In the midst of winter when the garden is looking at its most sparse the gardener starts to look carefully for signs that spring bulbs are beginning to poke through the soil, giving a promise of colourful flowers to come. Here are a few of my favourite spring bulbs, some of which can be brought indoors at this time of year to provide an early glimpse of spring to come and offer a bit of winter cheer.
Bulbs for rockeries or naturalising areas
For a jewel-like spring show you can’t beat a colourful display of crocuses. These tiny spring flowers can be grown in rockeries, naturalised in grass or sown in clumps at the base of trees or large shrubs. More a more natural look, scatter a handful and plant where they fall. Buy a mixed variety of colours or stick to a particular favourite. Mine is Crocus sieberi subsp. sublimis ‘Tricolor’ a superb violet with a white and yellow centre.
The English bluebell is also a favourite spring flower. It is always lovely to see them naturalised in woodland, but I grow them in my own garden in my rockery and borders and wouldn’t be without these fragrant blue spring flowers. Try to stick to the native English variety. You can tell them by their bent stem with flowers all on the one side. Hybrids tend to be more upright and have flowers both sides of the stem.
If there is one flower that heralds the start of spring it is the narcissus or daffodil. There are many varieties to choose from. Some of the smaller varieties suitable for rockeries, under smaller shrubs, naturalised in grass or grown in garden planters include narcissus ‘New Baby’. Another smaller variety is ‘Rip van Winkle’ whose multi-petalled flowers give it a ragged appearance. Narcissus Tete-a-tete is probably the best known of the dwarf hybrids. It flowers very early and is long-lasting. Why not grow some early tete-a-tete in a pot inside and then plant out once they have finished flowering. I plant a lot of my dwarf narcissus this way, thereby getting some winter colour followed by an early show of flowers the following year.
Snakeshead fritillary have delicate nodding blooms which vary from speckled purple to creamy white. They flower in April and May and look best naturalised under trees or in long grass.
A slightly later flowering but no less worthy bulb is lily of the valley. With its very fragrant white bell shaped flowers on bright green foliage, it flowers in May and June. A delicate picked bunch in a vase will fill your house with the scent of spring.
Bulbs for borders and planters
One of my favourite late spring bulbs has to be the allium. Great for mixing into borders, these globe shaped clusters of star-shaped flowers grow on an upright stem. Varieties come both short and tall, in colours from deep purple to pinks and white.
Another bulb synonymous with spring has to be the tulip. I am a big fan of tulips. I love to grow them in my borders and also in garden planters on my patio and outside my greenhouse. My favourite varieties for a border include ‘Queen of the night’ which is a rich dark purple/black, ‘Spring green’ which bears green-feathered, ivory white flowers, and ‘Greenland’ which has pale pink flowers with a green stripe on each petal. Favourites for garden planters include ‘Burnished bronze’ with its double feathers blooms of a delicate bronze colour and Tulipa syvestris, an old woodland variety with pointy yellow petals and a lovely scent. Many people still lift tulip bulbs once they have flowered, but I prefer to leave mine in the grown to fend for themselves.
Although I have to admit to not being a big fan of hyacinths in the garden, I do love the heady scent of them indoors at this time of year. I do have one clump of white hyacinth in one of my borders which I inherited and have actually grown to admire for its purity of colour and which brightens up the flower border in early spring. Other interesting varieties include ‘Midnight mystique’ heralded as the first truly black hyacinth and ‘Prince of love’ which is a lovely delicate pale pink in colour.
Winter flowering bulbs
If you really can’t wait until spring, here are a few winter flowering bulbs your garden really shouldn’t be without. Winter aconites will carpet the area under a tree with their glossy green leaves and sunshine yellow flowers in January and March. Galanthus Nivalis or common single snowdrop flowers February to March. Plant them in the green for best results the following year.
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