Can you look forward to still another season of colorful flowers when early frosts mow down zinnias, asters and the other annuals in your garden? You can if you have plantings of the hardy bulbs which, set out in late summer, make welcome patches of bloom on crisp October and November days to vie with the brilliance of fall foliage.
Easiest of the fall-blooming bulbs to grow and obtain are those with crocus-like flowers – the autumn crocuses, colchicums and sternbergias. So rewarding are they that place should be found for them in every garden.
Autumn crocuses resemble their spring cousins in size and shape of both bulb and flower. When naturalized in patches at the edge of a lawn or in front of broad-leaved evergreens, their fresh beauty reminds us of the spring that is past and comfortingly foretells the spring that is to come.
Unlike the most common spring crocuses, which are hybrids of Crocus vernus, the autumn kinds are true species or forms of them. They differ among each other in size of corms and flowers. Their color range includes white and shades of lavender and blue, but there is no yellow autumn crocus.
Crocus asturicus is a violet-flowered species, veined purple, with pointed petals. Crocus salzmanni has wide open blossoms of lavender. The saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, a clear lilac, has been grown for centuries for the saffron dye and perfume extracted from its bright orange anthers.
The tiny corms of Crocus speciosus produce sizable flowers of deep, China blue. Speciosus is the bluest crocus, spring or fall. The white autumn crocus grows from the even tinier corms of Crocus speciosus albus. Crocus speciosus aitchisoni has larger flowers than the type but is a paler blue. Crocus zonatus is uniform lavneder in color and is a prolific bloomer from fair-sized corms.
Selecting A Crocus Planting Site
When selecting a site for autumn crocuses, remember to give their white flower stems the supporting green of grass or other low plants, such as plumbago or sedums. Autumn crocuses produce their foliage mainly in the spring with just a suggestion of leaves appearing in fall with the latest flowers. Although they survive considerable shade, it is wise not to plant them where a heavy fall of leaves, unless continually raked off, will hide their blossoms. The colonies of autumn crocuses in our Pennsylvania, garden bloom at the lawn’s edge in front of several large, low-spreading American box. Here they send up successive flower stems through the autumn months and their foliage can ripen undisturbed each spring. The crocuses are planted in drifts with the corms set 2 inches apart and covered by 2 inches of soil.
The Colchicums Need Companionship
Colchicums are like giant crocuses with flowers ranging from white through rosy lilac to violet, on 8 to 10-inch stems. Like autumn crocuses, colchicums send up foliage in the spring. Their naked flower stems, being longer, need the companionship of other plants. In the garden border they may be planted with such low perennials as plumbago or behind edgings of such annuals as dwarf ageratum or petunias whose foliage withstands the first frosts. Colchicums are strikingly effective when naturalized in sweeps in meadow grass or scattered among plantings of Vinca minor or ivy which is not too thickly matted.
Colchicum autumnale is lilac-rose; C. autumnale album is the best white variety. C. bornmuelleri is a large warm lilac. Two good hybrids are Lilac Wonder, a lilac-pink, and Violet Queen. a deep violet. There is no blue colchicum and no yellow. All species like good loamy soil and should be planted 2 inches under the surface and about 4 inches apart. They flourish in full sun or part shade.
Both colchicums and autumn crocuses are famous as “dry” blooming bulbs. This menas they will bloom without being watered, or on the shelf without even being planted – but the flowers will be less colorful than outdoors.
Planting Crocus & Colchicum Corms
Both crocus and colchicum corms must be dug, shipped and handled during the relatively short dormant period between the ripening of the spring foliage and the start of the first flower shoots. This means that you must secure and plant your bulbs by mid-August, or at the latest, early September. Even then, bulbs you buy may have sizable flower sprouts. Such sprouts will in no way detract from the size or quality of the blooms, but they must be protected from damage in planting. Also, you must remember that the 2-inch covering of soil needed refers to the distance to the top of the bulb, not to the tip of any sprouts which may have appeared and which with correct planting may actually protrude from the ground.
Grow In Pots Or Boxes
Naturally, these irrepressible bulbs, which can scarcely be prevented from blooming, make excellent indoor subjects. You may grow them either in pots or boxes of soil or on pebbles and water, like the Paperwhite narcissus. Since they lack fall foliage you will probably prefer them grown in soil in which grass seed has been sown for green background. After they have bloomed indoors you may transplant them promptly to an outdoor location for naturalizing and blooming in succeeding autumns.
