Thursday 1 March 2012

A perfect day for crocuses

A nice pink Crocus tommasinianus with slightly darker tips.
 A misty start gave way to a glorious day of bright warm sunshine and evvery flower in the garden opened up. About once a year there is a day like this when the crocuses dominate the scene and the bees are out in force - a real delight, and I took the opportunity to spend the afternoon outside, tidying up the dead stuff from winter and just enjoying my own garden.

Crocus malyi is an excellent plant for the open garden.

 'Cream Beauty' and 'Blue Pearl' really complement each other very well.

Bumblebees ravaged this clump of purple C. vernus all day; honeybees visited too, but there were three or four bumbles in the flowers most of the time, clambering from flower to flower. I expect a good crop of seed!

A large form of C. vernus with pale tips on the outer segments.

'Yalta', Janis Ruksans' superb selection of C. tommasinianus
× vernus, with grey exterior and rich purple centre.

The garden in late afternoon, covered in crocuses and full of colour.

4 comments:

  1. John,
    Loved those tommies! The garden is lovely can't beat a lawn full of crocuses.
    Crocuses are finishing up here already, usually we are lucky to see two species by March, twelve have bloomed already.

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  2. I saw a photograph of crocus from a friend's garden the other day and it was so simple and so beautiful that I wondered why I hadn't thought of it myself previously. My friend had simply mixed the crocus when planting them in their clumps in the grass so each clump had different colours which went together beautifully. Very simple but I would usually take one colour crocus and plant it and them move on to planting the next - my wife says this is a man's approach. Oh, well. I am learning.

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  3. SO very lovely...I adore when people naturalize them in their lawns...so beautiful!

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  4. That lawn is superb ... a genius works there.

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