GARDEN HOTLINE | The promise of spring

As the summer light softens and cool breezes become the norm, we turn our minds to autumn tasks in the garden. Among the tasks of tucking the garden to bed is one special job that brings the more immediate promise of next year’s blooms: ordering and planting spring bulbs!

A herald of the fall, bulb catalogs arrive in our mailboxes and transport our thoughts forward to sparkling spring days full of color and fragrance. Take time this year to fully peruse the options available to you as a Northwest gardener, both in bulb variety and healthy sustainable choices of where to purchase them.

Washington state has many local growers with stores on site — perfect for day trips this fall. There are also many excellent online and catalog vendors whose bulbs come direct from Holland, including one company whose bulbs are all grown organically.

Choosing bulbs

Tulips were once a sought after commodity in Europe in the 1600s. As author Charles Mackay opined in his treatise on crowd psychology, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” “Nobles, citizens, farmers, seamen, footmen, maid servants, chimney sweeps and old clothes women dabbled in tulips.”

Having survived the tulip-mania of the 17th century, the ancestors of those precious bulbs continue to delight us with their riches of form and beauty in our flower gardens.

Everyone is familiar with the tall, stately form of ‘Emperor’ tulips and the robust and colorful ‘Triumph’ tulips. Be sure to explore some of the species tulips, like the Tulipa batalinii varieties, which will naturalize and grow more blooms over time unlike their larger relatives. These charming 6-inch tall tulips bring delicacy and warmth to rock gardens or color spots to bare tree wells in the height of spring. Perhaps even stash a few foot-tall Tulipa clusiana varieties into mixed pots on your porch for some sweet candy-colored treats.

The stalwart daffodil never did garner the same level of attention as its more famous cousin. Yet, the cheerfulness of the daffodil and its enduring legacy on abandoned homesteads — where clumps get larger and more cheery over time —cannot be denied.

Daffodils, or Narcissus spp., naturalize easily, making any choice a good one, including the classic, trumpet-style ‘King Alfred’ daffodil. A robust 16-inch tall flower with a solid golden-yellow trumpet and petals, ‘King Alfred’ has endured the test of time as a favorite in spring gardens since being introduced to the United States in 1899.

Be sure to include some of the more fragrant and fun narcissi in your order this fall. The jonquil types, with thin leaves and multiple flowers per stem, are excellent additions to the edges of flowerbeds. Clustered in pots on the porch railing, their sweet fragrance and cheerful faces will greet you after a long day at work. Double forms like ‘Cheerfulness’ combine these same qualities and also add a tissue-paper flower appeal to the mix. Many of these forms are antique offerings, qualifying as heirloom varieties in your garden.

The hallmark of spring, the colorful crocus also boasts varieties that bloom in the fall. The saffron crocus is one of these, bearing stamen from which you can harvest your own pesticide-free saffron each fall.

The spring crocus comes in large jewel-toned and striped forms that work well in pots or garden beds. Pack them into a container with other mixed bulbs to ensure a long succession of color when they bloom.

Don’t ignore the species crocus — smaller in stature but with delicate petals infused with pastel light. Scatter them in your lawn for a magical display in early spring before the lawn gets growing. After bloom, they can be mowed down with the lawn. Look for Crocus chrysanthus or C. tommasinianus.
To be adventurous, include lesser-known bulbs like Allium schubertii, whose sparkling Fourth of July flower heads glitter in the spring garden. Or Chionodoxa luciliae and the little Anemone blandas, which bring sky-blue flowers to your spring color palette.

Add the rodent-resistant Fritillaria to areas where you can appreciate their hanging bell flowers; they range from 8 inches to 3-feet tall. F. meleagris offers some checkered varieties that will stand out against a pure-white tulip or pale-yellow late-blooming daffodil.

With a well-designed bulb plan you can have flowers blooming from February through May.

Caring for bulbs

To plant in the fall, follow the grower’s instructions for depth and spacing. Generally, all spring-flowering bulbs appreciate well-drained soil and can be set right next to each other in the ground. The closer they are, the more robust the flower display. Mulch with compost after planting.

To protect from squirrels, which have an insatiable appetite for tulips and crocus, try laying a sheet of hardware cloth directly on top of the bulbs as you plant and then cover with soil.

After bloom time, bulb care is easy. Let the leaves die down on their own time to help the bulbs gather strength for next year’s flower.

To camouflage the yellowing leaves, plant annuals around them. In the summer, bulbs actually naturalize better without extra watering, so set your bulb pots aside and, in the fall, bring them back out to get rain.

To learn more, contact the Garden Hotline at (206) 633-0224 or visit www.gardenhotline.org.

LAURA MATTER is the program coordinator and an educator for Seattle Tilth’s Garden Hotline. To comment on this column, write to MPTimes@nwlink.com.