Congratulations to Cathy on another successful Week of Flowers, and all the flowery joy which her and other bloggers have brought to computer screens across the world! I’ve enjoyed the adventure and as expected will wrap things up with one last flowery bulb.
Colchicums!
During the late days of summer and throughout fall, colchicums(autumn crocus if you’d like, but they’re 100% not crocus relatives) bring color to the fading garden. Depending on your frame of mind they’re either the perfect end to the bulb season, or the first heralds of the new growth of fall and winter.
I’ve posted plenty on colchicums in the past, so won’t bore you with too many details, but these bulbs will sprout their hosta-like foliage in the spring, die back for the summer, and then erupt with fresh flowers in the fall just when everything else was starting to look tired.
Colchicums popping up through a groundcover of leadwort.
Even out of bone-dry, late-summer tired soil, colchicums still manage to wake up and look fresh as if everything for the new season will be perfect.
Colors range is white or pinks with single or double flowers. The whites can be really nice although here in my gray planting it might still need some developing.
And that wraps up Cathy’s Week of Flowers. I hope your early December days were brightened by the color, and your long nights refreshed with dreams of flowers past… a good type of refreshing, not a Dickenesque haunting by the ghosts of seasons past… and if you still need some more refreshing, consider it’s just two weeks until the winter solstice and lengthening days strengthening rays and then it starts all over again!
Enjoy your break while it lasts 😉
sorta like suburbia 
I think you have convinced me to try growing these next year Frank! It was the words ‘Even out of bone-dry, late-summer tired soil, colchicums still manage to wake up and look fresh’. I definitely need something fresh at the end of a hot summer. Surprisingly I like the white ones best. I will be enjoying my winter break with dreams and plans, and a lot of perusing of nursery websites. This week has been quite inspiring. 😃 Thanks Frank, and have a great week!
The week of flowers sure did fast-forward things to the solstice and lengthening days. Thanks again!
Absolutely try a few colchicums. I agree the whites are fantastic. They might be easier to find for you than they are here, on this side of the Atlantic it’s nearly impossible to find the most perfect C. speciosum ‘Album’ and the double white is also a little more tricky to source.
I just remembered how poisonous they are…. 😯
You have so many beauties, Frank, a fine end to summer. Looking forward to solstice and the lengthening days… happy holidays!
Sooo…. the lengthening days are here, and in spite of the cold I like to think I can feel it 😉 Hope you’re having an excellent holiday. Here it’s always a busy week but of course an escape to the winter garden is always on the schedule 😉
Wow, your collection of colchiums are splendid. So charming in the fall landscape. Makes me wish I had more of them.
Lisa you just need to give the word, I always have extras!
Have to say that the last image after all those bright flowers was a surprise. Subtle and sophisticated. I need to see if I can replicate it somewhere in my garden, esp. as I’ve been meaning to add the white version of colchicums.
Isn’t the gray and white effect interesting!? I was surprised by how much I liked it considering I’ve been ‘tin-eared’ most of my life regarding colors, with no taste and never a subtle brush. Now all I want to do is plant a swath of blue fescue and dot it throughout with white. I already planted a few more patches of the double white colchicum after I begged more off a friend!