Category — Bulbs

We’ve received a letter from Sylvia on a bulb I know very little about - snowdrops. And it explains why my few spasmodic attempts to grow them have failed.

Pomona,

Snowdrops are a common flower in the UK; I don’t mean the hundreds of expensive varieties with very little difference, that galanthophiles (collectors of snowdrops) love. I mean our single snowdrop Galanthus nivalis, which is found in hedgerows, woods, and gardens. Apparently snowdrops were introduced to Britain in the dim and distant past and naturalised clumps are a sign that there has been occupation at sometime in the last 1,000 years (more or less depending on what you are reading).

My first memory of snowdrops is on our farm, where I lived as a child, the wood on a small hill was covered in snowdrops. I wonder who lived there and when - no sign of occupation now. Snowdrops will always conjure up the memory of my childhood and that wood, now gone. One of the owners after us, dug them up and sold them! One day I will go back to see if just a few survived, you never know, snowdrops are survivors. Snowdrops increase by seed as well as producing new bulbs as offsets which is why they spread very gently over time.

Fast forward a lot of years to my own garden. I buy snowdrops ‘in the green’ at this time of year, they are dug from the field and posted, this way the bulbs do not dry out. I am not sure why you can buy dry bulbs because their success rate if very low, less than 10% in my experience. The galanthophiles like to transplant in June after the leaves have died down. I do find that bulbs take a while to settle, the first year after planting I will get a few flowers, but the year after the clumps will start expanding.

They like shade and moist soil, which is why they are often found in woodland. They also thrive in woodlands because they don’t get disturbed. I find they don’t like being moved (although I have seen lots of advice to divide them each year), so I am careful where I plant them - I don’t want to dig them up each year. I have snowdrops under a shrub, where they are planted with hellebores and pulmonaria and either side of a new (2008/9) path. On one side I put all the snowdrops I had to move when we took a hedge out, these are flowering sparsely this year and on the other side of the path I have just planted 100 bulbs.

I have one other variety of snowdrop, the double form Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus  ‘Flore Pleno’. These are planted under a small weeping willow, Salix caprea ‘Kilmarnock’, they are completely shaded in the summer, not ideal, but they manage to flower each year. The double form are lovely but do not have the memories or magic of the single form, for me anyway. These are really winter flowering coming out at the end of January just as we are often having some of our coldest weather but as the days are beginning to lengthen and the sun gets higher. They are the first to flower in the new year and they shine aainst the dark earth in my garden but they are also seen in lawns and with green leaves and ferns in the hedgerows and banks.

Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus  ‘Flore Pleno’

Do you have somewhere to plan snowdrops? Somewhere cool, shady and moist - where they won’t mind the heat of summer. I think in your climate they would need to be slightly moist. Similar conditions to your moss bank, they look lovely growing out of moss! The leaves of G. nivalis are not too big, so though they are around until May, they are not obtrusive. They are happy in pots as well, this is how galanthophiles often grow theirs. I have never grown them in pots, I want them in the garden where I can see their ‘beacons of hope’ or along the roadsides where the little white flowers stand out reminding me that spring will soon be here.

Best wishes,

Sylvia

Last year, I tried an experiment with Iris danfordiae; I planted it deeper. (If you want to read more about why I did that, look here.)

The idea was to see if this would make my Iris danfordiae more perennial. I’d love any flower that comes up in February. But the tininess, the scent, and the detailed markings  (a landing strip for pollinators) make Iris danfordiae even more desirable to me. (I’ve elaborated on why I love it, and how I use it in the house and garden, here.)

While Iris danfordiae is one of the cheaper bulbs you can buy (if you buy in quantity especially), I have kind of a thing about getting bulbs to perennialize. Yes, it has something to do with plant-greed: I don’t think I’ll get away with pretending otherwise. I’d love to have scads and scads of different kinds of bulbs, and I can’t go buying them all every year.

But it also has to do with something else. If I can understand a bulb well enough to get it to come back every year, to come back and flower and make more bulbs, then I’m really starting to understand that bulb. (It’s the same with people: knowing what makes them come back, what makes them flourish, what makes them spread themselves - those are ways of really understanding someone.)

