Can you look forward to 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 view the brilliance of fall foliage.
The easiest 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
Autumn crocuses resemble their spring cousins in size and shape of bulb and flower. When naturalized in patches at the edge of a lawn or in front of broad-leaved evergreens, their new beauty reminds us of the past spring and comfortingly foretells the spring 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 from each other in the size of corms and flowers. Their color range includes white and shades of lavender and blue, but there is no yellow autumn crocus.
Crocus Asturias 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 sizeable deep, China blue flowers. Speciosus is the bluest crocus, spring or fall.
The white autumn crocus grows from the even tinier corms of Crocus speciosus albus. Crocus speciosus Aitchison has larger flowers than the type but is a paler blue. Crocus conatus is uniform lather in color and is a prolific bloomer from fair-sized corms.
Ideal Site For Autumn Crocuses
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 many shades, it is wise only to plant them where a heavy fall of leaves will hide their blossoms unless continually raked off.
The colonies of autumn crocuses in our New Hope, Pennsylvania, garden bloom at the lawn’s edge in front of several large, low-spreading American boxes.
They send up the next flower stems through the autumn months, and their foliage can ripen cool each spring. The crocuses are planted in drifts with the corms set 2” inches apart and covered by 2” inches of soil.
Colchicums
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 Vinca minor plants or ivy that are not too thickly matted.
Colchicum autumnale is lilac-rose; Crocus autumnal album is the best white variety. Crocus 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. Like good loamy soil, all species should be planted 2” inches under the surface and about 4” inches apart. They flourish in full sun or part shade.
The Dry Blooming Bulbs
Both colchicums and autumn crocuses are famous as “dry” blooming bulbs. This means they will bloom without being watered or on the shelf without even being planted—but the flowers will be less colorful than outdoors.
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, the bulbs you buy may have sizeable flower sprouts. Such sprouts will not detract from the blooms’ size or quality, but they must be protected from damage in planting.
Also, it would help if you remembered 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 protrude from the ground.
Naturally, these irrepressible bulbs make excellent indoor subjects, which can scarcely be prevented from blooming. You may grow them in pots, boxes of soil, or pebbles and water, like the Paperwhite narcissus.
Since they lack fall foliage, you would prefer them grown in soil where grass seed has been sown for a green background. After they have bloomed indoors, you may transplant them promptly to an outdoor location for naturalizing and blooming in succeeding autumns.
Sternbergia Lutea
Sternbergia lutea supply the yellow that is lacking among colchicums and autumn crocuses. This golden blossom is, often to the confusion of gardeners, popularly styled the yellow autumn crocus. The flower, while crocus-shaped, is two or three times as large.
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 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.
Tardy Cyclamen
Another invaluable fall-blooming bulb is the (tardy 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 the florist’s cyclamen but are smaller.
Cyclamen Neapolitanum
Cyclamen neapolitanum is the hardiest and most easily grown species. When established, it sends up quantities of delicate rose-pink flowers on 6” to 8” inch stems from late August through October.
Just as decorative as the flowers are the ivy-like leaves that 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 Neapoli tannin album has the same growing habit hut produces white flowers.
Hardy 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 acidic.
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 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 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.
Lycoris Squamigera
Still another hardy bulb that should be grown for late garden beauty is Lycoris squamigera. Although both its blooming and planting times occur earlier than 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, 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 stout, leafless flower stalk thrusts 2’ to 3’ feet upward a month or so later. 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 the foliage has disappeared.
They may also be moved in the fall after the flower dies down. Although bulbs are planted, they sometimes start blooming in the second summer.
Lycoris requires good loamy soil and flourishes in part shade. It is hard under a 4” inch covering and tends to dig deep if left undisturbed.
For A Garden Effect
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 ground cover of bloodroot is.
May apples, violets, or ferns exist. Many of you. Those with 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, grow the hardy bulbs with late summer and autumn flowers. They will not only add months of color to your outdoor display. But it will excite you to grow new interesting, and different plants.
44659 by Charles H. Mueller