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Assorted Hardy Bulbs

Snow Crocus. Rather than the large-flowering species, we like the smaller, bunch-flowering snow crocus.  We got a large assortment five years ago, and they are still going strong.  The colors are so bright and cheery in early spring.  No special issues or needs.  Easy.  Stick them in the ground a few inches down, and forget about them until the clump gets to large or dense.

Eranthis Hyemalis.  First planted in Fall 2001.  A very early member of the buttercup (ranunculaceae family).  They look like an ideal plant for naturalizing in lawns. In Spring 2002 they popped up very suddenly.  They are very short--only about 2-3", but the brilliant yellow flowers cry out for attention.  Click to see an image  Not very many of them actually came up.  However, I suspect that those that did come up will return faithfully.  They seemed very healthy.

Iris Reticulata.  Dwarf Iris.   Fall 2001 This is the second round of planting these.  The first batch only lasted 1-3 years.  They are marvelous plants, but apparently not long-lived.  I scattered them around widely in the garden.  I like the effect.  More planted in rock garden Fall 2002

Narcissus 'Jetfire'  Fall 2001 The pictures in the catalogs and on the box don't match what popped up in Spring 2002.  They're nice, but they look more like this than this.  The best feature is that they have a very long bloom period.  Right now, they have been blooming for about 5 weeks.  

Nectaroscordum siculum ssp. bulgaricum "Sicilian Honey Garlic"   Planted in Fall 2001.  Stay tuned for updates.  Click here to see image.

Species Tulips planted in Fall 2002 in rock garden.  6 'Little Beauty'

Assorted Tender Bulbs & Tubers

Begonia, tuberous (red color) [Begoniaceae] 1995 We haven't over-wintered one yet. We just buy new ones every year. Rich soil with peat moss. Give them shelter from wind and strong sun. Bright dappled light, as cool as practicable in hot summer. Plant with round side down and depressed side up. Some say to remove buds to 3 pairs of leaves. Dig Before Frost. Bring indoors to a dry place till the foliage dies down. Remove the stems and store in dry peat moss in marked cartons in a cool dry place. In spring check to see if any sound hollow, look for white "eyes'.  Pot them up and start indoors in March. 

Calla Lilies-- These are very easy to grow and store for the winter.  We just dig them up after the first frost, clean them off, and put them in paper bags with peat moss.  They are then placed in a dark corner of our basement, where we forget about them until spring.  They like sun, but ours do beautifully in a raised bed at the Northwest corner of our house.  We also start these indoors in large seed tray pots to give them a head start--so they bloom around June instead of July.   They can be placed in the soil in trays in a warm place with minimal light until they pop out of the ground, which usually takes about a month.

Dahlias -- Assorted styles and colors, most of them are the large 4', others are 12" or less Disbud heavily, Remove central shoot after 3-4 leaf sets emerge. Start indoors at the end of March. (2-3 weeks to emerge, real growth begins after another week). Diane Benson recommends 'Fascination' for the deck and the others--Alfred Grill, Gerrie Hoek, Optical Illusion, Asama Yama, Maltby Fanfare, Vanquisher.

1. Wait until first light frost which kills the foliage.  Cut the stalks down to about one foot.

2. Dig deeply at least one foot in radius around the clump, and lift it carfully.  K

3. Gently remove dirt and leave to dry in the sun for only a couple of hours.

4. Store in peat moss at about 40 deg. F in a dry place. Keep them moist but not damp.  We don't have an easy place to do this.  Ours endure about 55 deg. in our basement in a corner.  Some species seem to endure much better than others.  In particular, I've noticed that the large, deep red species don't do well.  The larger, plumper and more potato-like the tubers, the more likely they are to survive storage.  

5. In the very early spring, pot them up again and water them.  They will be much larger when you plant them out, and therefore will give you much more flowers earlier in the season.  We like to start ours at around the Equinox, and then we leave them outside on warm days and bring them in during the cold until we stick them in the ground about Mid-May.  Pinch them off as they grow.  I usually pinch them every 3 leaf sets.  

For the vase, cut them in the morning and leave them in the dark to rest for a while before putting into light. Last about 1 week if newly opened. Sandy and I find these to be mind-blowing in quality and quantity for striking cut flowers.  The gigantic dinner plate varieties are not appealing except for those who like silicone breasts and steroid muscles--they are bizarre and tacky

Peruvian Daffodils (Hymenocalis, aka Ismene)--Super easy to grow and over-winter.  The flowers and foliage are similar to an Amaryllis, except they have spider like appendages on the sides, and they are pure white.  I bet that you could treat them like Amaryllis for indoor forcing.  The enormous onion-like bulbs are stored for winter in paper bags of peat moss and storage in the basement.  No winter attention is required.  Start them indoors in pots to give them a head start, or put them in the ground at the end of April.  They will bloom about 2 months after planting. 

