Crocus sieberi Tricolor

Crocus sieberi 'Tricolor' is a richly coloured form of Sieber crocus, a small bulbous plant native to Crete and the Balkans. Its small cup-shaped flowers offer a magnificent combination of colours: blue-mauve petals, marked with a white halo around a yellow-orange heart. This crocus blooms in late winter, before Dutch hybrid crocuses, heralding the return of spring. It is easy to grow and often naturalises in lawns, meadows, borders, and rockeries. It works well in pots. It can be planted in full sun or partial shade, in any well-drained soil that is dry in summer.

Crocus sieberi belongs to the Iridaceae family. It originates from Greece, Crete, and the Balkans, and is often found at high altitudes, near the last snowfalls. The 'Tricolor' variety is a vigorous horticultural variety derived from this prolific crocus. It forms significant colonies in upright clumps measuring 12cm (5in) in height. It has a rapid growth rate. Flowering takes place from February to March. The plants produce elongated buds with a brown base, a golden middle zone, and a blue-violet tip. Then they open into a cup, displaying three very distinct areas with contrasting colours. The flowers close at night and in bad weather, but open widely in the sun and even in partial shade. The foliage is deciduous, composed of thin, thick linear leaves, which are single and alternate. They are a shiny medium green. The 'bulbs' here are corms. A corm is, in plant morphology, an underground storage organ that looks like a bulb but is formed by a swollen stem surrounded by a fibrous tunic that forms a kind of grid.

Crocus sieberi 'Tricolor' works wonders in rockeries when its flowering emerges from stones bleached by the sun. It will also thrive on the edge of light woodland, along a hedge, planted en masse at the base of deciduous trees (lilacs, mock oranges, viburnums) with Anemone blanda and Cyclamen coum, or even in the middle of a lawn with winter aconites, snowdrops, or a carpet of violets, and of course, alongside other early-flowering crocuses. This crocus is also suitable for planting in outdoor pots and can be used in green roofs.

Crocus roots can contract like a spring, allowing the plant to settle at its ideal depth.