Like lustrous dustings of multi-coloured snow
I glimpsed my first bumblebee of the year, whizzing between clumps of crocuses, as if dizzied with delight at the numbers.
THEY MAY be fading a little now, but in early March, the crocuses again lit up the entrance to Sowerby Bridge’s Crow Wood Park, verges quietly crackling with colour.
Sprinkled yellows, whites and purples massed on the grass like constellations of confetti, delicate petals brocading the roadside in soft, peaceful shades of spring.
Beside Halifax’s Saville Park, the strips of grass by the road were adorned in beautiful bands of white and purple, like lustrous dustings of multi-coloured snow.
Even though these delicious displays spring up every year, it is always slightly unexpected, and after a tumultuous twelve months there is a definite sense of reassurance at the sight of their familiar reappearance.
These blankets of crocuses are not exactly ‘wild’, as they are planted and maintained by the council.
But they are greatly beneficial to wildlife.
Not only are moths and beetles attracted to their rich stores of nectar, they are also pollinated by birds and early butterflies.
On a cold but sunny morning outside Crow
Wood Park, I glimpsed my first bumblebee of the year, whizzing between clumps of crocuses, as if dizzied with delight at the sheer numbers on offer.
Just the other day at
Skircoat Green, I watched a second, diving in and out of flowerheads, a stripy nugget of fluff and buzz, splashing the styles with newly minted pollen.
Crocuses are in the iris family, introduced to Britain by the Romans.
There are around 200 species, and their crinkly colours are well loved signs of spring in parks and roadside verges nation-wide.
Wild crocuses do exist, and a walk along the canal towpath may reveal small clusters, or a lone crocus lifting from a bankside background of dead wood and leaves, raising its flag of pastel pink, or igniting the undergrowth in a tiny saffron sunrise.
In Sowerby Bridge, these shady paths are brightened now by snowdrops, daffodils, primulas, and by smatterings of crocuses.
Often known as ‘snow crocuses,’ these wild varieties are often garden escapees, and have naturalised and spread.
Their appearances are fleeting, their flowers smaller than those commonly cultivated – mostly known as ‘Dutch crocuses.’
Another type is the
‘Early crocus’ - Crocus tommasinianus – flowering in February and March, and often seen carpeting parks in quilts of tinted purple.
Whether wild or cultivated, and be they on the edge of the canal, on the roadside at Bolton Brow, where their wash of soft colours lends a soothing respite to the driver or pedestrian overwhelmed by busy traffic, or, indeed, adorning the approaches of our parks and gardens, crocuses are a highlight of the yearly merge of winter into spring.
I quite like winter, and find it, too, to contain many natural riches. But it seems to have been an extraordinarily long one, and as the evenings grow lighter, and the birdsong of a morning seems longer and more plentiful, the emergence of the crocuses are cheerful reminders of renewal, and make a very welcome change.