Daffodils and Narcissus.

I am not especially fond of this species, but it seems silly not to have some in the garden.  The cylamineus narcissus varieties like the brilliantly colored 'Jetfire' are my favorite.  I just planted a few of them for the first time in Fall 2001.  If they do well, and look cool, we will buy more.

About five years ago I planted the bulbocodium conspicuosa "yellow hoop petticoats."  They didn't do well, producing more foliage than flowers.  They look better in pictures than in real life.  I don't recommend them.

Fritillarias and Exotic Bulbs 

Exotic bulb cultivation in Minnesota depends on protection from frost heaving.  Since we avoid mulch, we achieve this effect by planting the bulbs deeper than recommended.  In my experience, this is especially important with large bulbs, which seem to heave up much easier than small bulbs.

We planted the first batch of these beautiful, peculiar and slightly somber bulbs back in about 1996.  Some have disappeared, some have naturalized, and appear to be quite at home.  Because they are fairly challenging, and quite expensive, I don't recommend them to gardeners who aren't up to the technical and fiscal challenges of cultivating them.  

Fritillarias bulbs range in size from small to large.  The F. meleagris are fairly small, and can be planted about 4" deep.  F. imperialis and F. persica are quite large bulbs, and I have had the most difficulty with them.  This year I put them so the topmost edge of all the bulbs were at about 4-5", no matter how large the bulb.  I dug a patch of about 3 square feet with a flat bottom at 7" and placed two large F. persica and 1 yellow F. imperialis on that surface.  I placed a mixture of compost, balanced organic 5-5-5 and rock phosphate to blend in to the native soil.  I placed enough soil on top to bring the bottom surface up for 3 'Jetfire' Narcissus and 3 Fritillaria Pontica so that their crowns were at the same level.  The same organic fertilizer and soil mix raised the soil up another 1", where I filled in with 10 F. meleagris.  The entire cluster should bloom together in April. 

Species I have tried and found worthy:

Erythronium X 'Pagoda' (Tuolumnense) -- Dog Toothed violet [Liliaceae]  Fall 2002 in rock garden, bulbs from Linder's.  3 bulbs planted.  Stay tuned for updates.  This is a very lovely small yellow flower

Fritillaria acmopetala  another very nice species with flowers that look rather like antique teacups upside down on an ornate saucer.  They seemed robust for three years, then disappeared.  I'm not sure what happened, but I suspect that they might have frost heaved.

Fritillaria assyriaca  probably the toughest species for Minnesota.  Most of these are still going strong, though I have lost some.  More difficult to find, but not as pricey as others.  

Fritillaria imperialis  these are probably the most popular and easiest to find.  They come in brilliant orange and bright yellow.  I dislike the orange ones because the color is so odd.  The yellow ones are pretty shocking, but it's a cheery color for Spring.  Still, there's that somber oddness about them that identifies them as members of the genus.  The very large bulbs usually sell for about $5.00 each.  They do not seem to bloom the second or third years, so they should be dug up and discarded after blooming.  Expensive...

Fritillaria meleagris  We have made at least three or four separate plantings of these.  Ones planted about six years ago have naturalized in some locations, and have grown quite large.  The mature ones are often 20" tall, but the foliage is so light and thin that it doesn't cause trouble.  They look great with heathers and ericaceous plants, so we put in 20 more in the rock garden in 2002.  These are wonderful and fairly easy to grow.  They seem to grow best around plants that leave masses leaves on the ground, or under mulch.  Once they survive two seasons, they are established, and will grow larger each year.  They work best at about 5" depth.  The purple variety is probably the most affordable of the entire genus.  The white ones are showier and larger, but cost a bit more.  I recommend a mix, but the mixes are always heavier on purple than white, so supplement a mixed pack with an extra pack of white.  Plant them about 6-8" away from an Anemone pulsatilla.  The best specimens I have are in this situation, and they are covered by the Anemone's leaves.  

Fritillaria michailovski 20 planted in Fall 2002 in rock garden.  8" high.  Very cute looking in the pictures, but we've never grown them before.  The area where I planted them stayed much to moist so they rotted and never appeared.  I plan to try them again after amending that soil so that it drains better.  I think they should do pretty well here.

Fritillaria persica This is my personal favorite.  These tall plants come rocketing out of the ground as soon as Spring hits.  They usually bloom in late April, but the screwed up Spring of 2002 they bloomed from May 10th.  I have had problems with them fading in their second and third years--producing no flowers, and only stems.  Like the F. imperialis, these softball sized bulbs cost about $5.00 each, which makes them an expensive annual.  

