Bulbs for Fall Planting and Spring Bloom
Bulbs for Fall Planting and Spring Bloom in Mecklenburg County and region
by Dawn Ridley
Generally, when we think of planting bulbs in the fall, we think of tulips, narcissus (daffodils), crocus and hyacinths.
These are all very good and I shall give you some suggestions for cultivars, especially the species tulips and species crocus, because these do very well here—and they naturalize!
Naturalizing means a plant will become perennial and do some spreading.
Beyond these, however, I want you to think about some other bulbs that you may not have tried, but do well here. The spring bloom will give you great pleasure.
Daffodils in the Demonstration Gardens. Photo Tonya Banbury.
In gardening, there are no guarantees, but there is always hope.
Purchasing Bulbs Stores and catalogues begin selling bulbs much too early for us in the Mecklenburg NC region.
We should not plant our fall bulbs until the ground cools, but if you wait to purchase all the good choices are gone!
What’s a gardener to do? Pick out and buy firm bulbs and store in breathable bags. Don’t put them in plastic! There’s no need to refrigerate them, but you also should not store them in a sunny or overly hot place. I hide mine in my downstairs closet where it’s dry, dark and cool. Then in mid-November or December, I plant my bulbs. You can even plant them in January here. They just bloom a little later.
See the Ground Rules for Bulbs about proper planting for returns in many years to come below.
Bulbs for the Mecklenburg Region
The Big Four
1. Snow Crocus, Crocus chrysanthus – These are very short, 2-3 inches tall, but bloom late January to early February here. Good cultivars are ‘Blue Pearl’, ‘Cream Beauty’ and ‘Goldilocks’.
Species Crocus, Crocus sieberi – Blooms in February, 2-3 inches tall. ‘Firefly’ is white outside and violet inside.
Tommys, Crocus tommasinianus – These bloom in late winter, 3-4 inches tall; 2 very good cultivars are ‘Barr’s Purple’, which have violet inside and silver outside, and ‘Ruby Giant’, which is a reddish purple (pictured left). This latter is one of my favorites. Tommys naturalize well here and are great in rock gardens and nooks that you pass by on winter garden walks. The late Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-85), former garden writer for The Charlotte Observer, loved them.
Crocus are the first sign of spring.
2. Next, hyacinths. I remember a line of poetry from my college days about losing all your worldly goods except for two loaves of bread: “sell one and with the dole buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.” It’s the odor and the beauty, I think.
Dutch Hyacinths, Hyacinth orientalis – These have a thick stem on which there are multiple trusses of flowers: white, pink, blue, lavender, even yellow. Good cultivars are ‘Carnegie White’, ‘Delft Blue’, ‘Pink Pearl’. I like the hot pink ‘Woodstock’ (pictured above).
3. Daffodils, Narcissus – I love so many of these, it is hard to choose, but the daffodil is one of the easiest bulbs to grow—and it is not liked by deer or squirrels.
The very earliest cultivar here is ‘Rjinvelds Early Sensation’, a large cupped golden yellow.
It can bloom as early as late December, although I usually see it in my garden in mid-January.
‘Dutch Master’ is an improvement over the older ‘King Alfred’. ‘Mount Hood’ is a trumpet white and ‘Salome’ is a white and pink trumpet. An especially lovely early smaller yellow is ‘February Gold’ whose petals reflex backwards. Also, the miniature yellow ‘Tete a Tete’, which has two blooms per stem.
'Lady Jane' Tulipa clusiana are smaller and shorter than the Dutch hybrids and perform well here coming back from season to season. Photos by Debbie Moore Clark.
4. Tulips – We all know the tulip, but how many of you grow the species tulip? These will naturalize here. They are smaller and usually shorter than the large Dutch hybrids, but are lovely and perform very well here. Good cultivars are in the clusiana group: T. clusiana var. chrysantha with 2-3 yellow purple tipped blooms, T. clusiana ‘Tubergen’s Gem’, which has red tipped yellow 12” blooms, and my favorite T. c. ‘Lady Jane’, which is pink and white striped like a candy cane.
Other species tulips include T. batalinii, T. bakeri, T. hageri (multiple red blooms) and T. saxitilis, whose most outstanding is ‘Lilac Wonder’, a sweet early pink.
Other Bulbs for Fall Planting
I would like to suggest you consider using some of the following fall bulbs:
Allium – These bulbs include leeks, chives, garlic, and onions, besides some beautiful flowers. The best of the lot is a monster A. schubertii which is 24 inches tall (pictured right). The center is lavender with long alien spokes which develop stars on the tips—truly a show stopper!
I like the little yellow Allium ‘Molly’, 8 inches tall with an open inflorescence, but I’m also drawn to both A. nigrens, a white with green dot eyes and A. azureum, which is a 12-inch blue drumstick. Alliums want sun and good drainage. Blooms are early to mid spring.
