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Payne’s North Hours
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Rand Lee
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Rand Lee
Payne's Nurseries
and Greenhouses
The Bulbs of Spring
Now’s the time to plant your bulbs, if you haven’t done so already. It helps if you have a turkey. When I was a little boy growing up in Connecticut, we had an albino turkey named Horatio who used to follow my mother around the garden when she was planting bulbs. Every time she made a hole with her bulb planter, and plopped a bulb into it, Horatio would stick his head in as far as it would go, just to make sure she’d done it right.
“Doing a bulb right” means (1) choosing a plump, unslimy, unsmelly bulb from your local garden center (a-hem); (2) if your soil is lousy, digging lots of home-made compost or Payne’s Soil Conditioner into the area you’ve reserved for your bulb, making sure the site is well-drained (no standing water in the winter) and gets full sun at least half the day; (3) making your bulb’s hole deep enough to insulate it sufficiently from the freezes and thaws of a Santa Fe winter (see Bulbous Notes below); (4) putting a tablespoon of Peace of Mind Bone Meal, Yum-Yum Mix, or other low-nitrogen fertilizer into the hole; (5) dusting that fertilizer with a little dirt, so it doesn’t come in direct contact with the butt of the bulb; (6) plopping the bulb in the hole stem-size up and roots-side down; (7) filling the hole with dirt; (8) watering in the bulb; and (9) leaving the bulb alone for the rest of the winter. It is best to do all this before the first hard freeze; i.e., today.
“Doing a bulb wrong” means (1) rushing to some big box store the week after Christmas and grabbing the nearest package of withered, squishy bulb-objects; (2) at the first available thaw, sometime in January, perhaps, hacking a shallow hole in the chunky hardpan your builder euphemistically referred to as “topsoil” on his or her final bill; (3) shoving the bottom-of-the-vegetable-bin-looking bulb object into said hole; (4) covering it with chunks of clay; (5) stomping on it repeatedly so as to make sure it is thoroughly buried; and (6) watering it daily for the remainder of the winter. All this will ensure that your bulb will die a miserable death long before springtime. “Doing a bulb really, really, really wrong” means waiting until March to do these things.
Persons who Do Bulbs Wrong end up in spring not with bulbs, but with blubs. And despite our name, we at Payne’s do not like to see our customers suffer. So come on over to Payne’s North or South (or both — we have slightly different bulb selections at each store) today. Our intelligent, highly trained staff will be only too happy to help you load up on bulbs and a bulb planter (the long-handled, step-on types are best if, like me, you have a back allergic to being bent like a paper clip). Then you can rush home and tackle the really tough part of bulb-planting: bribing your spouse to do all the work while you shout encouragement from the kitchen window.
A little mold on your bulbs won’t hurt them, by the way, as long as they aren’t slimy-squishy-stinky as well. And if you get your bulbs home and discover your spouse can’t be bribed to plant them right away, store them in a brown paper bag (not plastic) in your vegetable crisper or other dark, 45ºF spot until your significant other finds sleeping on the couch more irritating than the prospect of hard labor.
Forcing Bulbs Indoors
There are two ways to force bulbs indoors: (1) in dirt or (2) in water. In-dirt forcing works for all bulbs, but it takes a long time. In-water forcing works mainly for hyacinths and crocuses and takes a shorter time. You should also be aware that, with the exception of tender narcissi and paperwhites, all bulbs need to be chilled before they will make flowers. That means you will need some place chilly to put them for 2-4 months while you wait for them to think spring has arrived. A very large vegetable crisper, or an unheated garage where the temps never fall below 35ºF, are ideal. (If you put ‘em in the fridge, keep fruit — including tomatoes and peppers — out of there; it releases ethylene gas, which will be absorbed by the bulbs and cause deformities in their eventual flowers.) You will also need a cool, light place (55ºF), such as a north window, to put your planted bulbs in once they’ve sprouted and are ready to make flowers.
Stuff You Will Need For Soil Forcing:
(1) Bulbs (we sell ‘em).
