{"id":179,"date":"2009-11-09T05:05:41","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T13:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=179"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:32:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:32:59","slug":"bulbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/bulbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

BULBS<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Planting something that will sit in the frozen ground for months before bursting into glorious flower seems like an even greater act of faith than sowing seeds in the spring.\u00a0 Still, most gardeners feel compelled to install bulbs anyway; sometimes continuing for years after the threat of aching backs and creaky knees might logically prevent such planting orgies.\u00a0 The late illustrator, Tasha Tudor, kept planting bulbs well into her eighties.\u00a0 As I recall, celebrated American garden writer Henry Mitchell collapsed and died while helping a friend plant daffodils.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The daylight hours are growing irritatingly short as I take my own leaps of faith and get the last of my bulbs into the ground.\u00a0 Of course, the ones still sitting in the box on my porch are not actually the last of the bulbs at all–they are really just the last of the first batch.\u00a0 Last week I succumbed to the pleas of my favorite bulb vendor and ordered a bunch of end-of-the-season orphans.\u00a0 They will arrive any day now and I hope to get them planted before either Thanksgiving or the arrival of a series of hard frosts.\u00a0 Time is of the essence.\u00a0 I still have to find a corner for the lovely double hyacinths that are among my favorite flowers.\u00a0 More will arrive in the end-of-season shipment, but I will probably force at least some of those.\u00a0 I have a tall blue forcing jar, which is perfect for one bulb.\u00a0 The others may be consigned to a collection of narrow-necked jars that formerly held pasta sauce or jam or Snapple.\u00a0 Or I may plant all my hyacinths in a shallow container filled with potting mix and store the pot in the back of the refrigerator.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My favorite bulb vendor reminds me that refrigerators are not optimal for this kind of forcing, but I am not sure the temperatures in my garage will remain above freezing this winter.\u00a0 At least I know that while my hyacinths are rooting, the refrigerator temperature will be consistent.\u00a0 Since I have had good luck with refrigerator forcing before, I will stick with the method that provides me with the best chance of a fragrant breath of springtime several months from now.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday, as I raked the endless supply of leaves from the now denuded maple tree in front of my house, I thought beyond the spring bulbs to giant amaryllis bulbs for the holidays and beyond.\u00a0 A trip to the website of my favorite amaryllis supplier told me that I should have had such thoughts weeks ago, before all of the most beautiful amaryllis varieties were sold out.\u00a0 Still, I found some available “samplers”\u009d that contain the types and colors I want.\u00a0 The individual bulbs won’t be labeled, but each sampler comes with five different varieties.\u00a0 I don’t mind waiting until they bloom to see which is which.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This year I am also going to try once again to grow a papilio amaryllis, which looks almost like an orchid.\u00a0 Native to Brazil, the papilio or butterfly amaryllis has pale green petals, heavily marked with maroon to chocolate brown stripes and blotches.\u00a0 Two years ago I bought one with high hopes of exotic flowers.\u00a0 It produced one rather disappointing flower stalk.\u00a0 The blooms were colored and marked just like the pictures, but after flowering, the plant died.\u00a0 I rarely give up on a particular plant after only one or two misadventures.\u00a0 Maybe this year will be the year of the papilio for me.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amaryllis, with their long stems and sumptuous blossoms are my favorite of the holiday flowers.\u00a0 I have never really loved poinsettias, with which my mother filled the house during childhood holidays.\u00a0 Even the new improved varieties with white or pink or marbled bracts don’t do much for me.\u00a0 The little rose-form poinsettias are a bit better and I may buy a couple of those in December.\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I love the look of paperwhites and could have my fill of them, since the catalogs and stores stock thousands of the common ‘Ziva’ bulbs.\u00a0 However, my daughter has always thought that ‘Ziva’s’ flowers smell like cat urine.\u00a0 I don’t share her opinion, but she isn’t home much these days and I want to make the place welcoming for her.\u00a0 In the past I have tried other paperwhites, only to find that they smell remarkably like ‘Ziva’ or are finicky about blooming.\u00a0 In the end I’ll probably break down and get a few and plant them late in the hopes that they will flower after my daughter goes back to college. <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One way or another, my garden, refrigerator and windowsill will be full of bulbs.\u00a0 At least I don’t have to make space in the garden to store the holiday turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BULBS \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Planting something that will sit in the frozen ground for months before bursting into glorious flower seems like an even greater act of faith than sowing seeds in the spring.\u00a0 Still, most gardeners feel compelled to install bulbs anyway; sometimes continuing for years after the threat of aching backs and creaky knees … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1610,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}