Chionodoxa – In blue or pink form, Chionodoxa is another Elizabeth Lawrence favorite. Planted in drifts of 10 to 15, they make quite a show. 6 inches tall in sun part shade with March- April bloom.
Allium 'Purple Sensation'
Lily of the Valley, Convallaria – Oh, the wonderful fragrance of the sweet white bloom! 8 inches tall in moderate shade with early spring bloom.
Trout Lily, Erythronium – I love this little yellow bell-shaped flower with its blotchy leaves, but I have trouble growing it. Others in Charlotte have been very successful, so give it a try. My mom called them adder tongues.
Checkered Lily, Fritillaria meleagris – Each year they get better! The maroon and white spotted forms are best and grow about 12 inches tall in sun or light shade with March-April bloom.
Ipheion – You either like or hate this bulb, but it means spring has arrived when you see the white Star of Bethlehem blooming. Grows 8 inches tall and requires sun to light shade.
Leucojum vernum – I’ve seen the Leucojum bloom at Wing Haven Gardens & Bird Sanctuary the first of February. It has lovely 10-inch fragrant white blooms, usually 3 per stem, and there is a small green dot on each scalloped edge. These require some sun, but mostly shade.
Pineapple Lily Eucomis ‘Tugula Ruby’. Yes, it looks like a pineapple when it blooms in June, likes sun or part shade, and ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ gives the best color. They do well here. Photo by Debbie Moore Clark.
Grape Hyacinth, Muscari – Easy to grow and the colors are wonderful. There is azureum, a nice soft blue ‘Superbum’ a two-tone blue; ‘Mt. Hood’ that is blue, but topped with white; and botryoides, which is all white and blooms later than the others. Grape hyacinth grows 10 inches tall in sun or light shade and provides mid-spring bloom.
Puschkinia – This flower reminds me of a white hyacinth, but it has a blue stripe and is a charmer, which grows 6-8 inches tall, needs sun to light shade and gives an early spring bloom.
Scilla – Many of the old Scillas are now called Hyacinthoides, but we still have the Scilla siberica or Siberian scilla that blooms in early spring in a vivid blue bell shape growing 6 inches tall in sun or part shade. I love to go out around my yard and see these little guys in early spring! My other favorite scilla is Scilla peruviana, an intense blue with an allium-shaped flower head 4 inches in diameter. Everyone needs three of these in their garden. In Charlotte, they bloom in April in the sun.
I’ve left out a lot of others that are wonderful to try—the arums, the lilies, the iris—and I must not fail to mention, the voodoo lily.
If you want to see great displays of bulbs all year round, make a trip to Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Gaston County, NC (www.DSBG.org.) I can guarantee there will be a show for you there.
Ground Rules for Bulbs
To give you a better chance of becoming successful with your blooms, let’s begin with some helpful ground rules:
Provide good drainage—use Stalite PermaTill® or rough gravel around the bulb. Stalite PermaTill® is a human-made product, which looks like small, sharp, rough gray stones. It is used as a soil amendment in our clay, because it provides good drainage. It can be found at most good nurseries.
Plant bulbs at the proper depth. Hint: Read the directions!
Use a mixture of humusy compost. (There is no such word, but you get my meaning!)
Fertilize all bulbs in the fall, using a good bulb fertilizer or a mixture of bone and cotton meal if you don’t have a dog. Dogs like to dig up these meals.
Let the bulb plant die down naturally—no cutting off or braiding green leaves.
Basic bulb planting procedures
My procedure is thus: I dig my hole about two inches deeper than needed and place two inches of PermaTill® in the bottom of the hole to insure good drainage. Next, I set my bulb/bulbs on top of the PermaTill®. Then I place a layer of PermaTill® around the edge of the hole to keep the critters, such as voles and chipmunks, away.
On top of the bulbs—to within one inch of the surface—I use a good mixture of humusy compost. In that last inch, I put more PermaTill®, again to keep away critters (even slugs) and lightly sprinkle with a fine mulch to hide the gray stone.
As I’ve told many people, the use of the Stalite PermaTill® keeps away critters and provides good drainage, but another great bonus is this: when you go into your garden during bulb dormancy and want to plant another plant, when you start to dig and hit the stones you are warned, so you will not cut into some expensive bulb by mistake.
© Dawn Ridley 2011 all rights reserved
Dawn Ridley, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer, with Mecklenburg County, NC, has also volunteered extensively at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, Gaston County, NC (www.DSBG.org) and Wing Haven Gardens & Bird Sanctuary, Charlotte, NC (www.winghavengardens.com). At Wing Haven, Dawn is much-respected and affectionately known as “The Bulb Lady.”
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