You’ve noticed, I’m sure, how quickly the snow melts away from the south wall of a building. Where the sun’s heat is amplified by reflection, the grass turns green and dandelions often flower in February. But have you thought of utilizing your south wall for something more rewarding than dandelions?
Species crocuses are well adapted to foraging in such an open-air hothouse. In their native mountains, they are geared to flowering the day the snow recedesóin fact, I’ve read that their open flowers may be seen pressing upwards beneath the last transparent crust, like children at a basement window.
In the synthetic spring of a south wall, a few days of warmth after a hard freeze will bring the crocus thrusting up; and since, unlike turtles, they can’t pull their heads back into their collars, they must remain above ground and take whatever extremes a disorderly climate may inflict.
Little Crocus Amazingly Durable
Frail as they may seem, the little crocuses are amazingly durable. I have known a bed in full bloom to survive a drop to eight degrees without damage. The dragging weight of melting snow will of course bruise or crush the standing flowers, but in the thaw that follows, new buds crowd to replace them.
First to flower and first in my affections is the Greek Crocus Sieberi. Once it gave me a flower on December 24, but its regular appearance is about two weeks later. It is a heart’s delight without flaw or reservation: rugged, generous of increase, with a crown of broad shining leaves to enclose its bubbling exuberance of flowers.
These are a delectable tint of campanula violet with a sunny yellow throat to give warmth. The deep orange stigmata are worth examining with a hand lens. Their three-branch tips expand to funnel-like forms processed with flared and fluted brims, exactly like the vases that top a Victorian epergne.
A delightful companion for C. Sieberi is the chrysanthus variety ‘E. A. Bowles,’ a fitting memorial to the beloved plantsman whom it honors. It is not as prolific as Sieberi, but as the largest of the spring-flowering species, it makes up for in expanse what it lacks in numbers. `E. A. Bowles’ is a light-catching canary yellow, richly satisfying to the eye starved for warm color during the gray days of winter.
Its glossy amber throat is set with vivid Saturn red stigmata, a neon invitation to any early-rising insect. The firmly cupped segments are restrained by a trim waistline. Even when widely reflected under a hot sun, the flowers keep their matchless goblet form.
A striking contrast to ‘E. A. Bowles,’ and dwarf enough to stand in front of it, is another chrysanthus variety, ‘Zwanenburg Bronze,’ whose name does it less than justice. The outer surface is not the greenish-brown of bronze, but rich maroon, almost as red as cordovan leather.
Since the interior is burnished golden yellow, the half-open flower is as festive as a chocolate Easter egg. `Zwanenburg Bronze’ is so prodigally generous in bloom that its flowers form a tight nosegay, too compressed to expand fully, and therefore showing off their gaudy bicolor to best advantage.
A Few Newcomers
`Goldilocks,’ a recent chrysanthus seedling, is still rather scarce, but well worth a place in the foreground of your planting. It resembles a stemless buttercup in color and glossy finish, though its tightly rounded segments have far more substance, being as stiff as plastic and nearly as durable.
`Goldilocks’ has the unique property of throwing occasional doubles. (A double crocus is as rare as a two-headed calf and lots prettier.) The originator of `Goldilocks,’ George Barr, says he has never seen doubles, but de Jager of Holland confirms my observation even to the ten- and twelve-segment variants as I found them.
The chrysanthus tribe of crocuses ranges from the Balkans through Greece to Asia Minor. With such a wide geographical distribution, it’s not surprising to find a wealth of variations. Nevertheless, in a species whose name translates as “gold flower,” blue forms sound paradoxical.
The only one I’ve grown is ‘Blue Beauty,’ a small flower, rather retreating in its quiet tint of blue-violet. A darker blaze on the lower portion of the segments intensifies their blueness, making the bud and closed flower more attractive than when fully open.
It is quite pretty when paired with light yellow crocus, and is worth growing as much for its oddity as for its modest garden effect.
A more striking newcomer is ‘Lady Killer,’ classed as a chrysanthus but exactly matching the color plate of Crocus biflorus Alexandria in Bowles’ Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum. The exterior segments are intense blue-purple, the rest of the flower pure white, without a trace of the yellow throat which is chrysanthus’s invariable hallmark.
Since the only evidence of chrysanthus blood are the minute black barbs on the antlers, it appears that ‘Lady Killer’ should be described as a biflorus hybrid. A price of three dollars for the single corm indicates its scarcity. I hope that ‘Lady Killer’ will increase rapidly enough to bring its outstanding beauty within general reach.
A brand new chrysanthus, ‘Cream Beauty,’ jumped high on the list in its first year. It is a large flower with broadly cupped segments of exceptional substance. By the color chart, it is Naples yellow, the color of country cream, reinforced with a dark purple-brown thumbprint at the base of the outer segments.
A slightly deeper yellow throat and blazing Saturn red stigmata give it high luminosity. First noted on February 26, ‘Cream Beauty’ sent up its last bud on April 10, an extraordinary performance for any crocus and doubly remarkable for a newly planted one.
A splendid consort for ‘Cream Beauty,’ well-matched in form and size and most flattering in color, is a handsome imposter listed as C. dalmaticus ‘Firefly.’ Now dalmaticus, the type, is a paltry thing with narrow, pointed segments hardly better than splinters, of a washy pinkish lilac.
It is the only spring-flowering crocus I know that blooms nakedóor more exactly, with the tops of the leaves just visible at ground level, a feature which is its sole distinction. ‘Firefly,’ in sharp contrast, is a broad-shouldered flower of an intensely radiant tone of mineral violet, set off by leaves brown enough for a Sieberióand again like Sieberi, its stigmata are three-branched and conical.
