#45 Talking About Bulbs

                The madman has been talking about bulbs lately. Why? Because he spent the last few days at the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show. Yes, he entered plants in the Standard Flower Show. And, yes, he spent time visiting with people at the Maine Garden Booth. And yes, he manned the club table for the Connecticut Cactus and Succulent Society.

                He still found time to wander through the horticultural and landscape exhibits. And, guess what he saw a lot of – flowering bulbs. Everyone knows about the spring bulbs – the tulips, the daffodils, the crocuses, the hyacinths and all the others. And, everyone knows you plant these bulbs in the fall.

Beyond Spring

                But, there’s another world of bulbs out there. Some exotic, some not so much; some winter hardy, some not so much; some trouble-free, some not so much. But, they add an exotic flavor to the summer garden.

                We have grown some of these bulbs for years. But, we still consider ourselves newbies when it comes to summer bulbs. We are still learning about them. I guess that’s why the madman loves gardening; there’s always something new to explore.

Bulbs for Summer

                We have ordered our seeds. The Flower and Garden Show is behind us. The madman has his seed planting schedule. Now it’s time to look at summer flowering bulbs.

                Over the past year or so, we have spent a lot of time talking about natives. But, the madman feels it’s okay to experiment – after all, all is fair in love, war, vegetables and bulbs. Since the garden is for us – that means us and the wildlife – there is no guilt in planting some non-native specimens. And when it comes to summer flower fragrance and appearance, nothing beats the tropical bulbs.

Bulbs and Their Friends

                A bulb is a dormant underground storage unit. At the right time, it provides energy to power the growth process until the leaves take over. Because the plant world needs to be confusing, corms, rhizomes and tubers – which are also geophytes – are often all referred to as bulbs. The madman doesn’t really care about all this; what he really cares about is that this thing grows into a pretty flower. And what I’m looking for is a pleasant aroma.

                So, let’s go bulbing and we’ll tell you about the bulbs we like.

Crocosmia

                My all-time favorite is the Crocosmia, a corm that hails from the grasslands of southern and eastern Africa. One species is from Madagascar (C. ambongensis), but we have no experience with this one. I’m particularly fond of the Lucifer cultivar (C. x Curtonus) with its bright red flowers that keep our hummingbirds happy. The Crocosmia is supposed to be hardy in zones 5-9 (we are in 6), but I can’t get it to overwinter outside. The Missouri Botanical Garden suggests growing these in containers so you can easily bring them inside for the winter – guess they have issues, too.

                The Crocosmia prefers full sun, although it will survive with a little shade. Plant after all danger of frost has passed. Other flower colors are orange and yellow, but I find these varieties less vigorous than Lucifer. Our plants have remained pest-free, although they can be susceptible to spider mites. Our deer have shunned the Crocosmia.

Dahlia

                Another flower our deer avoid is the tuber-grown Dahlia. Since there are over 50,000 named varieties of this genus which comes from Mexico and Central America, everyone should be able to find at least one pleasing Dahlia. Over the years, we have grown many different varieties and have never found one we didn’t like. Although they have nothing to do with tomatoes, if you can grow a tomato, you can grow a Dahlia. We start ours in pots early in the season and plant them outside when the madman plants his tomatoes in the garden. Like tomatoes, Dahlias should be staked. We like to add the stake as the Dahlia goes into the ground.

                The madman really began to like these flowers when he realized how easy they are to grow. Slugs can be an issue early on, but we easily pick them off with gloved fingers. Japanese Beetles can be a problem, but so far we have been lucky; if we find any, we pick them off and drop into soapy water.

                After the first frost we lift the bulbs to store in shredded newspaper. We haven’t quite perfected this so we lose about half of our tubers each year. No problem, it just gives us a chance to try a different variety.

                Speaking of deer-proof plants, let’s move on to the Callas and Cannas. The madman goes bonkers when I lump them together, but lump them I do. After all, they sound alike, they’re almost spelled the same and they both grow from rhizomes. The madman is rolling his eyes at me so I guess we had better separate them.