So, for reasons sacred and profane, I had dreams. Dreams of masses of returning Iris danfordiae spreading themselves out and becoming a permanent feature in my garden.

Are these dreams coming true?

Well, maybe. And then again, maybe not. I’m not sure.

The Iris danfordiae are coming out maybe a little later than they usually do, and there don’t seem to be too many of them.  They seem to be coming up differently, too. They always have short stems, but it seems to me that the deep burial has made them sit on top of the soil like a decapitated flower floating on thick water.

On the other hand, we’ve had a lot of rain for the past few weeks, so the dim light could have shortened the stems. Rain could also have slowed everything down. Maybe what I’m seeing now are only the first brave volunteers. Maybe in a week or two, I’ll see scads of bright golden Iris danfordiae all over the place.

And maybe I’ll just see these few vanguard flowers, while the rest meditate, deep, deep in the soil.

I feel a special satisfaction looking at these snow-capped pots of bulbs. Not only did I get all my bulbs in before it snowed; I also got them all fertilized, old and new. My bulbs are nicely tucked up under their coverlets.

How did it happen that I, practiced procrastinator and taker-on of too many projects that are left undone, burier of bulbs in freezing rain and snow - how did it happen that I did this in perfect timing?

I think it had to do with listening. It’s something every gardener, naturalist, or farmer comes to learn: listening to that quiet inner voice that says: do this now.

This year I actually did that. I listened to the voice that said, no matter what my desires, a small bulb order was the best thing for this year. So I got what (for me) amounts to a modest fall bulb order: 150 tulips, 10 fritillaries, 10 iris bucharica. Bulbs are incredibly beautiful, but don’t ever let anyone tell you that they aren’t work to plant.

Maybe it’s the way they say birth-labor is: once you see the beautiful results, you forget all that went before. But this year I remembered that when I buy hundreds of bulbs, it isn’t just more beauty: it’s also more pots, more potting soil, more amendments. And more planting time.

So this year, I remembered to get a smaller amount of bulbs (especially since I was ordering late in the year). And I did all the other work in small increments. I bought the soil one day and name tags one day, bought pots another. I thought about where everything would go: some of my early gregii tulip bulbs got put in the top of pots already filled with late tulips. (If you’re interested in more details, check out my succession planting posts.) By the time the gregii tulips are ungracefully fading, the bigger parrot and lily tulips will overshadowing their dying foliage (hopefully not enough to keep it from getting the sun it needs to make gregii bulbs for next year).

And then, when the weather and the day gave me hints, I planted, not all at once, but in small amounts; pouring in soil and amending it here, tucking in fritillaries with sages there, adding the early bulbs to the tops of old bulbs two or three pots at a time. I never worked more than ten to twenty minutes at once, and unlike other years, I wound up planting when it was actually comfortable to be outside and my hands didn’t freeze.

It’s got me wondering about the frenetic activity of former years. What would have happened if I’d listened to all those hints from wind, weather, moon, sun and experience before, instead of insisting on the big rush with the biggest possible amount of bulbs?

mysterious Apricot Beauty

Those of you who read here regularly may have noticed that I’ve been slacking off lately.

Life has a way of interfering with blogging, sometimes, and I’ve been going through one of those times.

But what better way to bring this blog back to life than to talk about that other resurrection, those brown dry bulbs that turn into flamboyant or shy beauties that can send a moribund mood into happy orbit? Of course, I’m talking about tulips.

Yes, the time to think about tulips is NOW.

Because if you want this (or something like it) next spring

brilliant yellow West Point, backed up by Purissima tulip and Hawera narcissus

you must get your bulbs NOW. And you must plant them soon.

Why should you plant tulips?

Because they’re one of the best mood elevators around, and you don’t have to worry about liver failure or kidney damage to use them.

Because they are incredibly beautiful, and life can’t have too many beautiful things.

Because they can be beautiful like delicate wildflowers

 Tulipa bataalinii Apricot Jewel. Not quite a species, but close.

or the most flamboyant  notes of spring

Generaal de Wet, an heirloom with a musky scent that fills the atmosphere

and everything in between.

white sport of Creme Upstar

Because tulips sales have gone down in this country (even before the economy did. Could one have to do with the other?). We need to support beauty in our yards, our neighborhoods, our public gardens. Beauty makes people better. It even cuts down on crime.

