Plant Talk

Plotting the Resurrection: Time To Order Bulbs - Well, Past Time, Really, But It's Not Too Late

It's time to plant springtime. Did you hear the earth sigh in relief when it finally started raining on Friday? You could almost feel the trees and shrub unfurling their thirsty roots and plunging them deeper and wider into the newly moistened soil. Now we can move on into autumn...

It's such an act of hope, as the earth spins toward winter, to dream of next year's garden. Think how many years, how many centuries, gardeners have dropped to their knees in the dying light of autumn to dig holes and bury inauspicious gnarly lumps, patting them in, picturing the flowers to come in the new year. Garden writer and New Yorker fiction editor Katharine White called it "Plotting the Resurrection".

 I'm so late with my bulb order this year. I've been thinking about it since July, marking dozens more kinds of bulbs than I'd ever have room or money for, scouting the garden to find space for a few more allium. But just last tonight, with the blessed sound of rain on the roof, I finally sent the order in.

How to sort through the hundreds of dazzling possibilities? Start with the fact that bulbs need good drainage and sunshine - that cuts down on how many most of us can successfully grow. Consider height, color, and the expense of planting tulips which, except for the little rock tulips, are rarely perennial. Daffodils not only come back, but they tend to multiply, and best of all they are poisonously critter-repellent.

But here are my three main bulb-selecting criteria. Yours are probably different, but it just helps to articulate them to yourself as you separate longings from the realities of space, time, and expense...

1.The earliest blooming bulbs are the most valuable - who needs bulbs that bloom in May when everything else is happening out there? Plant bulbs that flower in February and March, even into April, when we most crave color and bloom.

2. Lead with the nose - I always try to find fragrant varieties to perfume the garden and also for bouquets. There are plenty of sweet-smelling narcissus and hyacinths to make the early spring garden an olfactory experience as well as a visual one.

3. Color, color, color - we need to warm up our gray and drizzly springtimes with bright colors. Why plant an icy white daffodil or pale pink tulip when you can inject the mostly brown and bare garden with hot color?  Give me a rich purple or orange tulip, or a sunny yellow daffodil any time...

I haven't yet placed my lily order with B&D Lilies in Port Townsend....I've picked up allium and fragrant narcissus at local nurseries; it's always best to check to see what bulbs your nearby nurseries are carrying this year...but here's what I ordered from John Scheepers. Let me know if you've ordered any bulbs you're particularly excited about and/or are new to you....I'm not through yet! But for now....

-Narcissus 'Flower Record' (photo above) which is creamy, fragrant, and centered with a burst of orange. I also ordered a bunch of bright yellow little 'Falconet' daffodils.

- Several hundred 'Princess Irene' (left) and 'Purple Prince' tulips to fill the round feed troughs in my garden. These are single, early bloomers that are as beautiful cut as in the garden.

-Lots of 'Cream Beauty' crocus (bottom photo) an RHS award winner for its long-lasting bloom. I scatter these all over the garden, in the raised beds, in pots....

- A dozen starry, metallic Allium 'Christophii' to plant at the front of the raised beds.

- A few impossibly showy Fritillaria 'Imperialis' to bloom at Easter, and dozens of sweet little checkered lilies (Fritillaria meleagris), to grow in pots.

Photo Shoot Fun in Georgetown - Clippers, Flowers, Vases, Branches and Light

It's only when I have a brand new and unusual experience that I remember how exciting it is to come to something for the first time and marvel over it. Which is how I felt last week at the shoot staged by Sasquatch Books to photograph the cover for my new book on arranging flowers fresh from the garden.

For my previous books, the publisher chose an image from the book to use on the cover. So I was intrigued when Sasquatch decided to shoot a deconstructed bouquet for the front of the book and a finished one for the back. I was told to show up at Georgetown Studios with vases and plenty of fodder for the shoot.

You can imagine my indecision over vases - big, small, simple, colorful, sophisticated, minimal? - I arrived with a boxful - and armloads of branches, feathery pulsatilla, pussy willows, fritillaria, narcissus, quince, just-leafing-out branches of coral bark maple, and freshly cut boughs of yellow magnolia. Photographer Kathryn Barnard had the perfect surface - a scarred up old farmhouse table that showed off the fresh spring foliage without looking too rustic. She played around with the materials, building shots with layers of shape and texture. It was absolutely fascinating to see how different it all looked on camera than it did there in the studio....

Georgetown Studios are in an old brick building with huge windows that let in enough natural light that we could do without artifical ones - perfect for photographing flowers. After Kathryn and the Sasquatch Books staff were satisfied that we'd nailed the cover shot, it was my turn to pull together a bouquet using the chosen vase, flowers and branches ...no pressure there. Everyone tinkered with the bouquet- by the end of the session I was using the scissors on my Swiss army knife to touch up here and there as the foliage and flowers started to droop from hours of handling.

You'll have to wait until the end of the year when the book comes out to see what we accomplished on this pouring down rain April day....but in the meantime, here are a couple of iPhone shots  that capture the feel of the place....do you think if I work on my karma I can come back as a professional photographer in my next life??

Photographer Kathryn Barnard and Sasquatch Books people checking out one of the shots...

A few of the flowers, branches and vases that didn't make the cut...

Coming Back to the Garden

There are  drawbacks to living elsewhere than in your own garden half the time. I commute between Seattle and my Langley garden, and many days I so want to duck outdoors and pick a bouquet, check on what's budding, or pull a few weeds.

Arriving in Langley on a sunny Wednesday afternoon made up for many moments of garden deprivation.  When your garden is right outside your windows every day, it's easy for your senses to dull a bit...to lose track of spring's slow unfolding. But when you're away for more than a week, springtime hits you over the head with its magic.

When I last left Langley, it was like winter - cold and wet, the garden bleak and nearly dormant. What a difference a few warm days in April makes...it was a great joy to find drifts of bright daffodils, 'Princess Irene' tulips opening to the sun, and ruffled Crown Imperial fritillaria finally bursting into bloom when I arrived back in Langley this afternoon. The peas are growing, the lettuces plumping up nicely. Well, see for yourself - the daffodils are mostly the orange-cupped Narcissus 'Serola'; the tulips 'Princess Irene' surrounding a little trellis of 'Sugar Snap' peas in the feed trough. The bottom photo is of the peacock-like Crown Imperial frittilaria just opening its orange bells.