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Feb 22
Hi Andy, oh yeah, and I see a small tunnel right where I would expect the
last of my doorstep clump of snowdrops to be...I know a mole is travelling
from the base of the grapevine bird feeders through there to our drainage
system. Heaven knows, I haven't seen them lugging corms but who knows. I
have seen the chipmunks trucking off with them, as they would stop to chat
and then continue on their way with the corm .
http://margmillard.ca
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Dean" <aadean@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Crocus corms
When we lived at Port Joli we planted several large clumps of crocus which
blossomed profusely the first year....semi-profusely the second year ....
sparsley the third year.... and from then on we had only one or two small
clumps or solitary blooms.....and we attributed it to the resident chipmunks
which were a constant in the 15 years we resided there....we also had red
squirrels but we never had any evidence that they ate the bulbs.
Whilst eating lunch one day , sitting by the dining room window, we
watched a short-tailed vole emerge from it's den under a stump and make
several trips back and forth to a small surviving patch of crocus. It was
dragging blossoms , one at a time, with which to decorate the entrance to
its den.....we figured it was an aesthetically minded individual and the
purpose purely decorative, but there may have been a more practical use for
the flowers.
Andy & Lelia Dean
86 Baden Powell Drive
Kentville, NS. Canada. B4N 5P5
Tel: [902] 678-6243
aadean@ns.sympatico.ca
From: David & Alison Webster
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Crocus corms
Hi Margaret & All, Feb 22, 2008
I doubt Chipmunk because we have never (over 40 years) seen one in
the yard or nearby. But it is interesting that they also make use of
underground storage organs. Treatment of the Crocus corms suggests a
long-standing culture in corm/bulb usage. So I am wondering what native
plants they might harvest and suspect that the dug up areas in
Coniferous woods, attributed by folklore to Squirrels burying cones,
might be something else.
Yt, DW
Margaret E.Millard wrote:
> any chance it might be a chipmunk's stash? Sounds awfully familiar to
> me. Here I have (sadly, as I love the snow drops but really wanted to
> know where they were going) watched as they harvest the bloom and
> flower stalk, eat it and then dig up the corm and away they went and
> stashed them in my gardening gloves in a bucket that I use for lugging
> tools about the yard...
> Marg in White Point, Queens
> http://margmillard.ca
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David & Alison Webster"
> <dwebster@glinx.com>
> To: <NatureNS@chebucto.ns.ca>
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 9:52 AM
> Subject: [NatureNS] Crocus corms
>
>
>> Dear All, Feb 22, 2008
>> For about 25 years I have hauled warm-weather wood last and piled
>> it over a mixed bed of Vinca, Crocus and Snowdrops. These tiers are
>> used or moved by mid-March. This has subdued the otherwise
>> overwhelming Vinca and given the Crocus and Snowdrop room to expand.
>>
>> But this year is going to be very different I think. The soil
>> under these tiers is entirely rooted up with runners sunken and
>> soil/debris piled between tiers. Today, while hauling in more wood, I
>> uncovered a cache of 7 Crocus corms, carefully stripped of outer
>> husk, with the shoot chewed back and piled root end up in a red
>> squirrel (?) pantry.
>>
>> I suspect Squirrel because we have 2 in the yard, rarely seen
>> since cold weather arrived, and the associated ~2 Litre nest had long
>> slim fleas that resembles some that came in with roadkill. So
>> tentatively, our Squirrels have developed a taste for Crocus corms.
>>
>> Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
>>
>
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