| A Few More Delights Can Bloom in the Fall |
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By Lindsay Bond Totten
Scripps Howard News Service The waning season still has a surprise or two left up its sleeve. One of the most delightful is the unexpected appearance of delicate fall bulbs. It's hard to decide where to plant them at first, lest they be swallowed up by groundcovers or completely hidden by the foliage of bolder plants, both of which are likely to happen no matter where you put them in the garden. But the bulbs of fall seem able to hold their own, for the most part, making their cameo appearance each autumn all the more magical. I rediscover the precious blooms of my hardy cyclamens (cyclamen hederifolium) each October when I cut back the tall ferns and cimicifugas that share their space. The cyclamen bulbs have been growing there for so long -- at least 12 years -- you'd think I'd expect them by now. But I never do. The patch has increased slowly over the last decade, though I've done nothing special to encourage the bulbs other than provide woodland soil and suitable companions. They must like the dappled shade provided by the cimicifuga foliage that towers above them until frost. With that stripped away, the tiny cyclamen blooms are revealed. Standing just 3 to 4 inches high, with soft pink petals and a darker pink "eye," each one looks exactly like a Lilliputian version of the clunky florists' cyclamen so popular at Christmastime. They've just started to bloom and will last till November. The sweet little flowers, dotted here and there over the coarse oak leaf mulch, are attended by a slightly more generous complement of exquisite leaves. It's the prettiest foliage I've ever seen on any bulb plant: broad but delicately scalloped, the deep-green background highlighted with wide pale green to almost silver-variegated bands. Colchicums are just as pleasant a surprise when they appear about a month earlier, usually mid-September in USDA Zone 5b. "They look like crocuses on steroids," a friend remarked one autumn, as amazed at their size as she was with the unorthodox timing of the blooms she mistook for those of spring-blooming crocuses. They're not, of course, though that was exactly the effect I'd been trying to achieve by planting them among dwarf evergreens and itty-bitty hostas. Mission accomplished. Indeed, colchicums are often referred to as "autumn crocuses," though technically that's incorrect. The two are related, but colchicums are different enough to be placed in a separate genus. And having never requisitioned a common name of their own, they sometimes borrow the one given their rare cousin, the true autumn crocus (Crocus speciosus). Most colchicums offered by bulb companies are hybrids between c. speciosum and c. autumnale. Differences between varieties tend to be subtle, with blooms in shades of rosy-violet. "Water lily" is a favorite double form, while "Alba" blooms are white. Sizes vary only slightly. Colchicum's charming blooms poke up through low groundcover or leaf mulch to stand 10 to 12 inches high on leafless stalks. The foliage appeared -- then disappeared -- much earlier in the season. Strap-like leaves were hardly noticed at the time, since they were unaccompanied by any blooms. Colchicums are delightful wherever they're planted, in the rock garden or beneath the canopy of trees and shrubs. Growing them in a bed of evergreen groundcover, such as pachysandra, is worthwhile for two reasons: surrounding foliage helps to hold up the delicate chalice-shaped blooms in the event of a rainstorm, and it also hides the dying bulb foliage in late spring. Finally, for a touch of yellow, plant a handful of autumn daffodils (sternbergia lutea). Try to site them in a sunny, well-drained bed that stays fairly dry in summer. Like other bulbs, they resent damp feet. The small cheerful blooms of sternbergia appear, along with their foliage, about the same time as colchicums. Other than their color, they really don't resemble daffodils very much, but they're pretty and will naturalize slowly along the edge of a woodland bed. If you plant sternbergia bulbs beneath a tree or shrub, pick one whose foliage doesn't turn yellow at the same time, masking the amber shades of the diminutive flowers. Increased demand for these fall-blooming treasures has led to over-collecting of some varieties in their native habitats. Conscientious gardeners only buy bulbs that have been nursery-propagated for sustainable harvests. Check specialty catalogs for fall blooming bulbs. Companies usually ship in mid-summer when bulbs are dormant. (Lindsay Bond Totten, a horticulturist, writes about gardening for Scripps Howard News Service.)
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