From The Ground Up

In burying bulbs, we resurrect hope for a glorious spring

BULB PLANTING transports you forward through the seasons with its irresistible allure of springtime just when the days are growing shorter and darker. Visions of green shoots poking up through bare soil bring solace as the garden leans into its poignant dance of autumnal decline and decay. The energy and promise of a fresh gardening season lie coiled within the inauspicious lumps of bulbs that we bury snugly beneath the still-warm, summer-worn soil.

Since this year I'm starting fresh with a bulb-free zone of a garden, I'm trying to picture springtime a little differently. I'm inspired by Nancy Heckler's Hood Canal garden, where a thousand 'Negrita' tulips bloom in a cascading tower crafted of stacked metal circles. A couple of years ago, Heckler designed and built the tower to corral pumpkins from taking over her vegetable garden. After she pulls out the spent pumpkins, in go the bulbs. In April the tower becomes the focal point of her garden, flowering into a blooming purple tulip cake. That vision is enough to make me think beyond simply stuffing tulips in pots and outlining walkways with fragrant narcissus.

Because bulbs are all about color to light up our drab and drizzly springs, I'm focusing on ordering just a few warm, rich colors for maximum impact. It seems both modern and easy to minimize the kinds and colors of major bulbs, satisfying the lust for variety by scattering about plenty of miniature daffodils, crocus and early little irises (Iris reticulata) in their intricate shading of blue and purple.

I'm planning swathes of orange wallflowers mixed with wide ribbons of 'Orange Princess' tulips. All my apple-green pots will overflow with near-ebony 'Queen of the Night' tulips, their darkness offset with spice-shade primroses and lots of early chartreuse 'Bowles Golden' grass (Carex elata). If you favor a less vibrant palette, fringed lavender 'Blue Heron' tulips mixed with yellow primroses, or soft pink 'Angeliques' rising out of a sea of blue-toned, lacy corydalis foliage are perhaps more soothing.

While no sight is more cheering than the golden-bright faces of daffodils on a rainy March morning, their foliage withers away so slowly and conspicuously that I've learned to avoid the larger ones, like those big 'King Alfred' types.

There's such a welter of narcissus to choose from that I've decided to plant hundreds of just one pale kind, hoping that for the month of April the garden will appear as if visited by a flock of little white doves. The old-fashioned pheasant's eye narcissus (N. 'Actea'), also romantically called the poet's daffodil, is a graceful flower with a rich, spicy fragrance. It's long-lasting when cut, and pretty bunched in a vase or combined with other spring flowers, which is why I need to plant so many. The flowers are milky white and detailed with a little yellow corona precisely outlined in orange-red. They bloom later than many daffodils, so their wispy foliage is easily disguised by ferns, brunnera and other perennials that are growing lushly just as the pheasant's eye shrivels away.

And to carry the garden through until summer takes over, the month of May will be devoted to as many Allium giganteum as I can afford. These fat, round bursts of sophisticated flower grow up happily between the spirea and daphnes, towering above the shrubbery to dowse the garden in shimmery purple rhythm.

Of course, no display will look its best unless bulbs are given the conditions they prefer, which in most cases is a sunny spot with perfect drainage. If you have questions about the best kind of bulbs for your garden situation, check out the handy search tool on the Web page at Brent and Becky's Bulbs. Here you can not only buy a wide assortment of healthy bulbs, but also search by sun versus shade, height, flowering time, deer and rodent resistance, as well as color and bloom time (www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com).

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.