Crocus speciosus

The only thing that keeps me from spiraling down into depression as the garden of summer fades into fall and the dormancy of winter are the cheerful flowers of late fall. One of the latest in my garden, and one of my absolute favorites, is Crocus speciosus who have opened their magical sunlight gathering goblets of glowing lavender in the last week. They spring from the bare ground like a surprise every year. They will last a couple of weeks opening a sequence of flowers before they too will fade, and the garden enters the quiet period of winter.

vicenza blue, ellagance purple

I'm not sure if this lavender is 'Vicenza Blue' or 'Ellagance Purple' since I bought both as packets of seeds from Swallowtail Seeds a few years ago, and planted them at the same time. I thought that I'd be able to keep them separate, but that wasn't realistic. I grew out about 30 plants and have about 15 plants at maturity now. Whether 'Vincenza Blue' or 'Ellagance Purple' these new lavenders are fantastic. I'm impressed that they are flowering like this, in October, as nicely as they did in June, and this is at least their third week in bloom.  Flowers are this deep purple on most plants, although a couple plants are much lighter, like 'Munstead.' I haven't seen other lavenders around the neighborhood blooming at all. Fragrance is as lovely as any lavender, sweet and not camphorous.  Two of the plants developed the root rot that killed the whole batch of lavenders that I previously had ('Buena Vista', 'Twickle Purple'), so there is some susceptibility, but certainly not as much as they might. A couple of plants looked pretty shabby after the winter and were removed. Most of the plants turn a brownish grey in the winter and look rather unimpressive, a couple even lose most of their leaves, but the plant on the left here has a nice silvery green look all winter. All in all, I'm terribly happy with these. Other purple flowers in the background are from left to right: Penstemon 'Margarita BOP', Salvia trannsylvanica 'Blue Cloud', more Lavandula (VB or EP) and Perovskia atriplicifolia.