This fall I was sent a shipment of saffron crocus bulbs. I planted the bulbs, and after a very warm fall, it appears as though the bulbs are starting to bloom. Here is the thing, the blooms look like chives. They are long, green, thin, tubular blades. If you pull them up they have what looks like an onion bulb on the bottom.
I don't think that chives made it's way to this area of my garden. I planted the bulbs in two different areas, with no chives (or any other plants) around it. It would be too coincidental for patches of chives to have sprouted in both areas exactly where I had planted my bulbs.
Any chance saffron crocus bulbs look like chives, and bloom chive like blades before flowering?
Of did the mail order company send me a very expensive set of chives???? (White Flower Farm BTW).
Here's what the saffron crocus SHOULD look like, first photo on this page:
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flowers would be like pompoms, no confusing those. The crocus grass is usually simpler in structure than chive, but allium species vary so much some of them do look just like crocus grass -- but the flowers are nothing similar, not even as buds. Also allium bulbs are usually very distinct from crocus corms, too, though again there are so many different kids of alliums, I suppose appearances could overlap, but the alliums I planted were much rounder bulbs, while the saffrons were definitely pointy on top (& much bigger than most of the little allium varieties as well) . It's hard to imagine a bulb specialist making such a switch, but if chives is what grew, maybe the vendor hired some retards for the busy shipping season, & you got some sort of allium by accident. I don't know about Raleigh, but here on Puget Sound the saffrons were done blooming in autumn, & alliums won't appear until spring or even until near summer, except for a couple that produce late-autumn & winter grass (but no flowers until spring).
Since you seem to indicate you DID plant chives somewhere, is it possible you switched bags of bulbs yourself by accident, & you're gonna have saffrons crop up where you think the chives were planted? As saffron can be delicate in places that aren't hot & dry, a couple blooms may have come-&-gone so rapidly during the Fall that you missed them in the wrong spot; at their best saffron flowers often only last two weeks. They tend to put on a better show after they've been in the ground a year & will be more obvious next autumn, if they're there; because they are autumn bloomers but so often get planted in autumn (earlier would be better, but they're marketed for autumn even so) not all the corms will bloom in year #1. They will still have their grass right now though & should be easily spotted; the autumn grass is a stiff suttlecock bristle of grass, but but by now will be taller lankier grass.
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