A Season of Blooms from Beautiful Bulbs

While a single bulb will not give you a season of blooms, clusters of several types of bulbs with staggered bloom times will. This year may be a bit of an exception as many of my bulbs are beginning to color up this week. However, in a normal year my spring bulb succession goes something like this:

Sometimes as early as January, my paperwhites (narcissus) begin blooming. I have two varieties. One is the standard flower form with white petals and a pale yellow cup. The other is called "Texas Star" and has longer and narrower petals and a slightly smaller cup.

The next bulbs to flower are usually my single jonquils, February Gold daffodils and summer snowflakes (don't let the name fool you).

I have a variety of other daffodils and jonquils that bloom at various times, ending up with Pheasant's Eye daffodil which can bloom as late as April. Before that last daffodil variety blooms, I also get color from bulbs of English Wood Hyacinths and the only reliably repeating tulip in my area, Clusiana tulips. Hardy and regular amaryllis have also done well, along with a native Texas pink blooming alliums I initially collected with permission from a pasture.

There are plenty of other plants such as corms, rhizomes and woody perennials who wake up and put on a show of spring color. The earliest of all of these types of perennials in my yard are the bulbs. They put a smile on my face to see them break dormancy and break bud to let you know that Spring is just around the corner.

Happy First Day of Spring 2015

My pear tree is in full bloom and looks like spring. It is right on time considering spring officially begins this evening, March 20, at 5:45 CDT. However, it has been the bulbs in my garden this year that have been giving me hope that spring really would be coming soon even when winter hung around long after it had worn out its welcome.

It started with two varieties of paperwhites followed by February Gold and 4 other varieties of daffodils and jonquils. My favorite spring bulb growing up was crocus. They often bravely poked up their pretty little flowers through the snow. I have not had luck getting them to repeat in North TX but I do have some hyacinths that I planted in a micro climate that they are happy with and have just begun to bloom once again this year.

If you got snow today on your first day of spring, may it melt soon and may you see signs of impending spring in your area. If you already have spring blooming bulbs popping up, you might want to run out to the nursery for some spring flowering annual companions to plant near by. Later as the foliage of the bulbs ripens and dies back, the annuals will have gotten larger and begun flowering to help disguise the retreating bulb foliage. By allowing the foliage to fully ripen and not cutting it back prematurely, you will help your bulbs store the needed energy to produce a good flush of flowers next spring too.

Perky Paperwhites

Paperwhites are a popular forcing bulb, however I prefer to have mine out in the garden. Their flowers have a fragrance that I find overpowering indoors but quite nice outdoors. In addition, here in North Texas they often start putting up their leaves in December and begin blooming before the end of January to let you know that winter won’t last forever. Growing up in North Carolina, this was the job of the crocus. I have not had luck getting crocus to repeat reliably for me in Texas so I was happy to find that I can count on paperwhites to give me the first perky blooms of the season.

This year my paperwhites first started to flower about the last week of January. While a few of the blooms are beginning to fade at the end of this third week of February, most of them are still holding their heads high and bringing welcome cheer to my winter garden. (The photos in this post were taken about a week into February.) As you can see from the photos, I have two different types of these early bulbs. The ones with the longer flower petals that are more star shaped came from an old neglected planting at a home that a friend of mine had just purchased. I don’t remember where I got the other type from but it is what you are likely to get when you buy paperwhites for forcing or if you are just buying the bulbs to plant in your garden.

Paperwhite bulbs are large, so the bottom of the hole for planting should generally be about 6 inches deep. Plant them in well drained soil in full sun to partial shade. If you know someone that will share some bulbs from their clump, wait until after flowering and after the leaves have died back by at least two thirds so that they will have a good chance of storing enough energy to flower for you next year.