(2) Clean pots. If you use old pots, first knock out every trace of old soil in the pots (it can harbor pathogenic bacteria that can infect your bulbs). Fill a bucket with a solution of 1 tablespoon bleach per 1 gallon of water. Soak pots in this solution for 20 minutes. Fill sink with hot soapy water, and scrub soaked pots until completely clean. Rinse and air-dry.
(3) Soil. Any standard peat- or coir-based potting soil, such as Fertilome. Don’t use soil dug up from your garden.
How To Force Bulbs In Soil: This works for lots of different bulbs (see encyclopedia section below). It is only fair to warn you that you should have started this a month ago, and it may only get you a month jump on your outdoor-planted bulbs, but hey! To soil-force bulbs, plant them close (but not touching) in clean pots filled with any ordinary potting mix; leave noses _” above soil line. Water well, set in a cold (35ºF-48ºF) dark place for 12-16 wks to chill. (Styrofoam ice chests and cardboard boxes filled with packing peanuts are good dark places in which to chill garaged bulbs.) If bulbs heave during rooting, weigh down with a gravel layer, but don’t cover their noses. Keep soil just moist; don’t let it dry out but don’t drown it, either. When bulb shoots reach 1-2” tall, move to cool (55ºF) light place and prepare to be amazed.
Stuff You Will Need For Water Forcing:
(1) Bulbs (we sell ‘em).
(2) Clean (see Soil Forcing #2 above) forcing bowls, bulb glasses or ordinary bud vases.
(3) Clean pebbles to fill the forcing bowls with.
(4) Water.
How To Force Bulbs In Water: Crocuses, hyacinths, tender narcissi, and paperwhites are the best bulbs for forcing in water. Crocuses and hyacinths will need a little chilling before they’re forced. Put them in a brown paper bag in your vegetable crisper for a couple of months first; the temp should stay around 45F. Then fill your forcing bowls with 2” of pebbles (any glass or ceramic dish without drainage holes will do) and arrange your bulbs on top of them, close but not touching. Pour enough pebbles around them to hold them secure. If you are using bulb glasses – those weird fat-bottomed, narrow-necked little vases that flare into cups at the top – sit the bulb’s little butt securely in the cup. A bud vase works just as well; just make sure that the neck of the vase is wide enough to admit the bulb but not so wide the bulb falls through the neck to the bottom of the vase. We’re not growing waterlilies, here.
Fill your container with water until the water-level almost touches the bottom of the bulb), but not quite. Then put the container into a paper bag and put the whole thing in a cool (50-55F) dark place for rooting. Check the water levels in the container and top up as needed to keep the levels steady. If after 2 weeks, no roots poke their little heads out of your bulbs’ butts, raise the water levels in the container by _” or so. If said bulbs start to mold, lower the water by the same amount. When your crocuses get 1” tall, and your hyacinths 2”, take them and their containers out of the paper bags and put them in your cool, light north window. Then collapse from exhaustion. They’ll be blooming within a month.
Treat narcissi and paperwhites as above, except skip the vegetable crisper incarceration period (they don’t require chilling). Remove from their cool, dark paper bag when their shoots get 2” tall, place them in that bright, cool window (no direct sunlight, please), and when they flop over from the weight of their flowers, prop them up with the cunning Popsicle™ stick latticeworks you have been having your children make for you all year at crafts time.
Bulbous Notes For the True Horti-holic
Alliums, Ornamental (Allium spp.): The ornamental onions include some of the most stately and striking members of the hardy perennial border, so it is a mystery to me why more American gardeners aren’t familiar with them. Three cultivars we’re selling for fall planting right now are Allium ‘Globemaster’, Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ and Allium ‘Bulgaricum’ (syn. Nectaroscordum siculum). All three make clumps of straplike leaves from which rise in early summer 3-foot spikes topped with one-sphere-per-stem of numerous little flowers. In ‘Globemaster’, the flowers are a steely bluish-violet and the
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Daffodils and Tulips at Payne's Nurseries
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flower-heads are uniformly spherical. In ‘Purple Sensation’, the flowers are a rich, saturated, beetroot purple, and, like ‘Globemaster’, the clusters are distinctly globular. In
‘Bulgaricum’, the spheres are more relaxed, and the flowers are burgundy with distinct white margins.
