Gadenin日本語Get the appLeaves but no flowers, the most common complaint
A block that produces plenty of grassy leaves in autumn and winter but few or no flowers is not diseased. It is almost always one of four things, and they are easy to tell apart if you know when the planting went in and how long it has been there.
| Situation | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| First autumn after planting small corms | Corms below flowering size | Wait a year; feed after flowering and in late winter |
| Planted late, well into autumn | Not enough time to initiate buds | Nothing this season; they should flower next autumn |
| Three or more years in the same spot, dense leaves | Congestion, corms splitting into small offsets | Lift in late summer, grade, replant only the large corms at full depth |
| Cool wet summer, or bed watered in summer | Dormancy never got the heat and dryness it needs | Move to a drier site, raise the bed, or lift and store warm each summer |
| Leaves thin and pale, planting shaded | Not enough winter light | Move the block in late summer to a fully open position |
Corm rot, the failure that ends the planting
Rot is caused by fungi that get in through damaged tissue and take hold in wet, warm soil, which is exactly what a poorly drained bed provides in summer. Above ground it shows as leaves that yellow from the base upward out of season, or as a patch of the block that simply does not come up in autumn. Below ground the corm is soft, often with a sunken brown or pink-tinged area at the base plate and a sour smell.
- Dig out the bad patch, generously Lift every corm within a hand's width of the affected ones. Rot spreads through soil contact and a corm that looks fine at the edge of the patch is often already infected.
- Discard, do not compost Bin all soft corms and any with sunken lesions. Do not attempt to cut damage out and replant; unlike a potato, a saffron corm has one growing point and no margin.
- Fix the drainage before you replant Work coarse grit through the bed or raise it four to six inches (10-15 cm). Replanting sound corms into the same wet ground repeats the loss the following year.
- Rest the ground for three to four years Do not put saffron, or other corms and bulbs, back into a bed where rot has occurred. Choose a fresh site and leave the old one to other crops.
- Handle corms carefully at lifting Most infections start at a fork wound or a bruise from rough handling. Lever the block up from outside its edge, and let corms surface dry before storing.
What eats saffron
The animal problems are worse than the insect problems. Corms are a concentrated food source sitting in the ground at exactly the season when other food is scarce, and the flowers are soft and short-lived. Most of this is preventable with physical barriers rather than sprays.
| Pest | What you see | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Voles and mice | Corms gone entirely, small tunnels, plants missing in patches | Plant six inches (15 cm) deep, line the bed with wire mesh, keep long grass away from the edge |
| Squirrels | Freshly planted corms dug up within days | Pin wire mesh over the bed until the ground settles, then remove it before leaves emerge |
| Slugs and snails | Ragged holes in petals, flowers eaten before opening | Pick over the bed at dusk during flowering; keep the surface clear of debris |
| Bulb fly larvae | A soft corm with a hollowed center and a single fat grub inside | Discard affected corms; firm the soil around necks after leaves die back |
| Birds | Petals shredded, flowers pulled apart on the ground | Nothing effective is needed for a small planting; pick early in the morning |
| Rabbits and deer | Leaves grazed to the ground in winter | Fence or net the block; leaf loss in winter costs you next autumn's flowers |
Knowing when to give up on a corm
There is a point where salvage costs you more than it returns. Discard any corm that is soft anywhere, that has a wet or discolored base plate, that is hollow, or that weighs noticeably less than its size suggests. Shriveled brown husks found under a cluster are last year's spent corms and are meant to be discarded; that is normal, not a problem. Small firm offsets are worth keeping, but grow them on at the edge of the bed for a year or two rather than mixing them into the main block, or you will lose track of why the flower count is low.
One corm brought home from an unknown source can introduce rot to a bed that then has to be abandoned for years. Quarantine bought corms in a tray for a couple of weeks before planting, and never mix them straight into an established, healthy block.
The problem log that saves the next planting
When something goes wrong, record the date, the exact part of the block affected, and what the corms looked like when you dug them, along with the weather in the preceding weeks. Saffron problems play out over a full year, so by the time you see a symptom the cause is months behind you. A short note saying that a corner of the bed stayed wet after a summer storm is the entry that explains an empty patch the following autumn, and it is the only way to be sure the bed has actually been fixed rather than just replanted.