November 1, 2007 In Fall, Marjorie Suggests, Marjorie's Life, Plants in my Garden

Bulb day! (Finally)

I have been trying to do this blog every day and some days are just too overwhelming because of my Gardening Life deadlines. So from now on I’ll be blogging when I’ve got something to say. And today is BULB DAY:

Here?s what bulbs are now in the garden. The idea is to fit new ones in with the old ones without destroying them. The following are tucked delicately in and about the garden where there is a pile of other stuff. This is where having area pictures of the garden is useful. You can sort of tell where new things are needed:

  • Hermodactylus tuberosa
  • Nectaroscrodum siculum
  • Allium atropurpureum
  • Allium ?Purple Sensation?
  • Muscari paradorum

The above are just little grace notes to add some piquancy in what is a fairly heavily bulbed garden. Another curious bulb and ones I like are any of the Frits: Fritillaria assyriaca a burgundy-stained nodding flower. It?s going in with mature nectaroscordums close to the house so I can see them easily.
Dozens of Allium atropurpureum have gone in with last year?s pink and purple tulips which miraculously survived the ravenous squirrels (we put our Jack o?Lantern out last night unattended for about 10 minutes and they gnawed off most of one side leaving a sort of diseased effect).

Call me foolish but I?m still adding tulips (aka Squirrel Food):
Tulipa ?Ballerina? orange with an unlabelled burgundy along with some spectacular lily flowered tulips that are designated Olympic Flame. I love the combination of burgundy and orange and it works really well with the wild eggplant wall of the dining room.
My good friend Susan gave me the following so they are all going into one area:
Tulipa ?Rai
T. ?Harry?s Memory?
And my favourite tulip: T. ?Spring Green? a white with green stripe. These tulips are as close to perennial as I’ve found and I’ve now had a patch which is many years old.

In the middle of the garden’s shade section there will be masses of T. sylvestris which is the golden woodland tulip combined with block plantings of Hyacinthoides nonscripta, Scilla siberica ?Alba? and Muscari armeniacum. Blue, white and yellow are a refreshing combination and look great drenched in spring sunshine.
The trouble with putting in bulbs is that you need to remap the garden or make a list of what has gone where which my friend Alix has done so meticulously. Bulb planting is the time to have a hortbuddy.
So far the squirrels haven?t destroyed the garden, maybe they are concentrating on pumpkins. We rolled the bulbs in bloodmeal and right now I?m heading over to my hairdresser to get some snippings to see if that great tip works.
Always looking for new ideas so thank you Carole McSween for that.