Crocus fail :-(

Benjamin Hargrave

I'm on my phone here so can't upload a photo but will do later. My problem is that all my crocuses are doing really nicely but just before the blooms open they flop. You can see from my profile pic that they were doing very nicely last year, I think they might have green fly but would that cause this issue or is there something else going on. Should I just spray them, I'd prefer to find a more organic way but I also want my flowers. Any help most welcome. It doesn't just seem to be after rain either which I suspected might have droopified them. Thanks for your help!

Guernsey Donkey2

I have given up  with crocus - they don't do very well in heavy rain or wind - on a sunny day they look lovely when they are in full open flower but as the last few winters have been so wet and windy the crocus have literally been a washout. I now grow more snowdrops which withstand our winters much better (and mini daffodils too).

Buttercupdays

Try them in grass, it will give some support to their flowers. They look lovely round a tree, and having a defined area looks deliberate, not untidy. The species ones like C. Tommasinianus are lovely. They will seed around if happy, but safer in grass than a border as you can control by mowing. You need to miss out on the last cut in autumn and for 6 weeks after flowering in the growing area, to let the leaves replenish the corms.

 Some of mine in a good year

 This year, even after a disastrously wet and stormy winter. They are growing on a steep slope too!

Dovefromabove

Highly unlikely that crocuses have greenfly, especially this weather.  Spraying (against anything) won't stop them flopping - in fact it's more likely to exacerbate it as the likely cause is the weight of rain on the blooms.  

It's just the wrong sort of weather

Benjamin Hargrave

Good to know it's nothing I can really do anything about.

Sadly I have just a small city garden which has no grass to support them, and with it being a London garden there sadly are indeed green fly on them as I think it's been too warm and sheltered to kill them all off. I'm hoping for an explosion of the population of pest eaters! I did wonder it they are just delicate and unable to cope with our weather this year.

Luckily I have some under my wax flower which is quite sheltered, so I think I'll get my crocus joy from there as they look about set to open up.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Thanks for all the responses.