Ours was a modest bulb order this year: 500 Camassia quamash, 50 Erythronium ‘Pagoda’, 50 ‘Discovery’ Dutch iris and 100 Narcissi ‘Pueblo’. Wholesale cost £180.
Now the planting. It’s backbreaking work, especially if the ground is dry and hard. Thankfully, some bulbs have a reasonable shelf life, but don’t put off planting until Boxing Day.
Erythroniums in particular hate delay. ‘Pagoda’ is a beauty; in our previous garden, it quickly multiplied in turf, gracing open sunlit spaces in the arboretum with, as one supplier puts it, ‘elegant downward facing flowers, wing-like recurved petals and a hint of Oriental charm... over tall, upright stems [of] up to ten nodding blooms, all over a neat clump of lush green mottled foliage’.
And those flowers are of an alluring sulphur-yellow hue. They’re going under the skirts of a venerable sweet chestnut to cavort with well-established drifts of primroses, snake’s head fritillaries, and a scattering of chalky-white wood anemones.
Camassias proliferate at nearby Aberglasney. They give a long-lasting show of tall stems bearing an abundance of cerulean-blue flowers from mid-April onwards. Let them set and scatter seed before mowing off the withered foliage; new flowering-sized plants will spring up as if by magic within a couple of years.
Bulbs of an appealing creamy-white camassia (C. leichtlinii ‘Alba’) cost just a few pennies more – but it’s the blue that wins my favour, fabulously illuminating the season’s wealth of assorted yellows. Narcissi ‘Pueblo’ was another goody that tugged at my heart strings at Aberglasney earlier this year. They, jonquillas, similarly fashioned like ‘Ice Wings’,
Tall-stemmed Camassia leichtlinii ‘Alba’ made 15-inch-tall stands, shouldering elongated ivory-white trumpets.
Scented? Can’t say – this old back of mine refused to bend. ‘Pueblo’ is said to be rabbit-proof – a gain indeed, as our ageing terriers now seldom race after such critters, preferring instead to bark boo from a comfortable nook.
Bulbs of the Dutch iris brigade come cheap as chips, cheaper still from a wholesaler. ‘Discovery’ is a discovery for me, having been seduced by internet photos of its ‘ornate flower form and upright habit ... with flouncy standards and eye-catching slick of gold on the falls’.
Discovery is going into four new beds named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, where I’m building up a collection of perennial (non-bulbous) Iris sibiricavarieties. Flowering a little later than the sibiricas, the Dutch will prolong the iris display into June, by which time the beds’ other occupants – mostly salvias, violas and tobacco plants – will be poised for action.
Iris sibirica loves moist ground, as happy in boggy poolside conditions as in moisture-retentive beds and borders. Although May and June blasted us with unseasonal daylong sunshine and high temperatures (I had umbrellas over newly planted Japanese maples to prevent leaf scorch), I remind myself that this is south-west Wales, reputedly one of the UK’s best-irrigated regions. So next year will be all right. Yes?
I’m also partial to bulbs in pots. I treasure a clutch of autumn-flowering Sternbergia lutea – bulbs given to me by a former gardens editor of Country Life magazine who, in turn, had them from artist-plantsman Sir Cedric Morris who, I was told, dug them up in Andalusia sometime in the 1960s.
Known provenance enriches them and it pleases me when I too can pass on their occasional offspring to other ‘worthy’ recipients.
Containerised bulbs are a pleasure to deal with on the potting-shed bench. But when it’s a sackful destined for the outdoors I happily hand the spade to younger folk – Daniel (Man Friday) or John (Man Monday).
David’s Instagram account is @hortusjournal
