pop in here that as we were describing that.

Chris Enroth: 11:30

So what next can can help us identify? What another feature?

Ken Johnson: 11:36

So then the leaves and with with some of these plants, sometimes they're blooming before the leaves are out. Sometimes they're blooming with the leaves out. But for the most part, they're for all of them are gonna have kinda grass like leaves. So a lot times you see them planted in lawns, they kinda blend in fairly well because they have these really grass like looking leaves. And I don't I don't know if all of them do, but I I think a majority of them, at least, have kind of a white stripe down the middle of them.

Ken Johnson: 12:04

So that's that's one way. At least, I think of the crocus that I've got. I think they all do have that white stripe down the middle. These are kind of these chlorophyll free cells, which is why they're white, which is kind of just helps distinguish them from maybe some of the other plants that may be growing around there. The the hair there can be small hairs along the leaf margin as well.

Ken Johnson: 12:28

Leaves are kinda keel shaped on the underside of the leaf. So again, just few things that if you're not sure what it is and there's no flowers on it. A couple different ways you can kinda figure out what is in. If you have if you wanna know what specifically you have, sometimes you're using the the the leaf shape and all of that for identification amongst some of these other things as well.

Chris Enroth: 12:50

Yeah. And and when we first moved into our our previous house, I remember seeing all of these grass things, and they all had a white stripe down the middle of the leaf, and I had no idea what it was. The whole yard was covered in it. And I guess spoiler alert for later on, we didn't have that many crocus flowers, but despite the yard being just full of crocus foliage. So they were there in the ground.

Chris Enroth: 13:16

They just didn't they just weren't flowering for us.

Ken Johnson: 13:19

Probably got cut.

Chris Enroth: 13:22

Yeah. Probably. Yeah. It's probably mostly my fault, me and the lawnmower. Yep.

Ken Johnson: 13:26

So we'll get into more of that when we get into growing them, though.

Chris Enroth: 13:31

Yes. Yes.

Ken Johnson: 13:33

So for and so I guess moving on to the next thing, some of the stuff I read, I think the one of the easiest ways or one of the ways that we usually a lot of talk about is identifying different species. Just looking at the corm. So even though we refer to these as bulbs, they're technically, not a bulb. It's it's a corm. So a bulb is gonna have interior leaf scales.

Ken Johnson: 13:54

So when you cut them in half, you can see, like, the individual scales. Whereas a corm, it's kind of solid. It's got a basal plate, kinda plate on the bottom where the roots, are coming from. But bulb is a nice catch all, and they look like bulbs. So that's that's why they refer to as the bulbs.

Ken Johnson: 14:12

But they all have a all these corners have a tunic or kind of this coat or coating on the outside. And these are what are old leaves? Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 14:22

The old base The bottom part.

Ken Johnson: 14:24

Basically, and these have different patterns. Some of them can be, papery, they can be fibrous, They may have parallel veins, net veins on there. So using that, you can help narrow down what species you have as well, which I did not realize. I guess I've never really looked all that closely at crocus tunics, but now I'm going to have to do that.

Chris Enroth: 14:49

I yes. I I went down that rabbit hole, looked at all of these different images here. So I guess if folks are

Ken Johnson: 14:56

I don't know if

Chris Enroth: 14:57

we really have any good images of us of this that we can share. Maybe we can link to something or a different document that you can leave this podcast and go look at them. But picture this in your mind. So you have this bulb like shape, this rounded object, and these tunics, they can look like eggshells, kinda like a like a more solid pattern to them. They can be more papery, kinda like, you know, your onion or your garlic kinda papery type texture.

Chris Enroth: 15:25

But I really love these fibrous textured ones. I mean, some of them look like cousin it from the Adams family. Like, they're just wild looking. Some of them are, like, netted. Others, they look like the the corn has, like, a bowl cut hair.

Chris Enroth: 15:42

So, you know, let's see. The Three Stooges, who had the bowl cut? Not was it Moe? Did Moe have the bowl cut?

Ken Johnson: 15:52

Yes. Larry had the curlier.

Chris Enroth: 15:54

Yes. Curly was curly. It was bold. Yeah. So so there's that or Will Byers for stranger things.

Chris Enroth: 16:02

I'm trying to hit all generations here. Or look up a picture of me when I was in grade school. So so, like, some of these tunics are just so neat looking, and there's even some that are like these rings that develop on on the corm. So what a fascinating I don't know. If you really wanna go into it, there's some interesting photo libraries of different tunics that cover crocus corms.

Chris Enroth: 16:32

So I had to think to get those words out correctly. Tunics that cover crocus corms. Yes. So, yeah, a a really, really neat some of those, like like, the cousin it ones, the really wild and woolly ones, those are more common in, like, desert environments where you know? So crocus sort of arises from, like, Turkey, and then just it goes all over the place from there.

Chris Enroth: 16:58

So everywhere from, like, desert environments to, like like Mountains. Forests. Yep. Forests. But and these corn tunics are part of the strategy that they've adapted depending upon their environment to withstand those environmental harsh harsh conditions.

Chris Enroth: 17:19

So I just just fun. Everybody needs to learn more about corn tunics of the crocus.

Ken Johnson: 17:28

I'll add it to the list.

Chris Enroth: 17:30

Oh my gosh.

Ken Johnson: 17:32

The list that never gets shorter.

Chris Enroth: 17:33

That's the yeah. List is going out the door right now. Oh, man. Well, I guess, you know, we talked sort of what you would find if you were looking at a crocus, whether you're looking at the flower, the leaves, or the roots. Can like, let's let's look in some categories of coracus because, obviously, with all of the centuries of study, people have categorized them in different ways and and lumped them into different groups.

Chris Enroth: 18:06

So this first one was interesting that I read about in a paper where it talks about, again, the country, Turkey, being the center of variability and distribution for crocus. And from there, all these other evolutionary pathways developed. And so there's these two ways. You've already described it, though, for blooming. They either bloom with leaves or without leaves, and there's a $20 word that goes along with each one of these.

