There seems to be strong interest in planting bulbs at the moment. Lots of attention in garden magazines and certainly my nursery customers have been picking through my first batch of bulbs for about 30 tulip, daffodil and dutch iris cultivars that arrived from my specialist bulb grower last week.
In my garden, with the cooler autumn weather and thankfully, some moisture, the first autumn flowering bulbs, Colchicums (autumn crocus) have popped their lovely light purple flowers out of the ground in recent days. The other autumn flowering bulbs that are beginning to come to life in my garden now are the nerines, the pink and white flowers of these will emerge a little later from the strappy foliage I can now see sprouting from the ground.
Whether it’s the spring, summer or autumn flowering forms, I think one of the reasons we all love to have some bulbs scattered through our gardens is that they almost surprise us each year as they emerge from bare ground, and very soon after we have their mass of flower colour, then they die back and disappear and we have to do very little management or care.
Scanning through any of the bulb catalogues that we all see, it’s amazing to see the range of cultivars and flower colours that are available in the tulips, daffodils, gladioli and other “commonly” grown bulbous plants.
Other, less common but hardy bulbous plants that you might consider for your gardens include Alliums which produce big purple or white “pom pom” like flowers in spring, Snowflakes (Leucojums) that produce small bell shaped white flowers, Tritonias and Sparaxis.
Ian Rogan
Millthorpe Garden Nursery