This week... crocuses

Enjoy a welcome burst of colour in late winter and early spring by planting crocuses crocuses

CROCUSES have flowers like small, slender, upright goblets, made up of three inner petals alternating with three outer petals. The whole plant is not usually taller than about 6in (15cm).

The slender dark-green leaves have a fine white stripe along the centre, and both leaves and flowers spring from small corms, usually referred to as bulbs, not more than about 1in (2.5cm) across, with a rough, stringy covering. Each year, a new corm, or sometimes two or three, develop above the previous year’s corm as it dies away. Roots pull the new corm down to the right level.

Flowering is mainly in late winter and spring, and the flowers come in a wide variety of colours, although not including red, and there are also many varieties with a contrasting colour in the throat or in streaks in the petals. In some, the three outer petals differ in colour from the three inner petals.

When and where to plant

CROCUS corms are usually sold in packs of 10, 12 or 25. Some are on sale in garden centres and nurseries from late summer and early autumn, while orders from mail order sources can usually be made in summer for delivery in late summer and early autumn.

It pays to plant autumn-flowering varieties as early as possible, late summer even, as they will flower from six to ten weeks after planting. Winter and spring-flowering varieties can be planted at any time in autumn.

The most widely grown types are easy to grow. All appreciate sunshine, especially while flowering and until the leaves start to die back later in spring, and they are happy to be dry in summer, so planting them under deciduous trees or shrubs is ideal.