Finding the Butt: Easy. It’s the end opposite the tip. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 4 inches (that’s 4 inches from the butt of the bulb, not the tip). Bloom Time: Spring to early summer. Forcing: Yes, in soil. Pet-Safe?: Apparently.
Anemones (Anemone spp.): The word “anemone” (which is pronounced a-NEM-oh-nee) comes from the Greek word for wind, hence the old common name for this genus, “windflower.” There are two main types sold in garden centers this time of year; Anemone blanda, which makes dwarf, 6” plants that bear narrow-petaled white, rose, lavender, or bluish flowers with white and green centers; and Anemone coronaria, which gets 10” tall and bears fat-petaled flowers in saturated scarlet, intense blue, rose, or white with dark centers and sometimes a contrasting eyezone of white.
Finding the Butt: Easy. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 2 inches. Bloom Time: Spring to early summer. Forcing: Yes, in soil. Pet-Safe?: Apparently.
Chionodoxa (Chionodoxa forbesii): Nobody can pronounce the botanic name of these adorable 6” strap-leaved treasures of the early spring garden, which bear little five-petaled blue flowers fading to white near their centers. So I just call them “China ducks.” Enchanting in drifts. Finding the Butt: Easy. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 2 inches. Bloom Time: Early spring. Forcing: In soil. Pet-Safe?: Apparently.
Crocuses (Crocus spp.): Every year during my childhood I knew that spring had finally arrived when I heard Mother shouting from the back yard, “The crocuses are croaking!” But the first crocus grown in gardens wasn’t grown for ornament, but for medicinal and culinary use. It was Crocus sativus, the autumn-flowering saffron crocus, whose little orange pistils (the girl parts — think of Annie Oakley and her pistols) when dried constitute the most expensive spice in the world, azafran or saffron. Saffron crocuses have been in gardens for so long no wild forms are known to exist, and at least one town in England — Saffron Walden — derived its name from the extensive saffron crops for which the area was famous.
Spring-flowering crocuses have been grown in Western gardens since Elizabeth I was queen, though most of our modern types date from the twentieth century.
Finding the Butt: Easy. Crocus bulbs are shaped like suppositories; the butt end, where the roots will emerge, is flat. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 3 inches (that’s 3 inches from the butt of the bulb, not the tip). Bloom Time: Early spring. Forcing: Yes, in water or soil. Pet-Safe?: I’ll say. Mice love ‘em, except for the autumn-flowering crocus relative, Colchicum, which is as poisonous as all get-out (to everything that eats it, not just mice) and which we don’t sell this time of year anyhow.
Daffodils: see Narcissi
Fritillaries (Fritillaria spp.): The snake’s head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) has been also called the “checkered daffodil” or “guinea-hen flower,” for the little whitish and brownish alternating squares that decorate the dangling bell-flowers in spring. It stands about 10” tall at maturity and can be grown in grass and under trees and shrubs. There are other species, too, with yellowish, dusky purple, or purple, green-edged flowers. First brought into British gardens in the late sixteenth century, when fashionable ladies would pick bunches of the flowers and use them to decorate their cleavages at parties. Well, they did.
Finding the Butt: Pointy end up. Hardy In Santa Fe?: The ones we sell are. Planting Depth: 5 inches. Bloom Time: Mid-late spring. Forcing: In soil. Pet-Safe?: Yes. Mice love ‘em, though, so store them in a mouseproof container if you’re not going to plant them right away.
The crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) is native from Turkey to the Himalayas. It was grown in Turkish gardens for centuries before being introduced to Europe around 1570. The bulbs are big — amaryllis size — and the stately plants that spring from them are tall, from 3-5 feet, making strappy green clumps from which rise stout stems topped with clusters of large, brick-red or golden-yellow bells. Not for the cutting garden — the whole plants smell like wet fox — crown imperials are very striking when grown in groups in the border, and are reputed, due to their smell, to possess gopher-repellent properties.