Chris Enroth: 18:39

So if you bloom without leaves, that is a hysteranthus type blooming. And if you bloom with leaves, it is a sinanthus blooming function, period, thing. And and so Hysteranthus crocus, sinanthus crocus, that's that's one way to divvy these up. And I I don't know if it necessarily falls along spring or fall blooming lines, but the other thing this paper got into is that for the most part, the crocus that diverged and went sort of east over into Asia are predominantly spring bloomers. And then the crocus that kind of then went west from Turkey and over into the Mediterranean, Southern, Central Europe, Northern Northern Africa, not all, but a lot of them are fall bloomers or at least don't require, like, a cold exposure to to trigger flowering.

Chris Enroth: 19:42

So but but if you wanna learn about crocus and go see them, go to Turkey as that's the center that's the hub of crocus in the world. Place

Ken Johnson: 19:52

to be. Mhmm. So then I think I think you've you've found this book. Right? The, crocus Oh, yes.

Ken Johnson: 20:00

Complete guide to the genus, which is a crocus breeder from and I guess It'll sell seller plantsman. Yeah. From Latvia. Mhmm. Janus Ruxans.

Chris Enroth: 20:12

That very good. Yes. I have to look it up too.

Ken Johnson: 20:15

I apologize if he's listening, I butchered his name.

Chris Enroth: 20:17

Oh, I I think that's right. I don't know why either.

Ken Johnson: 20:21

We should

Chris Enroth: 20:21

have I listened to him say his name, and he said Janus. So at at least we got that part right. Yes.

Ken Johnson: 20:27

So in in his book and which you can get on Google Books, at least part of it. You can't find the whole book, but you can get enough good amount, enough to make your head swim. He he breaks them up into three different groups. So we've got group a, so crocuses that grow in harsh conditions with very hot and dry summers. Group b are crocuses that do not require extremely dry summers and can also tolerate occasional summer rains.

Ken Johnson: 20:55

And then group c crocuses or croci that grow in moisture conditions in the wild and can seriously suffer if kept out of the soil for too long. So I think with a lot of I think with him and a lot of people, your hard hardcore crocus growers, sometimes they will dig them during their dormancies and store them, and then replant. So some of these can handle that a little bit better than others.

Chris Enroth: 21:22

Yeah. That that group c one, you basically put them in the ground. And if you disturb them, you've gotta get them right back in the ground right away or else they they'll desiccate and die. And so they're really sensitive when they're out of the soil for too long.

Ken Johnson: 21:37

But I would say probably by and far the way, I guess, the general public is probably going to categorize crocus as either spring or fall blooming. Right. And and and I'd say most people are probably familiar with spring blooming crocus. I I think, again, by and far, people, if they're growing crocus, are more than likely gonna be doing the spring bloomers.

Chris Enroth: 22:01

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 22:01

At least that's what we always talk about when we talk about crocus is the spring bloomers, not necessarily the fall bloomers.

Chris Enroth: 22:07

And and I think just in terms of that popularity, people, they do like to incorporate them into lawns. It's just one of those spring blooming plants that again, the foliage is very grass like. It blends in well with a lot of our cool season lawns that time of year, and you get you can paint your lawn in colors. And so, yeah, I I think spring blooming is usually on people's minds when we talk about crocus, but we are gonna hit on the fall bloomers here towards the end.

Ken Johnson: 22:40

Yes. That's probably why we're doing this now in the spring instead of in the fall. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 22:46

Right. Yes.

Ken Johnson: 22:50

So in in reading about these, you know, I'm I'm I'm kinda surprised they survive in my yard because, you know, in in Illinois, we've got for the most part, we've got fairly heavy soils, at least in my part of Illinois. So a lot of these plants, you know, we mentioned some will grow in deserts. A lot of them are riparian woodlands. Some of them are in mountainside, but a lot of these have are growing in kinda very well drained soils. And I think about, you know, as a kid, the house I grew up, and we had, you know, some big oak trees in the backyard, and we had crocus kind of along the base of those.

Ken Johnson: 23:29

But we still had pretty fairly heavy soil. So I don't know. Maybe the the oak trees sucked up all the water and kept it somewhat dry or drier so they survived. I'm not sure if they have to like well drained, but they do like moisture when they're kinda actively growing and and blooming and stuff. So but they don't so they then they can't tolerate moist conditions, but they don't like kind of always wet, sitting in water, kinda wet feet, so to speak, you start getting, rot and stuff like that.

Ken Johnson: 24:03

So and, again, when you talk about there's hundreds of species here, it's hard to generalize, but in general, well drained soils, whether that's amending the soil, growing them in raised beds, on slopes so that drains a little bit better. Full sun, they can't take partial shade. Again, you know, we grow them under trees a lot because as that tree canopy starts filling in, a lot of times they're starting to decline. They'll die back That's definitely especially for, like, the spring blooming. Fall bloomers, you probably want probably a little more in the in the sun depending on when those leaves are coming out on those.

Chris Enroth: 24:43

Yeah. It it it probably also depended upon when your shade trees might be dropping their leaves too. You don't want them getting covered up right away or immediately or whatever. Maybe landscape debris might be covering them up at that time of year. So, yeah, you kinda want them in an open sunny spot.

Chris Enroth: 25:06

And, Ken, I was trying to find this. I think it was the the q botanical oh, what was it called? But kind of this repository of of plants that have been identified. And they said something where they had, like, 600 some identified crocus. However, only, like, a 100 and, what is it, 42 are have been accepted so far as species.

Chris Enroth: 25:35

Here it is. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew listed 696 crocus, of which only a 142 are accepted as species or subspecies or some type of variety. So Invalid names. We we still got a lot more work to do, it sounds like. And and Giannis would say in his book, which came out not that long ago, I think it was, like, 20.

Chris Enroth: 26:02

Maybe that's when he was writing it. But he's like, we're still identifying croco species to this day. So

Ken Johnson: 26:11

So he does have a newer book too I came across, but I couldn't find any online versions of it.

Chris Enroth: 26:17

Yeah. Yeah. So

Ken Johnson: 26:20

No no libraries in The US seem to have it. So

Chris Enroth: 26:23

Yes. And and and he he even talks about, you know, it's it's really hard to give recommendations for crocus. But I think that's because he is his book is written probably more for that avid hobbyist where they have all of these different species, all these different site growing requirements and conditions that have to be met unique to those species. We're probably not going to get into that with this show. We're gonna talk about the the big hitters here today, aren't we?

