Hardy Bulbs for Present Planting — By A. Herrin 



gtOn, feray 



GETTING THE GREATEST EFFECTIVENESS BY PLANTING IN MIXED BORDERS — 

 THE KINDS THAT WILL INCREASE AND GIVE BETTER RESULTS YEAR BY YEAR 



THE need and purpose for October 

 planting is so that the bulbs take hold 

 of the ground forthwith, as they proceed 

 to do by immediately putting forth roots. 

 This is a decided benefit to them. Con- 

 siderable root growth should take place 

 before hard frost penetrates the ground. 

 When the ground is frozen to the depth of 

 several inches, it is desirable to cover the 

 bulb bed with salt hay or some such cover- 

 ing, to hold the frost in the ground and 

 prevent alternations of thawing and freez- 

 ing with weather changes. This covering 

 is to be removed gradually in early spring. 



Fall bulb planting in most cases begins 

 and ends in the somewhat perfunctory 

 planting of a few hyacinths, tulips and 

 daffodils. That and nothing more! Yet 

 there are hosts of lovely bulbous plants, 

 strangers to most gardens, that ought to be 

 planted by the hundred. They are inex- 

 pensive and they alone can give us the very 

 earliest flashes of color on the heels of de- 

 parting winter. Moreover most of them are 

 permanent, and increase if just left alone. 

 The bulb lists offer them every year, but 

 planters of them are few. We are largely 

 dependent upon the bulb family for what- 

 ever early spring beauty we may have in our 

 garden. Then why not plant bulbs in larger 

 numbers and greater variety and do it now, 

 not lose another year before making a start. 



Too many people plant bulbs in the fall 

 with the sole thought of digging them up in 

 the spring to make way for summer flowers. 

 There are hosts of bulbs that maybe planted 

 in the garden under totally different con- 

 ditions because they need no care or after 

 attention, no costly annual renewal, but 

 go on increasing from year to year in 

 numbers and beauty. 



I make this statement, having especially 

 in mind a colony of the blue Siberian squill, 

 Scilla Sibirica, that every spring covers the 

 ground with a carpet of blue between and 

 among a large group of Rosa rugosa bushes. 

 The original bulbs of this colony were 

 planted seventeen years ago and they have 

 never been renewed but they have multi- 

 plied a hundredfold by natural increase. 



There are numerous families of these 

 "lesser'' bulbs as we might call them, not 

 because they are less important in any well 

 considered spring garden scheme or be- 

 cause they have less charm or interest or 

 beauty, but because of their comparatively 

 diminutive size. 



With one or two exceptions, as for ex- 

 ample the crocus family, these lesser bulbs 

 are hardly adapted to mass planting in beds 

 and borders, but they can be most pleas- 

 ingly disposed in informal groups or colonies 

 among, or in the immediate foreground of, 

 shrubbery groups and borders. We plant 

 evergreen or flowering shrubs where pos- 

 sible to soften the hard line where the house 

 rises from the ground or to fill awkward 

 angles. Here may be found a hundred 

 semi-sheltered nooks that should be liter- 

 ally filled with many of the "lesser" bulbs. 

 Lawns that are bordered and bounded by 

 shrubbery plantations should be bestrewn 

 with, or have broad marginal foreground 

 plantings of, the "lesser" bulbs and let 

 them invade the grass, too. They will be 

 happy there and permanent, if you will 

 refrain from close cutting of the grass for a 

 few weeks in spring. 



The natural habitat of these "lesser" 

 bulbs is woodland or meadow and they have 

 no need for, they do not require, and some 

 of them resent the highly cultivated, en- 



A natural planting of crocus on the lawn of Country Life Press 



100 



Surely plant lilies now for next summer's bloom. 

 The new L. myriophyllum, white with glowing golden 

 throat flushed red-brown outside 



riched beds and borders of gardens. But 

 among shrubs, or in grassy nooks that need 

 not be mown early, these bulbs can find 

 all the sustenance they need. Plant them 

 anywhere except in the beds and borders 

 where tillage must obtain for the success 

 of such other things as may be there. 



Plant informally in these places, that is, 

 in irregular groups or masses. Do not dibble 

 them singly at regulation distances a few 

 inches apart, but preferably remove the 

 earth from a suitable area approximately 

 one to three feet in diameter and to a depth 

 of from three to four inches. Scatter the 

 little bulbs broadcast as you would seed, 

 from ten to fifty, according to space; then 

 merely place each one properly upon its 

 base and put back the soil. 



Some of the important "lesser" bulb 

 families, nearly all amenable to growth in 

 the manner suggested, are as follows: 



Snowdrop (Galanthus) is one of the first 

 to indicate winter's passing away. Its 

 flowers are white, and there are single and 

 double varieties. It comes so early and in 

 advance of even genial spring weather that 

 a sheltered nook will materially aid in pro- 

 longing its season. G. Elipesi is the largest, 

 having flowers half an inch long. 



The winter aconite (Eranthis) is an early 

 gem with a rich yellow, starry flower set in a 

 frill of green leaves. Under trees and among 

 shrubs it finds congenial conditions and in 

 free soils increases and spreads with rapidity. 



G. M. Oct 



