Spring Bulbs

Spring always seems to be a painfully slow process. From the first bits of greenery until the full glory of the Darwin tulips is more than two months. Then summer comes in, often with a vengeance.

Our first flowers are the small bulbous iris, Iris reticulata. These come in many shades of white, blue and purple. Here their normal bloom time is the very beginning of April. It is not uncommon for us to have the last remnants of snow still on the ground when the delicate flowers first appear. Their thin, grassy foliage will start growing in the fall and then will wait under the snow for spring. If I do not walk past them every day, I often miss their first day of flowering. A shame when we are so flower starved after the long winter.

The first major show in our garden is the mass of Greigii type tulips planted in the main bed behind the house. These were here when we bought the house, and have naturalized quite successfully. Each individual bulb became a large bouquet of tulips. When I redid the bed a few years ago I had to break up these clusters. They are beginning to reform and eventually the bed will be one large mass of color. These tulips are a rather flamboyant vermilion and scarlet with the fanciful striped leaves of the Greigii tulips. I have added the brilliant red species tulips Praestens Fusilier and a few daffodils at the end of the bed. The two tulip types clash horribly. Too horribly even for the color extremes of spring. The clear red of the Praestens Fusiliers make the Greigii tulips seem washed out and drab, particularly when they are past their prime. Daffodils with white cups and yellow perianths serve as a visual barrier between the two tulip types.

This show peaks around the beginning of May.

The Mount Hood daffodils were planted to provide contrast to the main show. Plasir tulips are a striped Greigii tulip which coincidentally include the colors of the main tulips with the white of the daffodils.

The tall, late tulips have been banished from this bed because of the time their leaves take to cure, and their lack of permanence. These early tulips will be completely gone by the middle of June, soon after the late tulips are finished blooming and long before their leaves would be gone.

Late spring is the first big perennial show at my house. While they are blooming in other beds, bearded iris are the main show here. One of the glories of my garden is a clump of the historic iris Flavescens. While they do not have the enormous flowers of modern iris hybrids, they more than make up for it with more delicate flowers of a very clear, pure light yellow. Not least among its attractions is a high degree of disease and pest resistance. The nearer iris is a rebloomer called Clarence. It is one of the comparatively few rebloomers that has rebloomed in this region, but not for me. The longer the summer, the more time iris have to send up another bloom stalk. Our comparatively short summers do not offer the opportunities of warmer climates.

The McKana hybrid columbines were grown from seed several years ago. Unfortunately this short lived perennial is nearing the end of its useful life, but I can always start more. The small, golden yellow flowers are Chrysogonum. This Pennsylvania native is listed in my perennial book as a common, rather invasive little plant. It is near the upper limit of its hardiness zone here, so I do not worry about it spreading too much. Even if it did, it seems to be a quite nice little ground cover. Centarea montana does quite well here unless the summer is extremely hot and dry. Two summers ago it bloomed all summer. Last summer it burned out in May due to the extreme heat we had in April.

Any comments, questions, suggestions? Contact: Kay Cangemi
This page was last updated on: March 9, 1999