Time to order bulbs!

I believe this heat will abate and the cool fall days for planting bulbs
will soon be here. What are your favorite rock garden bulbs and
what is your favorite source?

Tam

I already placed an order with Botanus, one of the largest bulb mail-order companies in canada. They mostly have the standard stuff but occasionally you find something unusual. Most of mine I get at local nurseries. I do have some specialty tulips coming from Latvia. Tulipa batalinii and its cultivars are excellent long-lived rock garden tulips. Of course Tulipa tarda and turkestanica are always relibale. I've had less success with humilis and bakeri which failed to come back after the first year. Tulipa maximowiczii was great last spring but I have to see if it will come back next spring. Tulipa kolpakowskianum (who names these plants?!) is also a tiny, reliable tulip.

All crocus are good but I avoid using the standard dutch crocus in the rockery, using them instead among perennials. Crocus ancyrensis, biflorus, minimus, sieberi are all reliable species. Crocus versicolor and angustifolius survived for several years but have since died out. They were good ones and I will try them again. Crocus nudiflorus is a fall bloomer which performs wonderfully.

Chionodoxa and Scilla can be a bit weedy so I don't use them in the rock garden, again, planting them in the lawn or among perennials. There are some good narcissus but I have narcissus fly which turns my narcissus into annuals! The only one that survives the onslaught is N. 'Midget'.

I have Muscari azureum, latifolium and botryoides in the rockery but keep the rather invasive armeniacum to the perennial beds. I was pleased with Brimeura which I grew for the first time last year. Bellevalia was also a very pleasing addition.

I cannot say enough great things about Oxalis adenophylla...excellent rock garden bulb and Oxalis 'Ione Hocker' is even better.

Most Fritillaria are too tall. Erythronium are excellent but I would use them in a woodland bed instead of a rockery.

Anemone blanda are wonderful rock garden subjects...White Splendor is especially nice as its flowers are larger than most A. blanda.

Alliums are great plants but most are either too tall or too invasive for a rock garden. The better rock garden ones are not available as bulbs, rather, must be grown from seed.

Ipheion is a wonderful rock garden species that I have been pleasantly surprised by....I didn't think this South American bulb would survive in Newfoundland but it has no problem.

There are some choice bulbous Corydalis but they can be pricy....only solida is relatively cheap. Iris reticulata is excellent and I especially like my Iris bucharica. the Juno iris are wonderful but only bucharica is reliably hardy here but I do have 2 others coming shortly from my Latvia order.

That's most of the ones I grow. I have two new species tulip and species Juno iris coming from Latvia (I ordered so long ago I cannot even remember which ones they were!). In the rock garden department, from Botanus I have coming a small tulip called Peppermint Stick, A named selection of Ipheion and Muscari macrocarpum 'Golden Fragrance' (yes, a YELLOW grape hyacinth!).

Tood - so much info I'll have to revisit many times! This is wonderful.

I've had good luck with the tulip humulis here - well, they've come back two years
so far. And I love the little species crocus too. Never tried the oxalis so that's
definitely on my list this year. (adenophylla). And I've stuffed anemone blanda
everywhere! I just love it - it blooms so long. I've got quite a few under my dogwoods.
They seem to self seed there too.

Iris reticulata don't seem to last long here - usually only a few days. This spring was the
exception - they were blooming well over a week. ( It was very cool this spring.)

I have a hillside along the road that is covered first in muscari armeniacum and then
buttercups. Both very fast spreaders but gorgeous en masse. (I have a pretty big
place so its nice to have features like this.) So I've avoided the muscari but now I
realize there's selections to try in my rockery.

Thanks again!
Tam

hi, tammy--what a pretty pic of your roadside hill. I bet the passing drivers love it in the springtime!

Concerning bulb buying season, I buy from B & B and Van Engelen's mostly, and then add other bulbs along the way from specialty sources when they pique my interest.

This year I am going to try Bulbmeister, too, when I get to it...when last I checked their site they were in the process of moving, although they may be up and running by now...

I tried a variety of muscari from Van Engelen's catalog pages last year, and they are quite unusual (for around here) and were fun to watch develop. (In our little garden even the armeniacum is a slow spreader so they are not a bother so far...) Now that I know what the blooms really look like and how they behave I will have to move them around and place them where they show more attractively. I didn't realize these tiny bloomers could clash so much with each other and the other perennials...but now I'm a wise 2nd year bulb gardener! lol.

I also planted several different small alliums (the kind from bulbs) but will try the seed grown ones mentioned by Todd on the Allium bulb thread this year, too.

I looked up miniature daffodils on Broadleigh Gardens site for recommendations for rockery plantings and was happy to find out that I already had several they mentioned. They provided lots of good information in an article http://www.broadleighbulbs.co.uk/months/usingsmalldaffodils.htm about small daffodils.

This year I am trying some of the little iris (again), hoping the rabbits don't get them this time. I now know from reading DG how to set up some defenses against all the hungry and curious critters and am planning to mount a good effort on that!

Good luck with your bulb growing. I'll be interested to hear what others are planting.