Chris Enroth: 26:54

Yeah. So yeah. Moist, well drained soil. That's what every plant wants. Right?

Chris Enroth: 27:00

That you don't usually hear us saying, put that plant in a thick clay, poorly drained soil. Not not

Ken Johnson: 27:08

very often. People don't usually live in those places.

Chris Enroth: 27:12

That's right. Yeah. Yep. And when we get into, like, some of the planting conditions that Giannis described so there's another gentleman, I believe, Tony Good is the name that gets referenced a lot, where they talk about soil and kinda what these these crocus growers and breeders do. A lot of them will plant just sand, like like a pure sand bed.

Chris Enroth: 27:39

They'll excavate the top. He said 15 centimeters of soil, which is six inches, and then they'll put down a little bit of layer of compost. They'll add sand on top of that, and then they'll put the corms down and then put sand on top of that. So, yeah, it's they're they're growing mostly in sand, but that's because they're lifting and dividing these pretty frequently. We we probably won't be.

Ken Johnson: 28:09

Yes. And they're also like Pokemon collectors. They gotta they gotta

Chris Enroth: 28:13

get That's them right. That's right. So, you know, we talk about my catalogs are showing up right now. I feel like I'm too late for for planting any type of a bulb. But, you know, when should I be planting a a crocus bulb?

Chris Enroth: 28:35

Am I too late, or am I too early?

Ken Johnson: 28:38

So probably too early. And and so when you're planting, it's gonna depend on the type of bloomer. So you're we're planting some late summer usually, for fall bloomers because they need time to establish, get the roots set, and they're gonna bloom that fall. Then with your spring blooming types, you know, we're doing that a little later in the fall when we typically plant bulbs as when we're planting those. So make sure you're paying attention to what you're buying.

Ken Johnson: 29:06

You know, typical seed catalogs, especially ones that specialize in bulbs, the ones that I can think of. A lot times, they're sending out catalogs for your spring and fall bloomers, and then they're sending out a catalog or for your summer and fall bloomers and sending out a catalog for your spring bloomers. So, hopefully, you won't give too much confusion there, but make sure you're Yeah. You're picking the right one and you're planting them at the right time. If you if you plant your fall bloomers too late, they're not gonna get very well established.

Ken Johnson: 29:33

They may flower, but they're gonna have a really weak root system, and they may not survive going in through the winter. So make sure you get that right. And then I guess kinda generally for spacing and stuff, you know, or in-depth, what, two two and a half inches deep, two inches apart Mhmm. Of a lot of the recommendations I've seen, which comes to 35 to 75 35 to 70 corms per square foot.

Chris Enroth: 30:03

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 30:03

So, again, these are small plants. They're gonna look best when you have them kinda packed in densely, get those swaths of color than just kind of a random plant here and there.

Chris Enroth: 30:14

Yeah. Giannis would say in his text here that, again, we're talking crazy crocus people, to if you don't want to divide them as much, plant them deeper. If you are interested in dividing them often, plant them more shallow. And so if you want more plants, plant them shallow. If you want less plants, plant them deeper.

Chris Enroth: 30:40

And he said that's the the deeper ones will develop fewer but kind of larger corms, and then the shallow ones will develop smaller but more corms or cormlets, which I guess we'll get into here in a second, maybe if we get into the life cycle of the crocus. But yeah.

Ken Johnson: 31:03

Yeah. We will talk about that now. We should probably start by talking about corms.

Chris Enroth: 31:06

That's probably a good idea. Yeah. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 31:08

Because as as they're growing, the so the the plants will send out cormlets basically from the the basil plate. They'll start sending off more or less daughter plants. Yeah. And reading, like, I didn't realize they should really be dug. I think a lot of recommendations are, like, every four years dug Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 31:26

Divided. I have never dug crocus before. So any bulb. If it gets put in the ground, and it stays there. I have divided daffodils because they've gotten too thick.

Ken Johnson: 31:39

But, typically, I don't dig bulbs, which apparently Mhmm. You're supposed to do. So

Chris Enroth: 31:45

Yeah. Well and and in its life cycle, in that one year's time, you know, if it flowers, it creates vegetation, creates that seed. It uses all of that energy stored in that corm, and then it also forms a new corm on top. So now we have two ways that it kind of prolongs itself, propagates itself. So you have the cormlets being produced on the sides of the plant, and now you have the new next year's corn that has developed now on top of the old corn, the the former corn.

Chris Enroth: 32:22

Now the other one's exhausted of energy, and then, you know, next year's growth is then stored. The energy is stored in the one on top. Now the really interesting thing about the corn lets and also the seeds oh, no. Are we getting too far ahead? I'm getting in seeds right now.

Chris Enroth: 32:39

Maybe alright. Let's wait till we talk about seeds here in a sec. Then I'll say say the thing about cormlets and seeds that is really neat. I I thought at least. So can they flower.

Chris Enroth: 32:53

Oh, we didn't even mention. These are, like, heavily, like, pollinator dependent plants. Like, the pollen is too heavy to be wind blown. So the these do receive pollinator visits in the spring. Right?

Ken Johnson: 33:06

Yeah. So a lot of times you'll see I think a lot of times honeybees, because they're out. When it gets warm out, they'll be out. And maybe some of the later blooming when we're talking about spring blooming, maybe see some of our native ones on there, but think probably primarily honeybees visiting these. So and they'll produce seeds, assuming, they can't produce seed.

Ken Johnson: 33:27

There are some Mhmm. Saffron that does not reproduce by seed.

Chris Enroth: 33:33

Yeah. Yeah. So that's pollinated. We talked about the flower being born on this tube, and the tube goes back down to the corn where the ovary is. The pollen goes down that tube, fertilizes the egg down there, and you start to get seed development.

Chris Enroth: 33:54

The corn then pushes that seed head, which I think looks kind of I saw a picture. Looks sort of like iris seed head almost in a way. These being related to iris, so it it kinda looked like that to me. It and it might push that seed head above ground. There's a few species that it will remain underground the entire time and a few where it'll just deposit them out on the surface.

Chris Enroth: 34:17

But once those seeds are ripe, it will then push that up, and then it will open the open up, and the seeds will disperse. And kind of like the spring beauty can, there's a we have another insect that helps us move these seeds around because they, well, they they can be eaten, a little bit. They they're attractive to these guys.