Fritillaria pontica  These didn't come up at all.  Not recommended. 

• Native Fritillaria Gallery
• Paul Christian's Catalog of Fritillaria

Lilies  [Liliaceae] 

All Lilies require ground cover or mulch to provide hot heads and cool roots.

Day Lilies aren't like other lilies.  They have a more tuberous root rather than the garlic-like bulbs of other species.  They are easy and edible.  They are usually considered among herbaceous perennials rather than bulbs.  I find them pleasant if they are floriferous, but I prefer to keep them carefully controlled by division.  I have a single mature cluster of common orange Hemerocalis that are at least 12 years old, but carefully manicured, so that the cluster remains about 18" in diameter at the base.  I think they are a necessity here, but I don't let them spread. 

• Hemerocallis fulva --we have a red/yellow variety, a yellow one and the boring orange or tawny Daylily [Liliaceae]  The buds are edible--nice in stir fry.  
• Hemerocallis 'Stella D'oro' expensive little bastards that bloom all summer long on short plants.  We bought one fairly large pot and divided it into three.  We want them to spread in our front yard along the street.  Nice color of yellow.  Highly recommended.  

Asiatic Lilies--Lilium, Asiatic.  1997 are also very easy and very vigorous.  They require periodic digging and replanting to prevent rampant spreading and overcrowding by young ones.  Even if I don't dig them, I always pull out the young shoots that surround the mature stalks in the spring.  A few manicured, mature plants are superior to a dense mass of mature and young leaves.  Growing conditions seem to be almost irrelevant, except for the fact that they like sun and cool roots.  Dig them up every three years or so, and replant the larger, healthier bulbs, and remove the smaller ones and seedlings.  They look very much nicer when they are meticulously manicured, and the rampant spreading is also controlled.  Plant them in fairly tight clusters toward the back of your bed, because they are fairly tall--30-40"

Lilium, Red Tiger (small turk’s cap) 1998 These are also very easy to grow, and don't seem to spread nearly as much as the more aggressive asiatic lilies.  They definitely require staking, because the long, frail stems tend to bend down to the ground when the flowers open.  The reddish shades are very nice, and they seem to do well in shade. 

Oriental Lilies--Lilium Orientalis.  Fragrant Sultans of the July garden, they require more pampering, replacing, staking and winter protection.  They do not spread, at least not for me.  Most local gardeners describe them as marginally hardy in Minnesota.  They tend to fade away after 3-4 years, and dislike being crowded out by other plants.  They are worth every bit of trouble.  Some cultivars reach 5', but most are around 30-40".  My personal favorites are the Stargazer, Marco Polo, Mona Lisa and Casa Blanca, which are deep reddish pink, pink, pink & white and white respectively. Plant them so they have hot heads and cool roots--a ground cover or mulch during the growing season.

  I am currently questioning the role of bark mulch in my lily die offs.  I noticed that even asiatic lilies in mulched zones of our garden were killed off mysteriously, but the ones in open soil are thriving.  Still, it is certain that the Oriental lilies are more fragile.  I think that deep planting and periodic replacement are the best solutions in Minnesota.  I planted the 2001 batch of oriental lilies in very fertile soil at about 6-7."  Stay tuned for progress reports.  They did come up and bloom, but they were kind of short, because they had already grown to about 7" in the store.  Next season will tell me more. 

Lilium, Trumpet.  My gods, these are VERY big.  They often reach heights of 7 feet, with flowers 10-12" long, similar to an Easter Lily, but oh, so much bigger.  Because of their tall, slender form, they must have tall companions like Thalictrum rochebrunianum, Eupatorium, etc.  They don't  seem to spread much.   HOWEVER, after 3 seasons of outstanding performance, our trumpet lily is barely 2" tall amidst 3-4 foot asiatics.  I gather that they are fragile like the oriental lilies.  Oh well.  Because of the large size of the bulbs, I suspect that frost heaving was the problem, but they probably do fade over time.  (See "Lilium, Oriental" above)

Other Lily family members

Chionodoxa--Glory of the Snow [Liliaceae] unknown source back in about 1994.  These 

Tritelia laxa 'Queen Fabiola'--Grass Nut, Ithuriel's Spear, Wally Basket [Liliaceae] (Linders Spring 2005).  This interesting lilac-colored flower bloomed in late July on plants about 20" tall.  The 6-pointed star flowers come in nice clusters that look rather like some Spring bulbs, so they provide an attractive and unusual bloom right at that dreary time after the Asiatic lilies and Daylilies have faded.  Info and images. 

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