Crocus sativus 'Safron Crocus'

Known around the world as the saffron crocus, every other crocus wishes to be as well-known as this autumn flowering one. Strangely though, this crocus is not used in gardens and parks nearly as much as other crocus varieties. This is a pitty, because the Crocus sativus is certaintly worth trying. Important to think about when using this crocus is to plant it in a warm and sunny spot of your garden. If this crocus is planted in the shade you won’t see much flowers. The first autumn they might bloom but the flowers will not come back the autumns after that. All in all, this crocus cannot get enough heat and sunshine. For this crocus goes, the more heat, the better. The second thing to think about is to only plant big bulbs, these are the only ones that give flowers. I see bulbs sized 7/8 and 8/9 cm circumference being offered but these bulbs are too small, so they grow little to no flowers. The autumn after that they could grow more flowers because the bulbs have grown bigger by then, but why buy these small bulbs, if you can buy the bulbs big enough to flower the first autumn after planting. The Corus sativus does not flower naked like the Crocus speciosus does, she wears her leaves. Crocus stativus’ leaves grow in autumn, together with the flower, but, unlike the flower, the leaves can keep growing until the end of May or the start of June. Periods with hard frost or snow aren’t a problem for this crocus, when the temperature rises, the Crocuses will happily grow on. Sometimes, it already freezes when the Crocuses are still flowering this too does not cause any problems and the Crocuses will just continue growing after the frost. As the Crocus flowers you should pick some of its beautiful red pistels, just to taste them (your tongue will be bright red for acouple of hours) or to experiment with in the kitchen. You won’t be getting rich harvesting the saffron though. For a sizable harvest you need lots and lots of flowers. For 1 kilogram saffron, 150,000 flowers are needed and for this much flowers you need about 50,000 big Croecus corms and at least 300 square metres. However, if you manage to harvest 1 kilogram of saffron you could quickly be talking about 10,000 euros, if, of course, the saffron is dried well and the taste and quality are good. With prices like these, it’s easy to understand that saffron is called the “Red Gold” in the culinary world. It is said that over 90% of the saffron is produced in Iran, I would like to go there sometime and see the saffron crocus growing in the fields.