Ken Johnson: 34:41

Yep. So ants can, I guess, will disperse them? And I think even in, you know, again, with, Giannis' book, he's talking about ants can almost be pests, especially when you're trying to to breed these and and propagate by seed. They're they're stealing the seeds and taking them elsewhere and potentially eating the seeds. So depending on your perspective, that may be a good or a bad thing.

Ken Johnson: 35:05

Anyway, with the ovary, I didn't realize that those ovaries stayed underground. I don't know if I'd ever heard of that in a plant before, which was kinda cool.

Chris Enroth: 35:13

It's pretty cool. Pretty neat when I was looking at that. Janus recommends buying, like, three different types of cheap crocus, growing them out and, like, pulling them at different stages of their life cycle and just sort of dissecting them. He said, if you wanna learn about crocus, that's the way to do it. Buy just cheap crocus.

Chris Enroth: 35:36

Just grow them in every just few part points during the year. Just take a couple and just look at them and learn about them. And he's like, open that up, open that ovary up, and you'll see those seeds developing underground. He said, it's pretty neat. Now, fun fact.

Chris Enroth: 35:53

This is kind of not openly stated in everything I've read. I'm just going to draw this assumption. Okay. So you have a corn. Every year it dies, it grows a new corn on top.

Chris Enroth: 36:07

So why aren't all the crocus just sitting on top of the soil after, like, decades? Well, that's because the cormlets and the seeds, they have a I think it's called a contractile or contractual root. It develops and it forms this big thick fleshy root that's full of the starch, and it starts feeding the seed or this cornlet. And as the the the root dries up and dies, it pulls the cornlet or the seed deeper and deeper into the soil, which I just thought was pretty fascinating. And then the that that root then dies.

Chris Enroth: 36:45

And then once that corn let corn let or the seed is at the proper depth, it grows. So plants are so cool.

Ken Johnson: 36:54

I have that in my notes too.

Chris Enroth: 36:55

Excellent. Okay. Good. Did you not think that was amazing?

Ken Johnson: 36:58

It was.

Chris Enroth: 36:59

I'm sure other plants do it, but crocus wins for me learning about it first with those.

Ken Johnson: 37:07

Skunk cabbage does.

Chris Enroth: 37:09

Does skunk cabbage do it? And you just wrote about it.

Ken Johnson: 37:11

That's the only reason I know that. So

Chris Enroth: 37:17

so cool. Yes. They can pull themselves down to the proper depth of where they they need to be. I think one other thing about planting that everything seems to recommend, Ken, you mentioned sort of planting them a little bit in clusters because they're smaller, but maybe, like, take a group and divide them in half or in thirds because everyone talks about rodents eating the corms. So Janus, being in Latvia, being in Eastern Europe, even calls out the gray squirrel in The United States as being one of the worst pests of crocus.

Chris Enroth: 38:00

So sorry, gray squirrel lovers. I'm sure it's other type other squirrel species, but it really headed out for the gray squirrel. Apparently, rodents, including squirrels here, can be pretty destructive of crocus. So if you have them all in one spot, you might lose them all to a one happy go lucky squirrel.

Ken Johnson: 38:23

I think that's probably pest number one. Yeah. And Yeah. Two, three, four.

Chris Enroth: 38:28

Yep.

Ken Johnson: 38:28

How far far you wanna get down is gonna be rodents digging and eating your corns. And I know with with other bulbs, and you could do this with crocus too, is even, you know, putting a some kind of wire mesh hardware cloth, something over those when you plant them so that when those rodents are digging, they run into that and hopefully, get discouraged and don't try to get to them anymore. So Yeah. Yeah. Rodents can be a major issue.

Chris Enroth: 38:57

Mhmm. Yep.

Ken Johnson: 38:59

And if you grow a percussion or bulbs, you probably know that already.

Chris Enroth: 39:01

Yeah. You've probably already had to deal with them. Well, Ken, I guess maybe a few other growing requirements. Once we get them in the ground, they've been growing, you know, what you know, do they need fertilizer? Like, what kind of nutrients are we talking about here?

Ken Johnson: 39:18

I I think with a lot of bulbs, see kind of a bone meal, a high phosphorus higher or higher phosphorus fertilizer being recommended. I'll say with crocus and all the bulbers I've grown, I've never fertilized. Mhmm. And they do they seem to do just fine. Maybe they do better if I fertilize, but I still get plenty of flowers.

Ken Johnson: 39:36

So I think that may be a you know, do a soil test and see if you're deficient. I I think, again, speaking in in generalities here, I think for the most part in Illinois, our soils are are pretty fertile, and we may not need to to worry about the fertilizer as much as maybe some other places do.

Chris Enroth: 39:58

Yeah. And especially if you're doing these as like a lawn plant and then you fertilize your lawn, they're getting all the nutrients they probably need. Thinking primarily of nitrogen because they do you know, phosphorus being the primary nutrient that I also saw, like, kind of throughout all of the different texts. You know, everyone's recommending bone meal, phosphorus, things like that. Nitrogen is still necessary to grow that leaf matter for photosynthesis to then create that corn for next year.

Chris Enroth: 40:31

If you fertilize already or, you know, if you you have a pretty healthy looking lawn or, in in my case, lawn combined with other things like creeping Charlie and dandelion and wild strawberry, I think you probably are doing alright. Yeah. Broadleaf plants. Yeah. Can't live without them.

Chris Enroth: 40:54

You know? You gotta love them as long as I can mow them.

Ken Johnson: 40:58

I see. And if you're maybe if you're doing more of the, you know, six inches of sand and stuff, you may need a little more fertilizer and stuff there. But yeah. Mhmm. You can soil test, see if you're deficient.

Ken Johnson: 41:11

Because, I mean, phosphorus is one of those where you get too much of that that can, you know, mix of the watersheds and and causes problems.

Chris Enroth: 41:19

Yeah. It it it can hurt your it won't necessarily hurt your grass first, but it can hurt your woody plants first too, because they're a bit more sensitive to high phosphorus levels. So soil test. Ken said it. You heard it here.

