Spring blooms come to those who plant fall bulbs
By Amy McDowell
After tearing
down the fall bulb display at the garden center where I once worked, we swept
up two dozen miscellaneous bulbs from the floor. “You want those?” my boss
asked, ready to pitch them from the dustpan into the garbage. Smiling, I
gathered them into a paper bag and took them home. It was late in the season
and the weather was chilly, but the ground was not yet frozen. I planted them
in a small cluster where some annuals had collapsed after a frost. The
ragamuffin group would bloom in a haphazard tapestry in the spring, I imagined,
but better that they create a goofy patchwork of color in my garden than rot in
a landfill.
In the spring, to
my surprise and delight, that little cluster of leftover bulbs charmed both me
and everyone else who visited my garden. Tiny purple and yellow crocus
trumpeted spring from just four inches above the earth, followed by eight or
ten daffodils in gold and white and a dozen crisp tulips in red, gold and
purple. The sweet fragrance of purple and pink hyacinths could seduce me to
visit the riotous hodgepodge bed from the moment I stepped outdoors.
You can’t go
wrong with spring bulbs, it turns out. Springtime success will greet you
whether it’s 7,000 bulbs in vast beds of color, as I once planted for an
employer, or a handful of delicate bluish-purple Scilla siberica next to a path.
Daffodils are my
favorite spring-flowering bulbs because they return loyally year after year.
Pests won’t dig them up and eat them like they do with tasty tulips, so they
multiply over the years, forming generous clumps where a single bulb was once
planted. Among the thousands of varieties, you’ll find trumpets, large-cupped,
small-cupped, doubles and split coronas. I went crazy for miniature daffodils
for several years, growing every one I could find. The most darling, in my
book, is 'Tete-a-Tete' for its bright little blooms and short stature. It
blooms beautifully with the purple Crocus
tommasinianus ‘Ruby Giant’.
I plant a couple
dozen tulips each fall to please my husband, who loves them as much as I love
daffodils. The peony-flowering varieties planted in the front yard are visible
more than a block away.
Finally, I’ll
plant a dozen bold orange ‘Treffer’ Asiatic lilies this fall because I’ve been
crazy over the Asiatics all season. You won’t find a lot of orange in my
garden, but I can surely find a spot for a vivid orange zing. Orange, after
all, is the new black, according to
my friend Katherine.
Plant some bulbs
this fall; the time is right. Plant daffodils, tulips and lilies. Fill the
nooks and crannies of your perennial borders with little cuties like Iris reticulata, Pushkinia, Scilla,
Galanthus and Crocus. Bulbs are
fun, foolproof and rewarding.
Amy McDowell is an Iowa
Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked
in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.