The yellow that is lacking among colchicums and autumn crocuses is supplied by Sternbergia lutes. This golden blossom is, often to the confusion of gardeners, popularly styled the yellow autumn crocus. Actually, the flower, while crocus-shaped, is two or three times as large.
Planting Sternhergias
Sternhergias should be planted under 4 inches of loamy soil with the bulbs spaced 4 inches apart. Unlike colchicums and autumn crocuses, sternbergias produce foliage in the fall. The dark green leaves, about the same length as crocus leaves but broader and thicker, provide a rich contrast to the flowers which nest in them. The bulbs should be planted. especially in northern latitudes, where the foliage can receive plenty of late fall sunshine. Warm rock garden pockets or a sunny bank are fine situations.
Unusual Fall Bloomer – Cyclamen
Another invaluable fall-blooming bulb is the hardy cyclamen, a plant as unusual in its beauty as it is unfamiliar to the average gardener. These choice flowers grow easily from tubers planted in late July or August. Though little known, they are available to gardeners looking for the unusual. The tiny dart-like flowers, with sharply reflexed petals, resemble in form the florist’s cyclamen but are smaller.
Cyclamen neapolitanum is the hardiest and most easily grown species. When established it sends up, from late August through October, quantities of delicate rose-pink flowers on 6 to 8-inch stems. Just as decorative as the flowers are the ivy-like leaves which appear in the fall. continue through winter, and last through the spring. This dark green foliage makes an attractive spring groundcover and a good companion for such spring bulbs as dogtooth violet and Scilla sibirica. The form Cyclamen neapolitanum album has the same growing habit but produces white flowers.
Colonize The Cyclamens
Hardy cyclamens colonize readily in the light shade provided by high branching trees. They should be grown in soil that is not too dry or too acid. The tubers should be spaced about 6 inches apart to allow for expansion and given a 2-inch covering of soil. “Expansion” is an appropriate word, for cyclamen do not multiply or divide like other bulbs. They simply enlarge from year to year. Thus a tuber the size of a silver half dollar may eventually become several inches in diameter. I know of an old planting of Cyclamen neapolitanum where considerable expansion has evidently occurred as there are masses of bloom from certain spots, followed by a great spread of foliage. I say “evidently occurred” as the owner, knowing that cyclamen never likes to be disturbed when once planted, has wisely refrained from investigating them.
Late Garden Beauty – Lycoris Squamigera
Still another hardy bulb which should he grown for late garden beauty is Lycoris squamigera. although both its blooming and planting times occur earlier than any of the others mentioned. There are many available species of lycoris but most are tender and need to be lifted each fall. None has the reliable hardiness of squamigera, which is known by the common -name of hardy amaryllis.
The broad straplike leaves of lycoris are 12 to 18 inches tall. They appear in the spring and ripen off in early June. A month or so later a stout, leafless flower stalk thrusts two to three feet upward. At its top, in mid-August. there unfolds a spreading umbel of four to seven large rose-pink flowers. trumpet-shaped and fragrant. The bulbs are usually bought and planted in late – June during the short resting period after foliage has disappeared. They may also be moved in the fall after the flower dies down. although bulbs planted then sometimes do not start blooming until the second summer.
Lycoris requires good loamy soil and flourishes in part shade. It is perfectly hardy under a 4-inch covering and tends to dig itself quite deep if left undisturbed.
For garden effect, plant hardy amaryllis at the shady end of the garden among hostas or the forget-me-not-flowered anchusa, Brunnera macrophylla. Better still. plant the bulbs in the woods, preferably where a groundcover of bloodroot. may apples, violets or ferns exists. Many of you. who have such areas made lovely in the spring by sweeps of daffodils, mertensia and wood hyacinths, have longed for something to plant for late summer beauty. Here is your answer. Establish colonies of lycoris and you will be rewarded with delightful color each August.
So for an extended season of garden enjoyment, by all means grow the hardy bulbs with late summer and autumn flowers. They will not only add months of color to your outdoor display. but will give you the excitement which comes from growing new interesting and different plants.
by C Mueller
