April 15, 2008
Last week, as the snow receded and the ground emerged, I toured the yard checking on the daffodils’ progress. Mostly they looked like green fingertips protruding through the dirt, a green contrast against the browns, grays, and ochres of the ground litter.
But out of the corner of my eye, I saw something purple. Given the amount of tattered stuff lying around, I figured it was a bit of plastic bag or carton that had blown free months ago while I was hauling out the trash. So I rotated to pick it up — and almost keeled over in astonishment upon realizing it was a blooming crocus!
This shouldn’t be a surprising event. After all, it’s Spring, and crocuses are one of the earliest flowers. However, I didn’t plant any. And they don’t grow wild anywhere near here.
Ten years ago I put crocuses in the garden but they didn’t survive the moles and the cold. I never saw a blossom or a leaf. Where, then, did this thing come from?
Even if some horticultural miracle regenerated one of the original plants, it couldn’t have traveled 25 yards under the ground, including below the driveway, to spring up beneath the lilac bushes. Must have been a seed carried by the wind or a bird. A lucky shot to drop it into the garden where all my early spring bulbs and flowers are clustered!
Given that you can only buy crocuses as corms, I never thought of them in terms of seeds. Yet they make seeds; and, according to Wikipedia: “Some crocuses, especially C. tommasinianus and its selected forms and hybrids (such as ‘Whitewell Purple’ and ‘Ruby Giant’) seed prolifically and are ideal for naturalising.” In that case, the only mystery is, Whose garden donated the seeds?
It must be the lady in the village who planted her entire front lawn in crocuses and miniature tulips. This time of year they are all in bloom — a sight that literally stops traffic. Her lawn-garden is only two miles from here by road, less as the crow flies. So some crow or sparrow or capricious air current must have scooped up one of her seeds and deposited it in my garden. There are no other crocuses I’m aware of in the area.
Surprises like this are what enchant me about gardens. Who knows what dramas are going on under our feet every day? A few inches from this crocus are the daffodils I’ve been fretting over for the same ten years, because they keep dwindling under conditions where they’re supposed to flourish. Somehow, instead, those conditions gave rise to a little plant whose relatives didn’t survive around the corner. (That microclimate thing again!) It reminds me of the pink bleeding hearts that grow through the front wall, rearranging themselves underground to pop out between different rocks each year. Huh? Why do they move? How do they do it? What’s going on down there?
What other surprises will this season bring?
Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens
Posted by: Opening the heart, gardens, gardening, yard, plants, cultivation, spring — Carolyn Haley
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