Crocus Sativus (Saffron Crocus)

 

"DIY! GROW YOUR OWN TASTY & HEALTHY SPICE: SAFFRON"

Did you know that in Holland, we are specialists in the production of Crocus Sativus Bulbs? We ship our saffron crocus bulbs to anywhere in the USA. 

Saffron Crocus (Crocus Sativus) is a very interesting fall-flowering species. This variety will give plenty of blooms in its first year, producing the expensive saffron spices that are used for many culinary dishes. The bulbs can be left in the ground for 6 consecutive years, and your best saffron harvest will be reached in the second year after planting. For many more years after that, you can enjoy the Saffron in the fall! We supply the biggest bulbs on the market at 9-10 cms. Right after they're harvested, we place the bulbs in our climate controlled storage rooms and give them a special temperature treatment that lasts a few weeks. This way we enhance the saffron production in the first year. We hold an excellent stock for which we have been contracting with the best grower for many years!

Saffron is said to make people cheerful, and so will this little flower. These little crocus bulbs that flower before Christmas have been neglected, perhaps because everyone confuses them with the "autumn crocus" - the Colchicums - which are a much coarser flower. Colchicums are members of the lily family whereas crocuses belong to the iris group, which also includes such refined favorites as freesias, crocosmia and schizostylis.

In Mediterranean countries, once the rains come and the earth turns green again, the grass is studded with tiny flower globes in blue, white or palest pink. They are delicate and their petals are translucent. The appeal of any flower that suggests spring as soon as the leaves begin to fall cannot be over-emphasized. You need all the color you can get when mornings are shrouded in fog and afternoons end at 4pm.

Crocus Sativus, the saffron crocus, was probably introduced to Northwester Europe by the Romans. In Tudor times, enough were grown in Essex to give the town of Saffron Walden its name. The orange filaments (try adding them to mashed potato with fish pie) were said to make people cheerful. So cheerful, according to Alice Coats in her book Flowers and their Histories, that one herbalist reported "a lady of Trent . . . almost shaken to pieces with laughing immoderately for a space of three hours, which was occasioned by her taking too much saffron". It would be an expensive tonic these days. The price of the dried stigmas is sky-high, but you could grow Crocus Sativus yourself easily enough. Entrepreneurs might like to create a niche-market for culinary saffron. The rest of us can enjoy the flowers and an occasional treat for our table.

The flowers are large and purple, with darker veins and a violet center around the orange stigmas. It is a showy and rather modern color contrast, but this is not one to naturalize. It needs planting in good soil and plenty of sunshine.