Chris Enroth: 41:32

We can get our extension paycheck now. So we said soil test. That's not true, folks, but it's a very important thing to do. I think kinda one last thing. So if you're not if you're not putting them in a lawn, you're gonna put them in a landscape bed or maybe containers.

Chris Enroth: 41:51

Mulching over top is also gonna be really beneficial in terms of just creating that extra layer of insulation so they don't dry out too wildly or, you know, just to kinda cushion that that space up a little bit when you're walking around all over it.

Ken Johnson: 42:07

And and help prevent that heaving in the winter because these aren't necessarily terribly deep. I've had some where we've in areas where we haven't mulched too much where I've had come out in the spring, and there's been corns on the soil surface because of the the freeze thaw signal.

Chris Enroth: 42:23

Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, they're not that far. So and you've seen them coming up. So, yeah, they they need to deploy their contractual route to pull them back down.

Chris Enroth: 42:34

It's like like a Batman with his, you know, utility belt deploy the the batarang or something. Anyway, off topic and a big topic here. So I gotta get back drive it back in. Ken, what are we supposed to talk about next?

Ken Johnson: 42:52

I think next was our talking about the different species that are out there.

Chris Enroth: 42:56

Oh, man. Alright. Let's dive into it.

Ken Johnson: 43:00

We've narrowed it down to, like, eight spring bloomers and four fall bloomers. And, again, this is so we kinda went through some looked at some different companies that sell crocus bulbs or porms, and these are some of those that you commonly see or or commonly written about in by other extension services and stuff like that. So these are probably some that are gonna be either easy to find or relatively easy to find. It's kind of the criteria we figure. Again, it's not everything, not even close to everything or even though you have everything you can find in the trade, so to speak.

Ken Johnson: 43:37

So but just a a sampling of some of the crocus that are out there that you can grow. I think put them in alphabetical order by scientific name so there's no that's the rhyme and reason is to the order. So I think we'll we'll start with the spring blooming crocus here. And, again, there's only some of them. So we have crocus cryosanthus.

Ken Johnson: 44:01

So this is called snow or sometimes golden crocus. I think most commonly, listed as snow crocus. This has well, this has those orange yellow flowers. So, again, typically, I think when most people think of crocus, they're thinking purple, lilac, white, just has yellow ones, and it's apparently fragrant. A lot of places descriptions describe a lot of these crocus as fragrant.

Ken Johnson: 44:25

I can't say I've ever stopped and smelled a crocus, so I'm gonna have to do that now because I didn't realize they were some of them were fragrant. There are other there are hybrids of this as well, some other species that can be white and blue. So you may see in addition to yellow, white, and and quote unquote blue, not a true blue, but a flower blue, which is more purple. And this is a an early bloomer, so bloom about two weeks before giant crocus or Dutch crocus is the ones that people typically grow, around the time of snowdrop. When snowdrop is blooming, these will often bloom around that same time.

Ken Johnson: 45:00

A lot of times with snow still on the ground. So now these have smaller, corms and flowers, then again, the Dutch crocus, but you have more flowers being produced per corm. So bit of a trade off, smaller flowers, but more of them. It's native to the Balkans and Turkey, that part of the world.

Chris Enroth: 45:19

Yeah. There's some really beautiful pictures of this one online, and this kind of also goes back to that prairie crocus that we mentioned at the top of the show that has a white flower. So some of these white flowering crocus, because it's a much earlier blooming time period, that if you think about sort of the physics of light as it hits, like, white petals, and it what happens is is that light can be absorbed or it can be reflected. And in a a white the color white, it's more reflective. And within the middle of these white petals, it actually creates this teeny tiny little warm microclimate of this light all being reflected.

Chris Enroth: 46:05

And so if you are a an insect, you actually will experience a a warmer little microclimate. I think this was with prairie crocus. So, again, not a real crocus, but it's a white flower, same shape as some of this crocus chrysanthus that we're looking at right here. It was much as 18 degrees warmer than the surrounding ambient temperature. So these white blooming plants actually do serve a little bit of a warming function for some of our early season pollinators.

Chris Enroth: 46:35

And plus, this is a an earlier blooming version of crocus, so I would imagine it performs in a similar fashion. So white doesn't change its physics just because it's a different species of plant.

Ken Johnson: 46:48

Yeah. The plants will get the thermometer out Yeah. And find out. And

Chris Enroth: 46:54

and the one thing I read about this chrysanthus is that it is readily spreads and and will move in the yard.

Ken Johnson: 47:03

Naturalize.

Chris Enroth: 47:05

Yes.

Ken Johnson: 47:05

Because I mean, we we should mention that. When when they say naturalize, that means it spreads typically means it spreads rather easily when so which could be good or bad depending on where that's naturalizing in. Yes. Don't think orcas are typically thought of as problematic.

Chris Enroth: 47:23

I don't think they're yeah. They're they're not displacing any of our native species. Even though they're nonnatives themselves in this part of the world, they're not pushing anything out. They're not taking anything away from anything else as far as I know. So, yeah, I don't see them as being listed as an invasive species anytime soon.

Ken Johnson: 47:44

Oh, boy. Otherwise, we'll have to delete this.

Chris Enroth: 47:48

We'll have to delete it, and the gray squirrels are gonna be very upset. So can this next one well, no. This isn't the most popular one, but it's close. This is the not the giant one, but this is the just the plain old Dutch yellow, also known as yellow crocus, crocus flavus. So in terms of this one, according to the common name, I'm assuming yellow flower.

Chris Enroth: 48:15

Correct?

Ken Johnson: 48:16

Yep. Golden golden to yellow orange. Again, often listed as fragrant as well. And this is, again, another early bloomer, another one that's good for for naturalizing, and it is native to Southeast Europe and Turkey. Another yellow one, you know, that we don't typically think of.

Chris Enroth: 48:33

And it's all yellow. Like, anthers, the style, all of it. So it's all all yellow. Actually, the anthers are bigger than the style with this particular species. So that's one identifying characteristic of it.

Ken Johnson: 48:46

So next on the list is are are the Tommies. I'm not even gonna try to say the scientific name.

Chris Enroth: 48:54

That's like a really crazy sounding dinosaur name to me. Tommy and then the onset. Tommies. And I've said half of it.