When it blooms again, I’ll send a specimen to the Royal Horticultural Society for identification. Meanwhile, ‘Firefly’ is a highly desirable ornament by any name, even an assuredly wrong one.
Strength in Color
The crocuses I’ve discussed so far are in the top rank, both form and color entitling them to a position that invites close and frequent inspection. Two others are kept in the limited area along the south wall because their compelling color more than compensates for inferior form.
Crocus aureus is quite variable. Some individuals are well-rounded, others flimsy and gap-petalled. (Why doesn’t some discriminating grower make a selection of the substantial forms instead of offering a spotty collection?) Despite its shortcomings, C. aureus is valued for its glowing nasturtium orange and its literary associations.
As blinded Oedipus groped his way home to Colons, it was C. aureus that “broke out like fire at his feet.” Sand and summer baking is recommended, but even with special care, aureus does less well for me than the majority of Greek crocuses.
This is by no means the general experience, however. Elizabeth Lawrence, the author of The Little Bulbs, writes to me that aureus grows like a weed all over her garden in Charlotte, North Carolina.
C. Tomasinianus from the Balkans is a ghostly gray lavender of little garden value, but its variety `Whitewell Purple’ is superlatively showy. The individual flowers are slender, almost daisy-like in shape, but are produced so lavishly that an established patch presents a solid block of color.
Its saturated spectrum violet is unequaled by any other species of crocus, approaching as it does the intensity of the Dutch hybrid ‘Paulus Potter.’ Whitewell Purple’ opens a little later than ‘E. A. Bowles’ but their schedules overlap enough to make a pleasing complement of yellow and violet.
The Italian crocuses, in my experience, are more difficult to please than those from the Balkans eastward. Crocus imperati from the vicinity of Naples is an outstanding beauty, but a capricious one. Its long, almond-shaped segments are as thick as mushroom peelings and have on the outside a gray bloom as soft as a moth’s wing.
The interior is Chinese violet with the utmost vibrancy. The fire-orange stigmata, extravagantly splashed and fringed, are as long as the segments. As they mature, they roll over the petals.
The difficulty with C. imperati is that it sulks in normal garden soil. It demands a thorough summer baking. Yet in the congenial sand bed at the south wall, it tries to bloom in January when its fleshy buds are inevitably pulped by frost.
I haven’t yet solved the problem of how to give imperati a desert summer without forcing it into premature spring bloom, but I mean to keep trying for the sake of its elegant form and radiant color.
Smaller Crocuses
Towards the end of February, when bloom at the south wall begins to taper off, the second act curtain lifts in the wild garden along the border of a wood. Here the smaller crocuses can assert their dainty charms without competition from Franklin’s boulder sorts. This is the place also for those attractive in mass but not sufficiently not able to stand alone at the south wall.
The green carpet of the alpine lawn, woven of refined ground covers such as prostate thymes, the mossy Arenaria caespitosa Verna, the creeping bluet Houstonia serpyllifolia, and that quaint Tasmanian Hydrocotyle peduncularis, make an agreeable setting for white or pale-colored crocuses and serve in addition to prevent their short-stemmed flowers from being splattered with mud.
The little chrysanthus variety ‘Moonlight’ is as delicate and appealing as its name. Its light yellow flowers, paling to ivory-white at the tips, give a translucent seashell effect, much more charming when spread over a green coverlet than on the bare sand of the south wall bed. Crocus biflorus, natty and trim in black-purple pinstripes on a white ground, is one Italian that disproves the rule and grows well for me.
Among the real midgets, C. Olivieri is a favorite. Its globular flowers, as flaming as those of aureus but no larger than peas, sit tight on their nest of thyme and suggest a revised fable, The Wren that Laid the Golden Eggs.
C. candidus subflavus has the same habit as Olivieri but is larger and less pleasing in color, being a rather dull pumpkin buff. C. susianus, also nearly stemless but long and narrow in shape, has bold chestnut flares on the reverse of its deep chrome segments and looks for all the world like a miniature Tulipa Kaufmanniana.
Among the 30-odd species and varieties I’ve grown, there are naturally some that fail to please. In some cases, the disapproval is mutual. I don’t want to waste time discussing second-rate crocuses, but neither do I want anyone to waste money and garden space on inferior sorts when there are so many fine varieties to bring pleasure.
Very briefly, then, I’ll mention some that I will not reorder in my new garden.
C. Sieberi ‘Violet Queen’: smaller and duller than the type. C. Balansae: a murky orange with sepia stripes; tiny, not showy. C. chrysanthus ancyrensis and Korolkowii: both with silver-thin segments; both apt to split into non-flowering chips. C. etruscus: stiff pointed segments, blotchy, a poor doer. C. Tomasinianus Taplow Ruby’: really an approach to reading, but too puny a plant and too stingy with its flowers to be effective.
C. chrysanthus ‘Snow Bunting’ and `Warley White’: the white chrysanthus are somewhat dingy, washed with straw yellow or dull buff. ‘Snow Bunting’ is the better of the two but not nearly so clean as C. biflorus or the sparkling ‘Lady Killer.’
Since I have mentioned the price of ‘Lady Killer’ as an indication of its rarity, I had better correct the impression that crocuses are sold by the carat. Ninety cents will bring you 25 corms of the enchanting Sieberi, enough to stock your garden and share with your friends, and delight all the bees in the neighborhood.
For ten cents less you can have the same number of `Whitewell Purple,’ sheets of glowing color in any corner you tuck them in. ‘E. A. Bowles,’ slower to increase, but entirely reliable, runs a dollar a dozen, high for a chrysanthus but eminently worth the investment. In a sense, the species of crocuses are beyond price, for how can you reckon in money the joy of spring in February?
44659 by M. M. Graff