Finding the Butt: Flatter end down. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 5 inches. Bloom Time: Late spring to early summer. Forcing: Yes; in soil. Pet-Safe?: Yes. Mice love ‘em, though (see entry above).
Hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis): are relatives of the bluebell and come originally from western Syria and Turkey, where in the wild they resemble only faintly the big, fat-spiked color bombs of the modern bulb counter. The unimproved species sorts are rather delicate-looking creatures, bearing single, fragrant, rather widely spaced bells of grey, violet-blue or white; they were domesticated in what is now Istanbul centuries before they were brought into northern European gardens (probably in the mid-1500s). By the seventeenth century, blue, white, and pink single and double varieties were known; by the mid-eighteenth century, hyacinths had become so popular that some rare varieties could fetch the equivalent in today’s money of over $1000 a bulb.
Nowadays hyacinths are much cheaper, and come in a far wider color range than formerly, including peachy-orange, grape-purple, raspberry, indigo blue, sky blue, and very pale yellow (the most recent color to be added to the hyacinth palette, not before the late nineteenth century at the earliest). When selecting them from the bins, take care not to touch the bulbs with bare hands, as many people have allergic reactions to oils in the plant-cells. Coming from the Near East as their progenitors did, it’s not surprising that hyacinths are drought- and heat-tolerant once established, but don’t expect your hyacinths to stay fat year after year. Unless very well fed each year (5-10-5 scratched around them after they finish blooming each spring), they quickly revert to resembling their more delicate-seeming wild ancestors. (Some sophisticated gardeners prefer this look.)
Finding the Butt: Easy. Plant pointy side up. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 4”. Bloom Time: April or May. Forcing: Pet-Safe?: No. Hyacinths are poisonous if eaten.
Irises (Iris spp.): Named for the ancient Greek goddess of the rainbow, because of the wide color range possessed by the genus. We have several iris cultivars available for fall planting. All get 22 inches tall and blossom in late spring to early summer. ‘Eye of the Tiger’ is a mystical stunner with mid-lavender purple standards, rounded falls of purple suffused with warm rust, and bright golden orange beards. ‘Imperator’ blooms in a uniform dark true blue with bright yellow beards. ‘Oriental Beauty’ blooms warm gold with yellow highlights and grayish-tannish-lavender standards.
Finding the Butt: Easy. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 4”. Bloom Time: April or May. Forcing: Soil. Pet-Safe?: Uncertain.
Narcissi (Narcissus spp.): Originally native to the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean, there are more kinds of narcissi than you can shake a stick at, but all of them are built along similar lines: green slim leaves, straight green uprightish stems, and flowers consisting (in the wild species at least) of five petals arranged around a central cup or trumpet. In some forms, the trumpets are split; in others, they are replaced by shreddy or ruffly florets; in still others, the trumpets have disappeared, and the ray-florets have taken over, so that the flowers resemble little dahlias. They all belong to the genus Narcissus, which the Swedish botanist Karl von Linné, aka Linnaeus, named for the Greek who fell in love with his own reflection and was changed into a flower by the Gods (this makes sense if you are Greek).
The flower into which he was changed was probably Narcissus tazetta, the bunch-flowered narcissus, which bears small, deliciously fragrant blossoms in little clusters at the ends of its stems. Known in ancient Greece and Egypt, it found its way as far East as China and Japan very early on, and was being grown in British gardens by 1597. The triandrous narcissi, which bear double flowers, are descended from a wildflower called angel’s tears, Narcissus triandrus, which is native to Spain and Portugal.
