Newbie: question on Crocosmia

17 years ago

Hi Everybody:

First of all, please accept my apologies for asking such a dumb and basic question and please excuse my ignorance.

I bought some crocosmia Bulbs/Corms/Rhizomes in middle to late February. I never had any experience with these bulbs before. I never even seen how the bulbs look like or should look like. I am in zone 7 or 6 B, New Mexico and our average last frost date is April 15 and so I planted these bulbs in the third or fourth week of April. Until then, I did not even unpack the packet, just left it in garage where the temparatures stayed well above 32F. When I unpacked the bag, they looked kind of like rally hard pebbles. I thought it was not a good sign. They looked suspcious, but having never seen these bulbs before, I was not sure whether or not they are viable. I thought I might as well plant them and see. In any case, I planted them according to the directions(about two or three inches below the soil). I planted them in my flower bed which has several flowering plants so I water the bed twice a day (in our dry desert climate without natural rain, they will perish otherwise). When I was planting these crocosmia bulbs, I also planted some cannas and dahlias and most of them came up, however, not even one crocosmia or blade of grass showed up. I am just curious as to what went wrong. Do you think the bulbs have no viability to start with or is it something I have or have not done.

I tried googling the pictures of crocosmia bulbs, however, it only came up with the pictures of the plants and flowers.

Once again, sorry to ask such stupid question but my curiosity got better of me.

thanks in advance

Garden Lover

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Comments (4)

calistoga_al ca 15 usda 9
17 years ago
They sound fine to me and I am sure they will grow. I have never been able to get rid of them. They are pretty and in our climate they produce lots of those little "Rocks". We had them in a bed with a ground cover and when they came up kind of stuck out. Al
gardenlover_7
Original Author
17 years ago
Thank you very very much for your reply. Having never seen these bulbs before, I just wondered whether or not these little "rocks" produce anything. They are so different from any of the bulbs I have seen and so instantly I concluded that they are shrivelled (mishandling by me) and so are no good. Thankfully, I did not throw them away. I will post the pictures once they start blooming.

Once again, thanks for your input
Garden Lover
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lisa455
17 years ago
They just started blooming this week in Southeast Louisiana, so yours might be on their way.
Mozart2
17 years ago
Gardenlover 7:

Well, first of all, you have to become acquainted with one of the best places to search for information. It is the "PlantFinder" section within the Missouri Botanical Garden web site.

Here's a link to one of of the Crocosmia plants that is listed in their site. We have two of these plants - Crocosmia 'Lucifer' growing in our northwestern Michigan garden; I planted them last year and they are doing very well. We are looking forward to their blooms again this year.

Here's the informational link to this particular variety. Once you arrive at the "Search" site - see below - go to their alphabetical listing and then to "C" and scroll down a bit until you see "Crocosmia"; there are four or five varieties listed. I have no doubts that you'll find the information on this page most useful in your future searches. (Again, see their "Search" section - you'll be surprised at what you will find for various things - such as attracts hummingbirds, zone, sunlight, etc., etc., etc.

Crocosmia - 'Lucifer'

Here's a link to their "search" engine.

PlantFinder - Search

And here's the link to the home page of the Missouri Botanical Garden and look around for their "virtual" tour.

Missouri Botanical Garden

Hope this source of information is most useful in your gardening endeavors.

Bill