Ken Johnson: 49:04

Pop it up on the screen. You can say it yourself, or check the show notes.

Chris Enroth: 49:10

There you go.

Ken Johnson: 49:11

So these are called Tommies or Tommy, Woodland or Early Crocus or some different names. I think we usually see them as Tommy's. They're named after a botanist, Musio Tomas Tomasini, who was, I guess, was born in what is now modern day Ugly. So, again, one of the earlier blooming species, late winter, early spring. Missouri Botanical Garden says usually in March in the Saint Louis area.

Ken Johnson: 49:37

So maybe a little bit later by where we're at. Small lilac flowers to kind of a reddish purple color. There is a white variant. These are about three inches tall and native to Southeast Europe, hillsides and hillsides and woodlands, so Southern Hungary into the Northern Balkans. There's another one that will also naturalize quite readily.

Ken Johnson: 49:58

And this one apparently is less palatable to rodents. It's more bitter. So if you have problems with the gray squirrels, this may be one that's worth a try. Maybe they will not like eating it quite as much. No guarantee they're not gonna eat it, but maybe fewer problems with them.

Chris Enroth: 50:18

Yeah. And this is the one I'm fairly certain I had in our our yard in our old house. And it it was, again, like, the whole lawn seemed to have crocus foliage, but I would get maybe a dozen flowers every spring. I think I have a picture of that that we can put up. But, yeah, it would be, the whole lawn, and there's, like, three flowers total.

Chris Enroth: 50:42

They seem to have a pretty predominant kind of, like, white stripe in the middle of the leaf. Seems to stand out, at least, I think, than a few of the other species. And so yeah. And we had just kind of more of the straight kind of purple colored flower. So there's, as Ken said, there's tons of different cultivars here.

Ken Johnson: 51:05

Yeah. And speaking of the the leaves and turf and stuff, it was usually those leaves are present for, like could be, like, six weeks after blooming, and you really need to let those stay, let them start yellowing and dying back before you cut your grass, which probably is not practical depending on, where you live to let your grass go that long. So it's one of reasons why if you grow them in turf, you may see less flowering over time because you're like other bulbs, you you chop those leaves off. They can't build up those reserves. They can't, you know, do all that replacement corn or it's not as big.

Ken Johnson: 51:40

You don't get flowering. So Yeah. Just keep that in mind.

Chris Enroth: 51:44

And and that was definitely probably me needing to mow the lawn really bad. The lawn being mostly just foliage from our crocus. The other thing, interestingly, that you won't be growing these, but the foliage, it will persist until the seed is formed and ready to go. And so if you're growing the Mediterranean crocuses, so these are the the group a ones that Janis had talked about, where they they like a really dry summer. They don't need cold to start flowering, so they would technically be a fall bloomer.

Chris Enroth: 52:25

But they will their foliage will persist all winter long, which won't survive in our climate here in Illinois. So you can't you wouldn't wanna grow these anyway. But that that foliage will be there. And when it finally dies back, that's the sign the seed is ready to go. So if you ever do wanna harvest crocus seed, you have to wait for that foliage to completely die back.

Chris Enroth: 52:45

Anyway, I'm sorry, Ken. I keep deviating. I keep branching off like one of these multi branched crocus styles, so apologize.

Ken Johnson: 52:54

It's all good. Alright. Next up on list are the Dutch or giant or spring crocus. This is crocus vernus, and this is probably the one the other one people are more more than likely gonna be growing. These have the really the larger flowers.

Ken Johnson: 53:09

There are a lot of Dutch hybrid crosses too, which is this crocus vernus and other species that have been crossed. I think a lot of times they all get lumped together as giant crocus. But they have much larger flowers than some of these others. You get four to six inches tall. You get shades of purple, white.

Ken Johnson: 53:26

These are some of the ones that have a lot of striping on the petals as well. Typical bloom for about weeks. Saint Louis area, Missouri Potomac Garden, late March in the Saint Louis area. So maybe a little bit later here in in Central Or North Central Illinois. In native to Europe, these are high alpine areas.

Ken Johnson: 53:47

So the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathian Mountain Ranges, where these are native to. And Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 53:53

But with their wider leaf, I see these more in, like, landscape plantings as opposed to lawn plantings.

Ken Johnson: 54:00

Alright. Next one, we've got the Tuscan crocus or crocus etruscus. So like the may guess from the name, native to Italy, Southwestern Tuscany, and deciduous woods and stony fields. So lilac to purple flowers, and they have purple veining, and they have a golden throat. So if look on the inside down towards the base of that flower, it's a bright yellow color, about three inches tall.

Ken Johnson: 54:25

There's a couple that kinda have this yellow throat, which I don't know if I'd ever seen before before I really started looking into these, are pretty striking looking. Some of yeah, I may have to look against some of these because they're that that purple and the kind of that bright yellow is a good good combination, I think, anyway.

Chris Enroth: 54:41

I I really like these. They it's a delicate kind of purple, that lilac like you mentioned. But the styles, they're like this, like, trumpet. It's like this coral looking trumpet coming out of the middle, like something you would find under the ocean, but it's just protruding out of this flower. It's really neat.

Chris Enroth: 54:59

And I love the yellow throat on it and then the veining. That just sort of, like, comes down. I mean, the whole the whole tube that goes all the way back to the ground is is ornamental. So, yeah, I I agree with you, Ken. Let's get some of these and get them in the ground.

Chris Enroth: 55:14

Split the cost.

Ken Johnson: 55:16

Headed to the list. Alright. Next one is cybers crocus or crocus cyberi. It's got purple, shades of purple flowers. Again, they have a yellow or orange on them as well.

Ken Johnson: 55:35

Some there are some cultivars that have white flowers with yellow and yellow throats. I get three to four inches tall native to the Balkans, especially Crete, the island of Crete. This is another one that will naturalize as well. And probably one that probably isn't quite as common as some of these others, but

Chris Enroth: 55:52

There's a ton of subspecies, though. Like, they're seems like they're they're a big group.

Ken Johnson: 55:58

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 56:00

And their purple gold combination would work really well here in Macomb, Illinois whose university colors are purple and gold. So, for the the the straight species or the tricolor species, I guess, I should say, but the, not species, subspecies. Yeah. I can't keep this all straight, Ken. There's too much.

