Crocuses: A Book Review

Late last week I received a review copy of Crocuses: A Complete Guide to the Genus
by Janis Ruksans. This is the kind of gardening book that makes my garden-geeky heart beat faster. It focuses on one genus, and endeavors to tell you everything you could possibly want to know: growing in an open garden, growing in green houses, growing in pots, starting from seed, and pests and diseases. And that’s just Part One, less than a fifth of the book.

 

In Part Two, Ruksans explains the botanical characteristics of the genus, and then the meat of the book begins: Classification. I like what he says at the beginning of this section:
We can look at plant classification from two viewpoints. One is strictly scientific and is the domain of scientists and profesional botanists. The other is a practical viewpoint in which gardeners put the findings of scientists to good acount in a way that is accessible and useful for their purposes.
Doesn’t that sound sensible? This section is subdivided into Autumn-Flowering Crocuses and Spring-Flowering Crocuses, and those subsections are broken into related groups. At the beginning of each group is a botanical key that would enable you to identify the species you have. Following this key is a lengthy description of each species, where Ruksans tells you everything he knows about the species, including where he may have seen it, in the wild or in a grower’s nursery, and everything he has read about the species. There are 307 color photos, arranged in two sections of “plates,” and if there is a picture of that species, the plate number is listed. Some of the photos are of crocuses in the wild. I especially love this, to see crocuses growing “like weeds” in a steep mountain meadow.
Ruksans First Book
I had the opportunity to hear Ruksans speak shortly after his first book, Buried Treasures: Finding and Growing the World’s Choicest Bulbs
was published. His Latvian accent was a bit difficult to decipher, but his passion for flowering bulbs of all types was unmistakable. He spoke in three sessions, one on fritallarias, one on corydalis, and one covering a multitude of species from the “bulb belt of previous USSR.” Many of the slides from his talk were the same as those in Buried Treasures . Ruksans has an international mail order nursery, and according to this forum thread, has issued a 2011 mail order catalog. If Ruksans’ email is the same as in 2008, you can request a pdf catalog from janis.bulb at hawk.lv. But please take Craig’s precautions into consideration. A group order is the only way to go, as there are several fees as well as air shipping, all subject to the exchange rate current at the time Ruksans ships.
A Plea For Colchicums
I need a book like this for colchicums. I have already been told I should write such a book, but I don’t have the scientific knowledge. (If I did, I wouldn’t need the book!) I can’t develop a key for identifying species, I haven’t seen a single colchicum in the wild, and I know no more than what I’ve read in A handbook of crocus and colchicum for gardeners,
by E. A. Bowles, the last scientific work on the genus. But I can write, and I’d be more than happy to co-author such a book with a colchicum expert who has the knowledge but perhaps not the time or willingness to turn that knowledge into accessible prose. I already talked to someone at Timber Press about this, and they said there wouldn’t be a market for it. So I guess I’ll have to develop the market, first.