Bulbs are to gardening what frozen puff pastry is to baking: a versatile ingredient that can be planned into the menu or used as a quick fix for large still undefined settings. You set a mass planting of layered bulbs in the fall and get a work free garden the next year.
People usually associate them with spring and miss the wealth of summer and fall flowers they can yield.
Here is a list of summer and fall bulbs that shouldn't be missing from any garden:
- irises that brighten up the flower beds in June with clumps that grow bigger every year.
- giant alliums, completely maintenance free and staying in bloom for almost two months after which they turn into very decorative seed heads for additional garden interest.
- freesias, plant after the last frost for summer blooms
- lilies, with their long lasting flowers, the best fragrance in the perennial border
- astilbe, perfect for a boggy site in the shade
- tuberous begonias, truly the roses of the shady garden, their spectacular flowers are the best flowers one can expect without full sun exposure.
- hostas, yes, they are bulbs
- elephant ears, if you want to go big
- dahlias, of which I only saw pictures, never had them in the garden, maybe this year is the one.
- tuberose, an exquisite perfume and the most elegant flowers, blooms right at the beginning of fall.
- gladioli, both the regular ones and the fragrant star gladioli.
- cannas, a large scale bold statement in red
- liatris, with their fuzzy plumes, are very long lasting summer flowers
- toad lily, despite its uninspiring name has the most exquisite orchid-like flowers and blooms after the rest of the garden has already gone to sleep for the winter, at the beginning of November.
- lily of the valley, if you want to consider it a bulb
- cyclamen, crinum and belladonna lilies if you happen to live in a warm climate where winter maintains temperatures over 50 degrees. These bulbs only bloom in winter and go dormant in the summer heat.
- crown Imperial, a very showy plant that needs some hiding for the fading foliage.
I'm sure there are many more that should be considered, but this list is a good place to start. Of course bulb colors can be matched to whatever color scheme you use.
Main Areas: Garden Writing; Sustainable Gardening; Homegrown Harvest
Published Books: “Terra Two”; “Generations”
Career Focus: Author; Consummate Gardener;
Affiliation: All Year Garden; The Weekly Gardener; Francis Rosenfeld's Blog
I started blogging in 2010, to share the joy of growing all things green and the beauty of the garden through the seasons. Two garden blogs were born: allyeargarden.com and theweeklygardener.com, a periodical that followed it one year later. I wanted to assemble an informal compendium of the things I learned from my grandfather, wonderful books, educational websites, and my own experience, in the hope that other people might use it in their own gardening practice.
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