Anemone blanda is a stalwart of the autumn planted/spring flowering bulbs that appear in the shops in September/October. Above are a handful of of them doing a passable imitation of a pile of boulders though in reality they are about the size of a grape. A. blanda is one of those "bulbs" that should more accurately be referred to as a corm, a distinction I discuss in a recent post (19th. Oct).
  When purchased the corms are hard as stones and benefit from being soaked overnight. They flower in spring and the petals range in colour from pure white through to shades of blue, mauve and purple or somewhere in between like this one I photographed a few years ago: