Garden Tips On Buying The Best, Cold Hardy
Flower Bulbs For Outdoor Planting
Pat Malcolm
Buying flower bulbs to plant and grow is an exciting experience
that begins in the fall and continues through the spring. Dutch
flowering bulbs are usually delivered to American ports by the
month of September for fall planting. Major Dutch bulbs
offerings include Dutch Amaryllis and African Amaryllis;
daffodil bulbs and the famous, Tulip bulbs.
Amaryllis flower bulbs grow the showiest blooms and are
pre-cooled to force fast flowering in 3 weeks after
containerizing. Dutch bulb importers of Amaryllis offer a
larger variety of selections and more bulbs to tempt the
buyers. The African growers of Amaryllis bulbs appear to be
enslaved to the Dutch Amaryllis importers distribution network,
however, the African flowers that emerge on the Amaryllis stems
are superior in many respects to the Dutch Amaryllis. The
African Amaryllis blooms appear to offer clearer colors, more
compact flower stalks, leaves that grow as the flowers appear,
and more numerous flower stalks and grow from smaller bulbs.
The large array of bloom colors from amaryllis includes red,
pink, lavender, orange, yellow, white, green, maroon, red
stripe, white stripe, pink stripe, and bi-color. Double numbers
of petals on Amaryllis flowers are fast growing to be very
popular choices to buy, since the petal count is increased to
12, instead of 6 that grow on most Amaryllis bulb flower stems,
looking very similar to a huge carnation flower.
Daffodil flower bulbs are important Dutch bulbs for fall
planting, because of their reasonable market cost, the ease of
planting, and the growing of flower stalks in the Spring in
various colors of yellow, white, orange, and the rare pink
daffodil. Daffodil bulbs are easy to naturalize to bloom again
every year.
Tulip bulbs are a native flowering plant of Turkey, but long
ago tulips were hybridized on a large commercial scale by Dutch
bulb growers. The cost of Dutch tulips has not always been
inexpensive to buy, but tulip buyers today still love the
spring flower colors of red, pink, orange, yellow, blue,
purple, white, and bi-color. Cities and government
organizations anxiously buy tulip bulbs in huge numbers during
winter seasons to grow in beautiful landscape displays for the
Spring.
Agapanthus bulbs are often called 'Lily of the Nile', and
Agapanthus grows profusely along the Nile River in Egypt, and
the blooms captivated the ancient African plant explorers who
dug the bulbs for shipping back to European gardens. Blue and
white colors of Agapanthus rhizomes have been hybridized in
recent years to intensify colors, and some Agapanthus plants
are cold hardy down to zero degrees F., whereas, the older
clones of native Agapanthus were considered to be tropical in
nature and not very cold hardy, so they were not introduced for
planting in more Northern locations until recently, when
gardeners from more Northern States experimented with new
Agapanthus hybrids and determined their cold hardy tolerance.
The Canna lily rhizome has been long considered to be tropical
in nature, with very little cold hardy resistance. The early
American botanist and explorer, William Bartram, wrote in his
book, Travels, in 1773, the discovery of Canna indica in
Alabama near Mobile, “Canna indica is surprising in luxuriance,
presenting a glorious show, the stem rises six, seven, and nine
feet high, terminating upwards with spikes of scarlet flowers.”
Bartram also discovered the native Canna flaccida, growing near
Fort Frederica, Georgia, located on the Island of St Simon's.
Canna lily colors are broad, red, white, pink, lavender,
orange, yellow, speckled, bi-color and others. Some Canna
flower growers plant cannas with variegated leaf forms that are
striped with red, green, yellow, white, and pink. Dutch
distributors of canna rhizomes still flood retail box store,
garden centers with “Victorian-age” canna bulbs of poor
quality; varieties that had declined, “run out”, 50 years ago,
and they should have been discontinued and not presented to
buyers at a garden center nursery.
Ginger lily rhizomes grow flowers with fragile, delicate
blossoms – many looking like miniature orchid flowers. The
foliage of Ginger lilies is interestingly variable, growing in
colors of green, yellow, maroon, and stripes of yellow or
white. Interest in planting ginger lilies has surged in 20
years, because of the realization that many ginger lilies are
cold hardy, surviving temperatures as cold as zero degrees F.
The foliage and the flowers are pleasantly aromatic.
Daylilies are actually not bulbs but rhizomes, but are sold
extensively as daylily bulbs. Thousands of named varieties of
Daylily bulbs have been easily hybridized by legions of
backyard gardeners and the selection improvement and flower
quality is absolutely astonishing. The improvement has resulted
in growing double flower daylily, miniature daylily, cold hardy
daylilies, and compact clumping or large clumping daylily
plants. It is staggering to realize all these many colors –
red, white, yellow, orange, purple, pink, and bi-color
originated from an original native plant –a seedy, yellow
daylily growing wild on the forest edge.
Elephant Ear bulbs are very variable, some growing into bulbs
and others into rhizomes. Gardeners have always been fascinated
that the Elephant Ear plants grow large in the landscape into
huge clumps with that unforgetable tropical appearance. Great
interest in Elephant Ear bulbs has resulted in recent years by
a nationally tested demonstration that Elephant Ear bulbs are
cold hardy enough to survive temperatures of zero degrees.
Curious leaf patterns appear on hybrid Elephant Ear plants, and
the extensive variegated patterns that appear on the leaves add
a stunning, mysterious attraction from their random markings
and splashes of yellow, white, and maroon on the surfaces of
various leaf sizes, some large enough to hide the body of a
mature man or small enough leaf to place in the palm of the
hand. Elephant Ear bulbs can grow as large as the human head or
the size of a quarter. Offset bulbs are abundant from Elephant
Ear bulbs in the fall as the plants grow dormant to regrow when
replanted in the spring. In the wholesale trade of Elephant Ear
bulbs, it is a common practice to divide them into two major
commercial categories, the Alocasia, and the Colocasia, based
on many taxonomical growth characteristics.
Crinum Lily bulbs offer to an adventurous hobbiest or gardener
an antique garden bulb selection that has been reintroduced as
improved crinum clones by the brilliant inductiveness of
chemist, Lester Hannibal of Fair Oaks, California. Lester
Hannibal back crossed and intercrossed many native crinum lily
species to offer the gardener an excellent, cold hardy crinum,
an “interspecific hybrid”, that can be grown as far North as
Philadelphia, PA, zone 6, and to survive intense freezes of
below zero temperatures. Many of Lester Hannibal's crinum
flower hybrids were a re-creation of obsolete but popular
commercial crosses that were made by Cecil Houdyshel in the
1930's, but largely improved upon from the original “Powellii”
forms with clear, white and pink colors, an increase in the
number of flowers in the umbel, extended flowering periods, an
eliminatio of drooping flowers, an intensification of fragrance
and early flowering after sprouting from the germination of the
seed. The “milk and wine” crinum lilies were named, because the
flowers were white (milk) and wine striped colors. Crinum colors
are burgundy, red, pink, white, greenish-yellow, and orange.
Crinum bulbs increase by growing into clumps of multiple
offsets from the central mother bulb, or by planting the seed
of some cultivars or species.
-Rare, Hard-To-Find Flower Bulbs of Merit-
Many rare minor flower bulbs are unavailable to buy anywhere,
except by possibly exchanging plants with collectors and
hobbiest. The Amazon lily, Encharist grandiflora, blooms with
six white, daffodil like petals, and a green or glowing yellow
cup radiating from the center. This delicate flower can be
remembered from days past for its wonderful charming fragrance.
The Bird of Paradise is known for the two tropical forms, the
Strelizia reginae, the most common: brilliantly colored flowers
with orange, red, and blue glaring blossoms; and the Strelizia
nicholae that grows large, showy, white flowers. The Blood
Lily, Scadoxus mutliflorus, forms baby-head sized globular
flowers with red filamented petals and radiate fragile threads
of red that are affixed to the to the center of the bloom,
great for container culture. The Red Butterfly lily, Odontonema
strictum, won the perennial plant award of the year in Florida
in the year 2000, and butterflies and hummingbirds flock to
visit the fiery red spikes, beginning in mid-August and
continuing until the first hard freeze. The Calla lily, Calla
palustrus, has been hybridized with many other Calla lily
species to grow into many splendid colors, but the new hybrids
are not as popular as the white, fragrant, winter-blooming,
Calla aethiopica; and the yellow calla, Calla aethiopica.
Clivia lilies, Clivia minata, are choice heavy shade-requiring
plants that produce gigantic clusters of orange flowers, cup
shaped, with a yellow throat, and often will re-bloom two or
three times from large bulbs. The Gloriosa lilies, Gloriosa
rothschildiana, a climbing vine that clothes itself with
recurved, star-like flowers that are favored and admired by
florists and flower arrangers, because the blooms last so well.
The Inca Lily, Alstomeria aurantiaca, has become naturalized in
America, as an escaped bulb from the tropical jungles of Peru.
The Alstromeria flowers last well as a cut-flower, and waxy,
greenish-red funnels begin blooming vigorously in the spring.
Lycoris are a charming group of flower bulbs that called
“Spider Lily”, and they bloom in floral colors of pink, yellow,
white, and red, Lycoris radiata, which is the most widely grown.
The Pineapple Lily, Eucomis bicolor, grows into flowers that are
shaped like miniature pineapple fruits in colors of white and
rusty-red. Scilla flower bulbs are grown in large numbers as
bedding plants, many Dutch varieties are small and make good
cut flowers, but the best cold hardy Scilla is the Scilla
peruviana that forms and grows into glowing, purplish-blue
flowers that either grow as well as bedding plants, or
containerized plants. Voodoo lilies, Amorphophallus bulbifer,
are strange and bazaar leafy bulbous plants, both in leaf and
flower, with a suggestive look of snakes, cobras, and other
vermin that may be lurking beneath the leopard-spotted menacing
leaves. Zephyranthes are called “rain lilies”, and softly bloom
in colors of pink, Zephyranthes grandiflora; yellow,
Zephyranthes citrina; white, Zephyranthes atamasco; and a
mind-numbing number of Zephyranthes bulb mongrels that are
distributed by a retired breeder in San Antonia, Texas, who
apparently has nothing better to do, than paralyze all the
worlds earnest taxonomists into the task of assembling the
records of his Mexican-American bulb-children lineage into a
staggering Encyclopedia publication.
About The Author: Patrick A. Malcolm, owner of TyTy Nursery,
has an M.S. degree in Biochemistry and has cultivated flowering
bulbs for over three decades.
http://www.tytyga.com
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