I have written earlier about tough little plants that herald in the new year by flowering in the early spring. Puschkinia scilloides var. libanotica is new to us but it is certainly one that I would now add to the list.
There is no doubt that it is tiny (probably just a couple of inches in our garden in Warwickshire at the moment) but it emerged and started flowering in mid-February and is still in full flower (March 8). The flowers and foliage come through together and it certainly needs a place to itself in the garden where it will not be crowded by bigger neighbours. Given space however it is absolutely charming.
Each plant has two leaves that sit either side of a single flower stem with 6 to 10 starry flowers. The white flowers have a delicate blue line down each petal with yellow stamens in the centre. They are members of the family Hyacinthaceae and have a similar appearance to scilla.
Puschkinia originate from Turkey and Lebanon where they grow in grasslands made damp by melting snow at 1900-3700m. They are happy in sun or light shade and should be planted 2 inches deep and 4 inches apart (1).
They certainly appear to be fully hardy having made it through a cold, wet winter here in the UK Midlands. The planting recommendation is that they do not like the ground to get too dry. As we have not grown them before we planted them in two different places in the garden to see where they would fair best.
The first group is in a bed in the flower garden that is in part shade and gets quite wet and boggy in the winter however stays moist all summer. Secondly we planted them in an area in full sun that is much better drained however remains wet all winter but is much drier in the summer. Time will tell where they will naturalise best but it is rather satisfying to report that at the moment both sets have survived the winter and are flowering well.
(1) “Bulb” by Anna Pavord (ISBN 978 1 84533 415 4)
We are out in the garden ... 
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