Chris Enroth: 56:24

But I think it's a beautiful plant because they they have this this tricolor subspecies that all these variations of purple and gold on the flower. And so but then they have white flowers. They they have yellow almost yellow flowers. So I don't know. Just too many to keep track of.

Ken Johnson: 56:44

You can become a crocus grower here soon.

Chris Enroth: 56:47

No. Be careful. It's gonna happen.

Ken Johnson: 56:51

Next one on the list is the cloth of gold crocus or crocus angustifolus. And I'll let you guess what color those are. They are yellow. And this is one you you talked about in the beginning where those outer three petals, a lot of times they have markings or colorings on the outside. So this one, they have a maroon or a purple bronze streaking on the outside of those those outer petals.

Ken Johnson: 57:13

A little bit different than some of the other, yellow species. When you look at pictures, some of them, that streaking is almost the entire outside of the petal. Sometimes it can be narrow. Sometimes it can be rather wide. Again, kind of a a different look for those.

Ken Johnson: 57:26

This is native to Southern Ukraine and Armenia, and this is also one that's often listed as being fragrant as well.

Chris Enroth: 57:33

Mhmm. I think Giannis would describe his greenhouse as honey scented when his crocus were in bloom. So wondering what that that fragrance is. I guess it must be a sweet honey Yes. Fragrance.

Ken Johnson: 57:50

Sure. Yeah. I'm gonna have to go out and smell mine this year because

Chris Enroth: 57:53

Yes.

Ken Johnson: 57:53

I don't remember what we planted, but we'll report back later. Mhmm. Alright. And the last one we had on our shortened list of spring blooming species is the corsican crocus. So crocus, corsicus.

Ken Johnson: 58:09

So again, as you may imagine, it's native to Corsica and Sardinia. Also, these are islands in the Mediterranean, if you don't remember from geography days. So these are lilac with within creamy outside, deep purple stripes, again, fragrant. And this is one that's flowering as the leaves kind of are developing.

Chris Enroth: 58:27

If if you like rock gardens, it's a good one for that. I think one of the descriptions I saw, it likes growing in stony, rocky areas. One of the collectors that found it in Corsica up in the mountains there said it was a I will change this. It was one heck of a job trying to get this plant out of the rocks without damaging it as they were collecting. So, yeah, it seems like it really likes that rocky mountainous type environment.

Ken Johnson: 58:59

Yeah. And I think in general, crocus are popular plants for rock gardens. I've never done a rock garden, but you look at a lot of, like, rock garden societies, they have little sections on on crocus because they're popular. Rock garden plants because they need that nicely drained soils.

Chris Enroth: 59:15

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we could be here all day, but we gotta move on to fall bloomers. Ken, what do we got here?

Ken Johnson: 59:21

So we've got, four of these, and there's I think we came came up with, like, eight or nine, but we narrowed it down to four in the interest of time. Mhmm. So the first one, then it well, I guess this one isn't in alphabetical order, but probably the most famous one or the most widely known is crocus sativus or the saffron crocus, also sometimes called autumn crocus. So this is one where this is where you get where saffron comes from. And this one may be probably warrants its own episode.

Ken Johnson: 59:54

So if people want that, they can let us know. So saffron has been cultivated, what I find, thirty five hundred years, really since ancient times. So that origin is really isn't really known because it's been in cultivation for so long. But probably it is sterile. So this is the one we're talking about.

Ken Johnson: 01:00:11

Sterile does not produce seeds. So I think it's a sterile hybrid of another species, a crocus, cartwright cartwright anthem anthenus, which is another it's a species that grows in Greece. As far as saffron goes, most commercial production, it's gonna be kinda at Spain to Italy to Greece, Iran, India, kinda that belt there, with the majority of it being in Spain and Iran. Again, this is one that grows in well drained soils. That's zone six to nine.

Ken Johnson: 01:00:40

So depending on where you're at in Illinois, you may not be able to grow this, especially in in the northern part of the state. So the the spiced saffron comes from the stigmas, and these are going to be hand harvested. And you need about 250,000 stigmas from about 75,000 flowers for one pound, which is why it's the most expensive spice, in the world. But you can you can buy this. I've got some growing that we bought kind of on a whim.

Ken Johnson: 01:01:13

Anyway, I have gotten flowers. I have picked the stigmas. I don't have enough flowers to really even bother picking them, but I have picked them, and they sat on the counter and eventually got composted because we only got, like, 12 of them. I can't really do anything with that. But they got the these purple lilac flowers.

Ken Johnson: 01:01:34

Again, they're fall blooming, last for about one to two weeks, four to six inches tall. They bloom, looking back at pictures, late October at my house here in Jacksonville. Again, depending on the season, you know, if we get really cold, that may could potentially cause some issues for you there. I but these are the stigmas. These are really long stigmas.

Ken Johnson: 01:01:55

A lot times they're hanging out of the flower. We can put put pictures of what it looks like, but they have very, very prominent stigmas.

Chris Enroth: 01:02:04

Yeah. Even when the flowers close that it it, like, hangs out of the

Ken Johnson: 01:02:10

Hanging out. Petals there.

Chris Enroth: 01:02:11

Mhmm. And pound for pound, it's yeah. It is one of the most valuable things on the planet even more than gold. And in, like, in Rome, ancient Rome, people could bring saffron in to trade for gold to the banks. Like, banks would accept saffron as a currency.

Chris Enroth: 01:02:29

Like, it would like, you could trade it for actual money, and it was considered very valuable. Still is to this day.

Ken Johnson: 01:02:35

Yes. Yeah. A lot of a lot of hand or a lot of labor goes into that. So which is why it's so expensive and a lot of plants.

Chris Enroth: 01:02:43

Yep. I'm confused about this next one, Ken. Autumn crocus? I thought we said that's not a real crocus.

Ken Johnson: 01:02:49

Yeah. So this is, like, this is the true autumn crocus. So this is crocus

Chris Enroth: 01:02:56

Cochianus. Coch Cochianus.

Ken Johnson: 01:02:59

Yeah. We'll pop it on screen, or you can check the shootouts.

Chris Enroth: 01:03:02

One of those too.

