![\"Crocus--King](\"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Crocus-King-of-the-Striped.jpeg\")
<\/a>\u00a0 Last spring, when I looked enviously at my neighbors\u2019 tulips, I vowed to invest in a few of my own.\u00a0 To facilitate the triumph of hope over tulip experience, mine will grow in pots on the porch, far from the marauding animals that dig and eat the bulbs, or nip off the young shoots in the spring.\u00a0 No deer has yet climbed the porch steps, though we have a squirrel that amuses himself by excavating the geranium pots.\u00a0 I will treat the tops of the tulip planters with deer spray just to deter that squirrel and any of his relatives with similar ideas.<\/p>\nThe tulips include the pristine, white-flowered \u2018Maureen\u2019, and the pale purple and white fringed tulip \u2018Cummins\u2019, with its dark heart.\u00a0 In the heirloom realm, I also invested in Tulipa clusiana, which dates back to at least 1607, and has pointed red and white petals.\u00a0 I will certainly lift and store it after bloom time next spring, as species tulips often rebloom year after year.\u00a0 \u2018Maureen\u2019 grows tall and white, striped with cream.\u00a0 It should be a good foil for the exotically fringed \u2018Black Parrot\u2019, which isn\u2019t really black, but darkest maroon.\u00a0 All the tulips will work well together when I mass their containers on the porch.<\/p>\n
Crocuses please my frugal nature because you can buy lots of them for relatively little money.\u00a0 They also are among the first surprises of the new growing season, popping up just when you are ready to give up hope that winter will ever end.\u00a0 I will be planting the golden orange \u2018Orange Monarch\u2019, which is flamed with dark maroon.\u00a0 \u2018Zwanenberg\u2019, with its mauve and darker purple striations, will be a vibrant contrast.\u00a0 \u2018King of the Striped\u2019, an old, purple-striped variety is one of my favorites.\u00a0 Being a large-flowered crocus, it blooms later than little \u2018Cream Beauty\u2019, which is white and winsome.<\/p>\n
I order hyacinths every year because they smell divine.\u00a0 First year hyacinths are always plump and handsome, while their longer-established siblings tend to become a bit more sparsely flowered as the years go by.\u00a0 Earlier this year my Victorian self reasserted dominance in the garden realm and I chose two double-flowered varieties, the rosy \u2018Chestnut Flower\u2019 and fluffy white \u2018Madam Sophie\u2019.\u00a0 In spring I prop up their fat flower stalks with small stakes and clip one or two for the house.\u00a0 Any more than that and the aroma is too much for the average room or the average nasal passages.<\/p>\n
I love blue, but have never before indulged in camassia, a native plant bearing medium to tall stalks adorned with feathery blue flowers.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I waited so long, because I have admired camassia in botanical gardens and recommended them to friends.\u00a0 Now the bulb boxes hold a few camassia and they will go into the grounds as soon as I can find a few minutes and a trowel.\u00a0 If they succeed, I anticipate that it will be the start of a new obsession.<\/p>\n
Fall is also the time to plant some of the showier lilies and I need more of those, despite the fact that the deer like to nip off the delectable buds.\u00a0 I will counter that with a strong will, a supply of deer spray, and some additional \u2018regal lilies or Lilium regale.\u00a0 These gorgeous Chinese lilies, beloved of mid twentieth century garden writer\/bon vivant Beverley Nichols, grow between five and six feet tall.\u00a0 The \u201cregal\u201d part comes from the enormous, trumpet-shaped flowers, which can be up to eight inches long.\u00a0 These marvels are white, with golden throats and a lovely fragrance.\u00a0 The outsides of the petals are flushed with maroon.\u00a0 Nichols grew armloads of them and gave them to fashionable friends like Noel Coward.\u00a0 I just want enough to enjoy the fragrance and wallow in a little of that glamour.<\/p>\n
And, of course, I will have daffodils\u2014many daffodils–to complement the many that I have already.\u00a0 Little yellow and white \u2018February Silver\u2019 may not bloom in February, but I know it will be among the earliest to appear.\u00a0 \u2018Xit\u2019 is even smaller\u2014only four to six inches tall\u2014but it is whiter than white and a joy to have in the garden.\u00a0 \u2018Daphne\u2019, an old-fashioned white double from the World War I era, is at the limit of its hardiness in my garden, but I will put it in a protected spot and hope for the best.\u00a0 \u2018Van Sion\u2019, loved since at least the 17th<\/sup> century, is a double yellow daffodil.\u00a0 Sometimes when the buds open, the doubled petals are confined within the cup.\u00a0 Other times, the entire flower looks like a mass of exploded petals.\u00a0 Both are lovely and I can\u2019t wait to see how they will appear in my garden.<\/p>\n So now the loaded bulb boxes have been opened like the horticultural presents that they are.\u00a0 The bulbs await me and my trowel.\u00a0 As always, getting them in will be a race against the cold weather.\u00a0 Daffodils, lilies, camassia and crocuses will go first, followed at last by the tulips.\u00a0 Some years I have alternated turkey basting and bulb planting on Thanksgiving.\u00a0 This year I vow to be more organized.\u00a0 I will block out bits of time and dream of spring.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The fall bulb packages have arrived, nearly submerged under a high tide of holiday catalogs.\u00a0 Since I have long since forgotten most of what I ordered at various times during the summer, the boxes are full of glorious surprises.\u00a0 Unpacking them gives me a feeling akin to opening the boxes of Christmas ornaments in December.\u00a0 … 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":[4,6,2,5],"tags":[1291,372,276,2198,277,2144,369,477,2197,458],"class_list":["post-2888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-winter","tag-camassia","tag-crocus","tag-daffodils","tag-double-hyacinths","tag-hyacinths","tag-lilium-regale","tag-narcissus","tag-spring-bulbs","tag-tuips","tag-tulipa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888","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=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2890,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions\/2890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}