I saw Crocus sativus blooming in an Arlington, Virginia (a suburb of Washington, D.C.) garden yesterday. The plants in my garden (on the north side of the Potomac River and about twelve miles north of Arlington) are not yet in bloom. In some years they are still in bloom at Thanksgiving. Jim W., don't count your saffron tinted chicks before they hatch: saffron is notorious for producing thick clumps of corms, most of which do not bloom. Unlike most crocus, it benefits from being treated as a crop plant: i.e. frequent rotation to a new site, steady meals and frequent splitting up of the congested corms. On the other hand, it will also settle down and persist indefinitely on the same site, especially when planted deeply (corms eight inched down, for instance). Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where saffron is grown as much for its fragrance as for its floral display.