Crocus
Crocus vernus
Fights for its corms — squirrels, mice, and sparrows all take an interest before the flowers are over.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Full sun.
- Watering
- No watering needed.
- Feeding
- A low-nitrogen, high-potash feed at planting time or in late winter.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- February
- Pruning
- Never cut the foliage before it yellows off on its own, usually by June.
- Overwintering
- Fully hardy; the corms stay in the ground all year.
- Jan–Feb Spring Growth
- Feb–May Flowering
- May–Jun Growing
- Jun–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Jan Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 3.1 in
- In-row spacing
- 3.1 in
- Between rows
- 3.9 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A corm with fine roots beneath it
- Working depth
- 4–10 in
- Can reach
- 16 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 2–3 in across, about 0.5–1× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
A corm is a season’s worth of stored stem: it is spent flowering and a new one forms on top of the old, often with cormlets around it. Roots are shallow and short-lived, so the planting depth and the drainage are what decide whether it comes back.
The habit is Crocus’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by Pet Poison Helpline.
The ASPCA's Autumn Crocus is Colchicum autumnale, a different plant in a different family, and is filed here under its own slug.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com