Ken Johnson: 01:03:03

Yes. So this is Turkey, to the Caucasus in Lebanon. Pale purple flowers. Again, they have these darker veins on them. They flower in, usually, in September ish time frame.

Ken Johnson: 01:03:15

Some later season color for you there. We've got hairy crocus or crocus pulchellis. So this is the Northern Balkans to Italy. They give a silvery lilac blue color, again, with darker veining on them and a yellow throat on these plants. About four to five inches tall, and they have hairy filaments, or those stalks that hold the anthers.

Ken Johnson: 01:03:39

That's how they get their name, hairy crocus. And then the last one is Crocus speciosis, often called showy crocus. I did see some references to Berbersteins or Berbersteins crocus as well. That may be more of a Europe thing than The US. But, this one, again, silvery silvery lilac blue flowers with dark veins, a little bit bigger, five to six inches tall, and blooms, in October.

Ken Johnson: 01:04:04

So just a couple fall options for you, though. They're not just for spring.

Chris Enroth: 01:04:09

There you go. I mean, I we've run through the gauntlet, Ken. I don't know what else there is to say. So I I I would say kind of wrapping things up. Some other things I ran into, can they be grown in pots?

Chris Enroth: 01:04:23

They they can. They they would probably like that. But you would have to divide them out and everything and, you know, mulch them just just sort of like what we described. The

Ken Johnson: 01:04:33

other

Chris Enroth: 01:04:33

thing is when should you be then kind of lifting them out of the ground and dividing them, replanting them? From everything I saw, it's when all the leaves have dried off. Because if you try to do that when the leaves are still green or haven't all the way died back, you will damage that point between the old corm and the new corm. And the new corm oftentimes will not survive that. So, lift and divide after foliage has died back.

Ken Johnson: 01:05:01

Yeah. That make that's yeah. That makes sense. That's when they're going dormant for the year. So

Chris Enroth: 01:05:05

Yeah. So did we get through all the notes, Ken? It's a whole other book next to you. I know.

Ken Johnson: 01:05:16

Yeah. Well, I think hold on. Let me check my notes. I think one thing maybe we did I don't think we mentioned this, but for a lot of them, most of them, I think, they're photoactive, they close-up at night and on cloudy days, they'll open up during the day when it's nice and sunny.

Chris Enroth: 01:05:33

There are three species that will stay open at night. They think they're moth pollinated, though. Three out of hundreds.

Ken Johnson: 01:05:42

Oh, there's mine. So the we're talking about the the styles being branched. Look at crocus Logusticus. That has got some crazy branching. We'll try to pop a picture in if we can find one that's okay to use.

Ken Johnson: 01:05:55

But that's that's kinda taken that branching to the extreme on that species.

Chris Enroth: 01:06:00

Yeah. Alien. We didn't really get into pests other than rodents. I think that will be people's biggest pest. There's viruses.

Chris Enroth: 01:06:12

Like, these get cucumber mosaic virus. They get tobacco virus. They get mosaic virus. They get they get viral diseases. I think one of them is, like, kinda coevolved with the plants, so it don't really kill the plant.

Chris Enroth: 01:06:23

Kinda just creates different interesting shapes and colors and things within the plant. But, usually, when the plant gets another stress another virus or another disease, then then it's more impactful. Obviously, there's a lot of different root rots, bacterial. There's one bacterial rot. There's a few fungal rots that it can get.

Chris Enroth: 01:06:44

But if you plant it in a kinda well drained spot, you'd probably be okay, and don't injure it so that rots can't take hold in the first place.

Ken Johnson: 01:06:52

Yeah. I think for a homeowner, you're you're growing on a small scale. Mhmm. Rodents, squirrels, which I guess are rodents, are gonna be your biggest problem. You may encounter some of the others, but it's probably gonna be not quite as likely as maybe some of these big time growers because they've got so many plants.

Chris Enroth: 01:07:11

Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 01:07:13

Oh,

Chris Enroth: 01:07:13

alright. Have we hit it all, Ken?

Ken Johnson: 01:07:19

Probably not. But

Chris Enroth: 01:07:20

Probably not. Part two coming up next year. Well, I will say that was still a lot of great information about Crocus even if it feels like we scratched the surface. And I I don't even know how long this recording's gone, Ken. I mean, I think we're in I think we're an hour in, but sorry, folks.

Chris Enroth: 01:07:41

Maybe we'll look at it later and try to break it up. Well, I don't know. But but so anyway, a lot of great information. Well, Good Growing podcast production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by are you up, Ken? You you wanna tackle this one?

Chris Enroth: 01:07:55

Okay. Edited by Ken Johnson. Thank you, Ken. Well, Ken, thank you for just learning as much as we can about Crocus today. We we spent a couple days reading, so learn as much as we could for this show.

Chris Enroth: 01:08:12

So thank you for being here and learning everything we could. Expert for a day, right? Yeah. Expert expert for a day.

Ken Johnson: 01:08:18

Yes. Yeah. Crazy crazy world. Did not expect it to be as indefinite complex as it actually is, but we got through it.

Chris Enroth: 01:08:29

We did. We made it.

Ken Johnson: 01:08:31

I said, man, thank you and let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 01:08:35

Oh, we shall do this again next week. All this talk about spring crocus has got us some spring fever. We're ready to get out and look at some plants. So I think Ken and I, you know, we might show you some of our favorite things that go on in spring in our yards. So some of our favorite plants, some of our favorite bloomers, or just some of the things we get excited about seeing in spring.

Chris Enroth: 01:08:55

So might be a photo heavy show next time, so maybe maybe all YouTube for us. But but anyway, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening, or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

Ken Johnson: 01:09:17

University of Illinois Extension. Going

Chris Enroth: 01:09:21

to try to put it on the screen. Then I am oh, wait. Sorry. What was that? What happened?

Chris Enroth: 01:09:33

Ken, you went away.

Ken Johnson: 01:09:34

Can you hear me?

Chris Enroth: 01:09:35

Sorry. I did that.

Ken Johnson: 01:09:37

Did you?

Chris Enroth: 01:09:38

I did that. Sorry.

Ken Johnson: 01:09:39

Yep. Maybe because of my Internet.

Chris Enroth: 01:09:42

I I hit stop video and apparently stopped stopped video for for you.