It is time now to get down to the serious business of buying bulbs.\u00a0 Summer is ebbing away, the Monarch butterflies are massing for their epic flight to warmer climes, and the stores have already had their Halloween displays out for a month.\u00a0 The bulb catalogs hit the doorsteps in August and the garden centers have mounted their bulb displays.\u00a0 The hardest part is choosing.<\/p>\n
If you stick to the garden centers, your choices are easier.\u00a0 In the last ten or fifteen years, most of them have edited their selections of spring-flowering bulbs so that there are fewer varieties in each category.\u00a0 Mass merchandisers edit even more strenuously.<\/p>\n
For the best selection, you have to go to catalog\/online vendors.<\/p>\n
But, as Hamlet says, \u201cthere\u2019s the rub.\u201d\u00a0 The catalogs offer an abundance of selections and that abundance increases if you go online.\u00a0 Staring at all those full-color illustrations of jaw-dropping spring flowers will make you go glassy-eyed after about twenty minutes.\u00a0 Every gardener has his or her own way of dealing with this problem, but it\u2019s safe to say that many of us will deal with it by choosing more bulbs than we can afford or have time to plant<\/p>\n
This year I am narrowing my search to scented varieties in every category, narrowing the hundreds of possibilities down to mere scores of choices.\u00a0 The following are some \u201cbest bets\u201d for spring fragrance.<\/p>\n
Early Spring Bloomers: <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Some of these are so small that you have to plant masses of them or assemble bouquets to really notice the fragrance.\u00a0 Still, even a whiff of something pleasant is welcome after a long, stale-smelling winter.\u00a0 In the crocus realm, I have always loved Crocus chrysanthus \u2018Snow Bunting\u2019.\u00a0 It has white petals and large golden stamens.\u00a0 Crocus biflorus \u2018Purity\u2019, another, white-flowered variety, is also fragrant.\u00a0 Crocuses in other colors seem to have less scent, but if you mix in enough white ones, you can refresh your senses with color and fragrance.<\/p>\n Galanthus or snowdrops smell wonderful.\u00a0 Admittedly, if you want to get a real appreciation for snowdrop fragrance or the minute differences among varieties, you should get down on your belly in the wet spring grass.\u00a0 For something that is a little more visible than ordinary Galanthus nivalis, try the Elwes snowdrop, Galanthus elwesii.\u00a0 These are about twice or three times the size of the nivalis species and just as fragrant.\u00a0 You can keep your belly dry while picking a few of them to make a nice bouquet.<\/p>\n Daffodils:<\/strong><\/p>\n Jonquilla Narcissi or jonquils are small to medium-size daffodils that bear two or three flowers on each slender stem.\u00a0 Most of them are fragrant.\u00a0 Traditional favorites in this category include little \u2018Baby Moon\u2019, which grows only seven inches tall and has yellow flowers; the beautiful \u2018Curlew\u2019, with a white perianth and elongated ivory trumpet and \u2018Dickcissel\u2019, with a light yellow perianth and darker yellow cup.\u00a0 For those in USDA Zone 6, plant jonquillas in a sheltered spot and mulch well.\u00a0 North of Zone 6, consider raising them in pots.<\/p>\n Among my favorites for fragrance are members is the Poeticus or Poet\u2019s narcissus group.\u00a0 The most famous of these is \u2018Pheasant\u2019s Eye\u2019, beloved by a real poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay.\u00a0 \u2018Pheasant\u2019s Eye\u2019 has a small, greenish cup edged with a red-orange stripe.\u00a0 The petals are white and slightly reflexed or back-swept.\u00a0 In addition to its other virtues, this poeticus narcissus is wonderful for naturalizing.\u00a0 The double pheasant\u2019s eye, Alba plenus odoratus, documented since 1601, is white, fluffy and extremely fragrant.<\/p>\n Tulips<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Tulips are the showgirls of the bulb world.\u00a0 For fragrance try the double pink, powder-puffy \u2018Angelique\u2019, which is universally planted and loved.\u00a0 The orange \u2018Princess Irene\u2019 is stunning to behold with its purplish flames.\u00a0 Its double-flowered offspring, \u2018Orange Princess\u2019 has the same colors and fragrance.\u00a0 The yellow and red \u2018Keizerskroon\u2019 is an heirloom from 1750 that is still lighting up gardens worldwide and exudes a sweet fragrance.\u00a0 The double yellow \u2018Monte Carlo\u2019 and the pale pink and white \u2018Montreux\u2019 are also scented.<\/p>\n Any discussion of fragrance in the spring garden is incomplete without hyacinths.\u00a0 No matter what color or variety you buy, you are guaranteed a noseful of joy come spring.\u00a0 I always buy as many as I can afford\u2014plenty for the flowerbeds and a few for forcing.<\/p>\n If you go through the catalogs and websites with a careful eye, you can find lots of fragrant spring bloomers.\u00a0 Heirlooms abound at Old House Gardens, 536 Third Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48103, (734) 995-1486; www.oldhousegardens.com<\/a>. Catalog $2.00.\u00a0 Selection and quality come together at John Scheepers, Inc., 23 Tulip Drive, Bantam, Connecticut 06750, (860) 567-0838.\u00a0 Free catalog.\u00a0 Another excellent source is Brent and Becky\u2019s Bulbs,\u00a0 7900 Daffodil Lane, Gloucester, VA 23061, (804) 693-3966; www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com<\/a>. Free catalog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is time now to get down to the serious business of buying bulbs.\u00a0 Summer is ebbing away, the Monarch butterflies are massing for their epic flight to warmer climes, and the stores have already had their Halloween displays out for a month.\u00a0 The bulb catalogs hit the doorsteps in August and the garden centers … 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],"tags":[295,372,276,209,371,373,277,369,370,275],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","tag-bulbs","tag-crocus","tag-daffodils","tag-fragrant-flowers","tag-galanthus","tag-how-to-pick-bulbs","tag-hyacinths","tag-narcissus","tag-snowdrops","tag-tulips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","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=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":587,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}