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by Derek Fell
Everyone, I am sure, would like a garden that has color through all the seasons, but the fact is that few of us have the time or the resources to maintain a picture-perfect ornamental garden during every month, which is why I always put my best effort into having a glorious spring garden. Although tulips give a relatively short burst of color there is nothing that can match them for color diversity and if you want a special treat I recommend either a visit to the famous Keukenhof Gardens near Amsterdam, Holland, or Longwood Gardens about the first week of May when their lavish tulip displays reach peak flowering. It is then that you can evaluate the varieties and decide which ones to order for planting in fall.
With the right choice of varieties it’s possible to have a never-ending display of color from spring flowering bulbs, starting in March all the way through June, first from drifts of ‘Tete a Tete’ miniature daffodils that will increase in number every year, followed by a succession of tulips and hyacinths, and ending with colonies of blue camassia, purple alliums and multi-colored Dutch irises.
Usually, I buy from specialist bulb nurseries such as Brent & Becky Bulbs, but this past fall I could not get my orders in early enough, and by the middle of November I still had not planted my tulip beds. Fortunately, I found myself in the Warminster Walmart and there they had a sale bin offering bags of 50 assorted tulips for $5.00 instead of the usual $15.00 retail price. They also had a surplus of Dutch irises so I bought the lot and found I had 2,000 bulbs to plant over a period of three days before the ground froze. To discourage the deer from digging up the tasty bulbs I sprayed the bulbs and the topsoil with Liquid Fence deer repellent. I also spray the green foliage when it emerges as there is nothing so disappointing as to see deer relish your tulips as their favorite food before the plants have a chance to bloom. A word of wisdom about tulips – I prefer to buy mixtures of Cottage tulips rather than the larger-flowered Darwin Hybrids because the Cottage tulips have a longer bloom period by up to a week.
If you would like to see the amazing impact that thousands of camassias (native to moist meadows of the Pacific Northwest) can have on a property I urge you to visit Chanticleer Garden, Wayne the first week of May since they have masses of them planted across open hillsides, and along lightly shaded woodland paths. Chanticleer also makes impressive use of alliums (ornamental onions), particular the purple giant allium that produces a globe-shaped flower cluster atop a slender, stiff stem. These I like to cluster in tight colonies as the bulbs are generally too expensive to consider for large mass plantings.
A beautiful late flowering bulb that many people find difficult to grow is the foxtail lily. Native to the deserts of Afghanistan, it produces long, slender flower spikes up to six feet tall in white, yellow, pink and orange depending on variety. An arrangement of these in a large vase with giant alliums is an incredible sight and it’s a shame that most people fail to realize that the foxtail lily demands sharp drainage. Since the fleshy roots are sensitive to rot, I created a special bed of pure gravel against a retaining wall, never watering the roots except for what is provided by natural rainfall. They not only bloom reliably the first season, but come back as hardy perennials.
Over the years I have accumulated a choice selection of daffodils, and as a result I can recommended varieties that have given me the most satisfaction. For naturalizing it’s hard to beat ‘Fortissimo’ since it produces the largest flower among daffodils. Its bright coloring consists of a conspicuous orange trumpet surrounded by yellow outer petals. For indoor arrangements I could never be without ‘Pink Charm.’ Many so-called ‘pink’ daffodils are too pale for my liking, but ‘Pink Charm’ has a glorious deep pink trumpet and porcelain-white flowers that outshine every other daffodil. For fragrance I recommend ‘Tahiti.’ A yellow double-flowered variety with flecks of orange, its tight arrangement of petals is more symmetrical than any other double-flowered daffodil I know. A dozen blooms will fill a room with fragrance. Another of my favorite scented daffodils is the last to bloom (usually by the end of May.) Known by several names, it is a mutation of the ‘Pheasants Eye’ daffodil with white outer petals and red inner eye. A heritage variety, most catalogs list the mutation as Narcissus ‘Double Pheasant’s Eye’ but I prefer to call it by an old common name, ‘Gardenia’ for the aroma is not only identical to a gardenia, the flower form is also.
Derek Fell (1939-2019) is remembered as one of the world’s best most well-known and respected writers. During a career of more than 50 years as a garden writer, Derek Fell has authored more than a hundred garden books and calendars. He has written the Avant Garden department for Bucks County Magazine for the last seven years.