Because (if you live in a climate that gets at least some freeezes) they are one of the easiest possible things you can grow.

Because you can grow tulips anywhere, even in unexpected places.

Apricot Beauty, again

Because they are beautiful, come rain

Queen of the Night - no garden should be without it

or come shine.

Tulipa bataalinii Bright Gem

Because they change from beauty to beauty, from the shy opening in the morning

Yellow-and-white Sweetheart tulip, with Lady Jane in the background

to the soul-baring midday spread.

Purissima (or White Emperor), a tulip that can last for twenty years in the garden

Because even if your garden is a doorstep or balcony, a container of tulips will bring you the thrill of the first sprout

the new bud

the opening flower

.

yes, that’s Apricot Beauty again. I’m a little sick on the subject of Apricot Beauty.

and a flower that changes beautifully in the course of its life, gorgeous to the end.

Also a little sick on the subject of Queen of the Night - can you blame me?

If you want ideas on what varieties to get, you can enter “tulips” in the search engine on this site, and get many many writeups, from my Tulipomania week and from all the other times I could sneak in a tulip post.

If you want ideas on where to get tulips, enter “spring bulb shopping” in the search engine, and you’ll pull up a series of 5 posts where I laid bare my feelings about my favorite bulb catalogs.

If you’re feeling strapped for cash, be sure to check out “13 Ways to Get Your Tulips to Come Back”  before you order. The first item on the list is choosing the right varieties; some come back more easily than others (check the note below the picture of Purissima, above). Pick the right ones, and you may have a show for years to come.

Another way to save cash is to wait for the end-of-season sales. Since these don’t start until November, that means you have to live in a place where the ground doesn’t freeze hard by then. Another caveat is that your selections will be limited. On the other hand, that also means that you don’t have to make so many decisions, a good thing for the weak-willed. (Being weak-willed, I am going the end-of-season-sale route myself this year. I have so many hundreds of bulbs, and I want so many hundreds more – I need all the help I can get. Short of actually stopping buying bulbs, of course.)

If you want more inspiration, try Dianne Benson’s paeon to tulips at Dirtier

Or just take a good look at the pictures in this post, or in a catalogue, or on a bulb-selling website, and imagine that greeting you at your door next spring.

The earliest U.S. garden writers promoted gladiolas: how easy they are to grow, how they multiply like crazy and give you lots of return on your investment.

In modern times, we tend to leave propagation to the professionals, but there’s no need to do that, especially not with something as easy to propagate as glads.

In fact, propagating glads is not only easy, it’s fun. Digging up corms has an Easter-egg-hunt excitement. How many little corms will there be?

In the case of glads, as you can see, there are often scads of little cormlets around the mother corm, which is supposed to die off each year. This mother, shiny, firm, and huger than any gladiolus corm I’ve ever planted, looks as if it will make a fine new plant in the coming year. It might be one of the glads that never flowered; often this means plants are putting more energy into their roots and leaves.

Talking about bulb propagation now may seem odd to those of you whose ground is soon to be frozen solid or covered with snow. But  bulb propagation is something that can happen in many seasons, depending on where you live. It should always be done when bulbs are dormant – but when they are dormant depends on what season they bloom. In my area, I can re-plant them right away; in colder-winter areas, you need to put the corms and cormlets up in onion bags or paper bags (they need some ventilation) in a dark, cool (but not freezing) place.

I get a certain pleasure out of seeing the baby corms, jammed in against the mother like piglets to a sow, some of them mere slivers, some of them already sending up leaf-shoots. It’s hard not to be happy when you see your garden plants have been working underground, making more plants for you.

I’d never tried propagating glads until now, though I have grown out some narcissus and tulip offsets – only a few to the flowering stage, but at least the rest give me leaves to show they’re still alive.  In the case of glads, I have no doubt that at least some of these bulbs will give me flowers as early as next year.  The small ones still need to grow.