Eranthis, Crocus and Galanthus ‘Merlin’

Friday was a good day for the Aconites, glorious sunshine flexed their blooms, offering pollen ‘on a plate’ to the bees that hummed and buzzed; the most transient of scents cupped by the mild, still air. Winter Aconites can’t help but brighten a dour day; however a blue-skied, softly tempered day emblazoned by the sun is the stage on which they present their best performance.

The bees have also found the pollen of Crocus tommasinianus, my favourite Crocus, it’s elegant and delicate blooms belying the fact that it can elbow it’s way to the front and impress.

It can be seen in violet, mauve and lilac streaks along the edges and corners of borders, it’s such a good doer, seeding about and never minds being un-seasonally dug up and re-buried as part of the collateral damage of gardening throughout the year; in fact it seems to thrive on the anarchy. Crocus tommasinianus does; however throw up lots of grassy foliage after flowering that can get to the psyche of the gardener that likes control and order; but we just ‘graze’ it with our hands as soon as it starts to pull away without the corms coming with it, later in spring. I’d forgotten how impressive it is, not only in beds and borders; but in the lawns, where it’s seeded under the Lime Walk (only moss grows here) as well as between the gaps in nearby engineering brick paving.

Galanthus ‘Merlin’, a Snowdrop with an almost entirely green center, grows at the base of the wall, near the gate into the lane.