Crocus

My mother bought me crocus bulbs for Christmas.

Actually, she bought them for me before Christmas, as I needed to get them into the ground before a hard freeze. She has trouble with the squirrels eating hers, crafty tuft-tailed devils.

She told me how deep to plant them, and an hour or so later, grubby and cold, I had them in the ground. Now if only it were late February or early March, when these tenacious, tough, delicate, brilliant eggs explode from the ground in their rush to be the first spring flowers! The snowdrops will laugh, for they are first, but the crocus know how to make an entrance!

These are pictures I took of my mother’s crocus, several springs ago. She has given me all these varieties save the dark purple. The gold remains my favorite, but its beauty is more compelling in person than film can convey.  Its stripes, near the base of the petals, are purple, but I have yet to coax my camera into noticing.

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