I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils. - William Wordsworth
At the height of tulip fever in the seventeenth century, one tulip bulb of the variety ‘Admiral Van Enkhuissen' sold for the equivalent of fifteen year’s wages of a bricklayer. Rarer snowdrop bulbs are selling for over $600 this year in England. These prices are for wealthy plant geeks or bulb speculators. There are many spring-flowering bulbs for much less.
I eagerly await the sightings of green leaves poking through the soil. The snowdrops (Galanthus) are the first to bloom, usually in March and at times beneath the snow cover. The most common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, has small, fragrant, nodding white flowers whose three lines are tipped with green. Snowdrops will grow anywhere but prefer shade and rich soil where they will naturalize. Many varieties have been developed, including a double flowered Galanthus plicatus ‘Dionysus.’ In England, yellow snowdrops have now been propagated from wild mutations.
As soon as the weather warms, the small flowered bulbs pop up and bloom and the excitement begins. Scilla siberica, once introduced, should show up unexpectedly throughout the garden. It is stunning to see the little blue flowers in masses or in pockets seeded in crevices or under trees. A variety called ‘spring beauty' has larger, darker blue blooms, and there is a white form, ‘alba,’ but unless planted in an all-white garden, I see no reason to abandon this blue perfection. A later, taller family member, Scilla litardierei, has 6”–8” stalks of blue in June.
Croci are familiar to almost everyone and are usually sold in mixtures of purple, white, and yellow. But the variety available is striking: white, yellow, cream, blue, striped, tricolor. Crocus chrysanthus ‘Ladykiller’ has an unpleasant name but has lovely petals of dark violet with white interior. Crocus olivieri ‘Orange Monarch’ is deep orange with purple striping. Crocus chrysanthus ‘Romance’ is creamy outside with a pale yellow interior. Crocus tommasinianus comes in white or various shades of blue and purple and is said to be squirrel resistant. Unfortunately, squirrels and chipmunks love to dig up and eat crocus.
Flowering at the same time as croci are some of my favorite spring blooms, the dwarf Iris, especially Iris reticulata. They are beautiful and comical. Although the plant is only 4”–8” tall, the flowers are comparatively large. ‘Joyce’ and ‘Rhapsody’ are shades of blue. Iris histrioides are similar in size and bloom and tend to have more freckled petals and fancier names. ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ and ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’ are exquisite. A few blooms of Iris reticulata on an early spring day make me smile.
Chionodoxa and Pushkinia are two more little blue flowers. Chionodoxa produce 5–10 small starry flowers of a sky blue with a white center. Pushkinia also has a cluster of blue but a paler, powdery shade. Both of these little ephemerals will multiply freely.
The grape hyacinth, Muscari armeniacum, blooms a bit later in white or blues. ‘Valerie Finnis' is a powder blue and ‘Helena’ a dark blue at the base, lightening toward a white top. Hyacinth orientalis are the big, incredibly fragrant flowers in colors as bold as their scent. The real stars of the hyacinth family are Hyacinthoides hispanica and Hyacinthoides non-scripta, the Spanish and English bluebells. The flowers are much looser on the stem and seem more appropriate to a wilder setting. I plant Hyacinthoides hispanica ‘Excelsior’ for its rich blue. The English bluebells don’t seem to proliferate here as in England. To come upon a bluebell wood in England is a mystical experience.
“Let me tell you about a wood. Five times in one week, I went to this wood…I paused before entering I savored the moment…it was the anticipation of a sort of ecstasy. It was blue. It was a blue that shocked you. It was a blue that made you giddy. It was a blue that flowed like smoke over the woodland floor, so that the trees appeared to be riding out of it.”—Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm.
Camassia, a native of the western United States, produces stalks covered with blue or white stars in June. Camassia leichtlinii ‘Blue Danube' has dark blue flowers on 3 foot stems while “Sacajawea’ has white flowers and variegated foliage. Camassia quamash offers shorter forms. These quamash tubers were a source of food for native people.
Frittilaria meleagris, often called guinea hen flowers, are unusual short, nodding, bell-like flowers in white or purplish checkerboard pattern. Its cousin F. persica grows to 3 feet with a stalk covered in dusky purplish bells. The tallest frittilaria is F. imperialis with clusters of big yellow or burnt orange blooms atop 5 foot stems.
The onion family, or alliums, range from 6”–48” and most have spherical blooms composed of small florets. The tall varieties tend to have purple or white blooms such as ‘Giganteum,’, ‘Gladiator,’ ‘Globemaster,’ or ‘White giant.' The shorter plants with big spheres like floral fireworks are Allium christophii and A. schubertii. Yellow-flowered A. flavum and A. moly ‘Jeannine’ are about a foot tall and though not as spectacular as bigger flowered allium they have a charm of their own.
And then there are tulips and daffodils. There are an astounding number of named varieties of both, ranging in size from 24”–3.” More than 5,500 different tulips are listed by the Royal General Bulbgrowers Association in the Netherlands. Three of my favorites are ‘Spring green', a creamy white with green feathering; ‘Prinses Irene', orange with purple flames; and Tulip acuminata, with narrow, pointy red or yellow petals. Daffodils (narcissus) have thousands of individual varieties. To illustrate, here are a few all-white narcissi: ‘Mount Hood', 15”–17” tall with large cups; N. albus plenus oderatus, 12”–14” with double blooms; ‘Thalia’ with two or three blooms per stem; N. watieri, tiny 3”–4” plants.
Now is the time to observe and note your favorite spring beauties. Catalogs and websites are the best resources for finding a full range of bulbs. Place your orders in the summer while wide selection is still available. Come fall it will be time to plant.
Daffodils
By William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils.
May 2017
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