How to Plant Crocus for Spring Beauty

It should be early spring, but the groundhog saw his shadow and the weatherman's predicting six more weeks of winter. Oh, no! You just can’t stand the thought of more snow and cold miserable weather. Then you notice your neighbor has some small beautiful blue, yellow and purple flowers blooming on the south side of their home. Then it snows, but the sun came out and when you look again, the flowers are still blooming in the snow. You can have some of these flowers showing off for you. Here's how to get started.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• crocus bulbs
• shovel or trowel
• bag of composted manure

1. 
   Even Amazon sells them

   BUY AND PLANT THE BULBS - When summer is winding down, you'll see bulbs for sale in the gardening area at your local retail store, greenhouse or also in the fall seed catalogs. That is the time to check out your bulb choices and get them planted. Choose your site. In Kansas the south side is more protected site and warms up more quickly in the spring.

2. CROCUS BLOOM VERY EARLY, BUT PUT IN A VARIETY OF BULBS - Crocuses are really corms but look like bulbs and are small and round shaped. By planting in the fall the bulbs get settled in before the cold weather and start their root system. Our daughter, Shannon planted ours when we bought this home in 1978. She had her first job and spent some of her money on a bulb collection from her Dad’s garden seed catalog. There were crocus, jonquils, daffodils, grape hyacinths and star flowers bulbs in the collection.

3. ENRICH THE SOIL WHEN PLANTING - She planted them in a large flower bed that had a six inch wide cement border. After her Dad helped her dig up the hardened ground, Shannon worked in barnyard manure into the soil. She then made small depressions and snuggled each bulb down in their new home, leaving only the very tip of the bulb showing.

4. 

   SPACE THEM OUT TO ALLOW FOR FUTURE EXPANSION - Plant the corms several inches apart as they will grow new corms around each old one. This is one flower that loves to grow in groups. After watering the newly planted bulbs, she spread fallen leaves over them all to protect them through the winter.

5. 

   WHEN SPRING ARRIVES, LET THE SUN IN - In the spring when the first show of color appears, gently rake the leaves away to let the sunshine do its job. Whenever the sun is gone or night time comes the crocuses close up their pretty petals to protect them until another sunny day comes along. This built-in safeguard allow the crocuses to last many days in spite of what Mother Nature sends their way.

6. 

   ENJOY THEM YEAR AFTER YEAR - One other thing you need to know that even though they like to cluster around each other, they also like to spread their corms beyond the confines of a flower bed all across the surrounding yard. If you leave them, they too will become crocus bouquets.
   So this fall think ahead to next spring and begin beautifying your yard with these hardy beauties.

Resources

• Source for crocus bulbs online (Amazon.com)

[Sondrac]

on 4/8/2009 great article and well written...

[FrazzledNanny]

on 2/21/2009 Thanks for another great article. 5*

[kkemp]

on 2/19/2009 Excellent info! 5*'s