Canna Lily

                Cannas first. We had our first experience with Canna Lilies (Cannus x generalis) shortly after we were married. We took a trip to introduce the madman to my mid-western relatives. Uncle Don was fond of his Cannas and sent us off with a few rhizomes to plant in our garden. “Lift them in the fall,” he said. We planted them, a beautiful red variety. Unfortunately, Uncle Don didn’t tell us what to do with the lifted rhizomes. That was the end of Uncle Don’s Cannas.

                Our next Canna adventure was much more productive. Fellow master gardener Kate Hull showed up one day at the Haddam Extension Center with a trunk-load of rhizomes for the taking. She had a particularly good year and husband John said “Get rid of the extras.” The madman took a bunch and we planted them. They came up red, just like Uncle Don’s. We were happy. By the time the frost turned the plants black, we learned enough to know that we should cut back the stems and dry the rhizomes before storing in shredded newspaper in a cool, dry spot. So now we have them every year.

Calla Lily

                Now, let’s go to the Callas, members of the genus Zantedeschia. They hail from Southern Africa where the white variety Z. aethiopica is considered a weed. It’s hard for the madman to understand this weed business because he sometimes struggles with the Callas. The madman is fascinated by the trumpet shaped spathe that wraps around the central spadix. Too much gardening lingo? It’s just a funnel shaped flower. Callas come in lots of colors, but the madman is considering a white variety for our moon garden.

                Admittedly we are fairly new to the Calla Lilies, so we don’t have a lot of experience. Last summer we grew them in pots and in the fall they went to the basement, pot and all. Unfortunately, the labels disappeared. Our four-legged gardeners were at it again. Come spring we will be looking for the first sign of foliage.

Tuberose

                Interestingly, the madman mixed the pots of Callas in with the pots of Tuberose. There is absolutely nothing that compares to the smell of Tuberose blooming in the early evening. Cultivated by the Aztecs in Mexico, this easy-to-grow bulb produces tall trumpet-shaped flower spikes. It’s not hardy in Connecticut so we grow our Tuberose in pots which can easily be brought to the basement for the winter. The madman prefers the single Mexican variety because our pollinators prefer single over double blooms. Since we plan to add some Tuberose to the new moon garden we have to get going on them because they take 90-120 days from planting to bloom.

Gladiolus

                Luckily the gladiolus we are thinking of planting don’t take as long to bloom. And, luckily we have good luck planting the corms in the ground and lifting them in the fall. At one time the madman wanted nothing to do with this flower because he heard it referred to as a funeral flower. It is common in those floral arrangements because the elegant tall spike lasts a long time as a cut flower. When he heard that the hummingbirds loved the red variety, he began to change his mind and we began to play with Gladiolus.

                Since the corms are on the low end of the price scale, we can plant lots and experiment with different colors. The biggest problem we face with our stately Glads is to keep them from falling over. We have tried staking them, tying them together and planting against a structure.

                Sometimes called the sword lily, this plant comes from Asia, Mediterranean Europe and Africa so it’s not winter-hardy around here. We start planting our corms around our last frost day and continue to stagger plantings until we run out of corms. Since it takes roughly 70-90 days to bloom, we can keep this up until July.

                For us, the plant has been pest and disease free, but gardening literature suggests it can be bothered by a variety of common garden thugs. In the fall we lift the corms to dry. At the bottom of each corm we always find tiny cormlets, but we don’t usually bother with them. Given time, each one will grow to produce a new plant – usually in three years.

A Quick Detour

                So far we’ve talked about our favorite flowering bulbs. But, there’s another world of summer bulbs that are grown for their exotic foliage and others grown for their exotic smell. But, I’m going to cover those in another post because I want to show you some of the plants the madman entered in the Hartford Flower and Garden Show.

                Fix yourself a cup of hot cocoa because we are having one.