Crocus imperati De Jager

Crocus imperati 'De Jager' is very close to a stunning Italian botanical species that blooms in the heart of winter. Its delicately beautiful flowering deserves a particularly sheltered location and perfectly drained soil. It naturalises easily when it is happy, eventually forming carpets of watercolour-toned flowers, which are lilac-mauve on the inside, bearing 3 petals tinted with yellowish chamois and striped with violet on the outside. It is magnificent in rockeries, flower beds, and containers.

Crocus imperati is a plant from the Iridaceae family. It is native to western Italy, southern Naples, and Capri, where it grows spontaneously in light woodlands and dry meadows, under a typically Mediterranean climate. Like it, the cultivar 'De Jager' flowers in mild climates as early as January, or in February in other regions, a period during which it should not be exposed to heavy frosts. Its narrow cup-shaped flowers are perched on slightly transparent tubular stems that reveal the slow ascent of the buds. They bloom into lovely flowers. The beautiful heart of orange stamens is only visible during the day and in good weather, as the flower closes at night and under a grey sky. The foliage is deciduous, composed of fine, linear, simple, and alternate leaves. They are shiny dark green with a thin white-silver central band. The 'bulbs' here are corms. A corm is, in plant morphology, an underground storage organ resembling a bulb, but formed from a swollen stem surrounded by scales. Winter crocuses go dormant in summer and are, for the majority of them, completely resistant to dry summers.

Crocus imperati 'De Jager' is a collector's plant. It is easy to grow in gardens with Mediterranean climates, but sensitive to long winters and late frosts due to its early flowering. Like its botanical cousins Crocus chrysanthus and C. angustifolia, it works wonders in rockeries and flower beds, when its flowering emerges from stones bleached by the sun. It will also thrive on the edge of light woodlands, along a path or hedge, planted en masse at the base of deciduous trees or bushes (spindles, viburnums, lilacs) with Anemone blanda and Cyclamen coum, or in the middle of a lawn with winter aconites, snowdrops or a carpet of violets, and of course, with other early-flowering crocuses. This crocus is also well suited for outdoor pot planting.

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