Scilla Greilhuberi

This easy-to-grow plant opens its early blue-mauve flowers, rather like small erythroniums, in a loose, few-flowered raceme from January to March. Intriguingly, it starts its growth in early autumn and remains wintergreen, and by using this stratagem to flower early, makes its spikes of hanging, reflexed bright blue bells. Native to the Elburz Mountains in Northern Iran and the Caspian region, where it grows in lightly shaded woodland, it does best with a dry summer rest. Few seeds collected.