Narcissi with prominent trumpets have long been called daffodils (or daffadowndillies) in English. The Brits often call them daffs; my mother called them daffies, and she favored the big trumpeted pure gold types. I remember picking them as a child, taking care to snap their stems as far down near the ground as possible, and enjoying the sweet, somewhat lettucey scent of their blossoms. Yellow daffodils are still the most popular sort of narcissus, selling in bunches by the hundreds of thousands in florists’ shops each spring; but nowadays you can have daffies in a range of colors, from pale green to cream to pale yellow to dark gold, with trumpets in self- or contrasting colors, including pinks (which tend to fade in our hot sun and thus prefer light shade) and bicolors. The sweetly fragrant little yellow jonquil, Narcissus jonquilla, hails from Spain and Portugal, and was grown in both its single and double forms by the late sixteenth century. The miniature hoop petticoat daffodil, Narcissus bulbocodium, with its coffee-filter-cone-shaped yellow cup and its thin gold petals, is native to southern France, Spain, and Portugal; it has been grown in gardens since the early seventeenth century.
Finding the Butt: Easy. It’s the fatter end. Hardy In Santa Fe?: All but the paperwhites. Planting Depth: 5 inches. Bloom Time: E. Forcing: Pet-Safe?: No. All daffodils and narcissi are poisonous if eaten.
Puschkinia (Puschkinia scilloides ‘Libanotica’): If you like sky blue, puschkinia is for you. These little-known and underappreciated bulbs with their straplike leaves put up 6 inch stalks from which sprout thick clots of little six-petaled sky blue flowers edged and backed in palest bluish-white.
Finding the Butt: Easy. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 3 inches. Bloom Time: Spring. Forcing: In soil. Pet-Safe?: Probably not.
Tulips (Tulipa spp.): Our garden tulips, like so many of the bulbs described above, owe their origins to the enterprising Muslim gardeners of sixteenth and seventeenth century Turkey and Persia, who had been growing various sorts since the twelfth century. As late as the 1700s, the Turks were holding tulip festivals, and had official state tulip growers; one of their favorite tulips is still sold today: Tulipa ‘Acuminata’, an ancient garden hybrid, whose rose and cream flowers have long, slender, curved, pointed petals.
Nobody knows for sure how tulips were introduced to Western Europe and Britain. One story goes that the first tulip to flower on European soil was raised in Vienna, Austria in 1559 from seed sent to the court of Ferdinand I, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither holy nor Roman). Another story says that a shipment of tulip bulbs showed up on a dock in Antwerp, Holland in 1562. Nobody knew what they were, but, assuming they were exotic vegetables of some kind, somebody tasted one, found it yucky, and threw the whole shipment on a trash-heap. There a few of the bulbs flowered. They attracted enough attention that by 1567, they received mention in a Dutch medical herbal. By the late sixteenth century, seven different kinds were being grown in Britain, including a red and a yellow, and one which was showing the first signs of an aphid-borne viral infection that created “breaking” in the colors of the flowers, causing streaks or stipples of a contrasting shade. Despite the fact that they quickly lost vigor from generation to generation due to the (then unknown) disease vectors creating their unique coloration, “broken” tulips became so insanely popular that, at the height of this “tulipomania” — between 1634 and 1637 — the most highly prized bicolor and tricolor sorts were selling per bulb for the equivalent of thousands of dollars in modern currency. Nowadays, tulip breeders exercise such stringent controls over plants in their fields that true “broken” tulips are impossible to purchase; the striped, “flamed,” or bicolored “Rembrandt” tulips — though attractive enough — are only pale approximations.
All the tulips commonly sold in garden centers are hardy, but not all are reliably perennial. The species tulips and their hybrids are the toughest, making slowly increasing colonies that can last for many years even in Santa Fe’s tough climate (consider their origins, after all: the hot, dry mountains of Turkey and modern Iran). I’ve found the “single earlies” long-lasting in my garden, too, and some of them are nicely fragrant, with a sweet, lettucey (see Daffodils), waxy scent vaguely reminiscent of cedar pencils. I’ve found the wonderful swirly-colored, cut-petaled parrot tulips, and the double peony-flowered types (such as the exquisite, fragrant pink ‘Angelique’), iffy, giving glorious first year bloom and spotty bloom in years following. And the Darwin hybrids, with their huge cup-shaped blooms and stout tall stems — the most popular class of garden tulips worldwide — I’ve found it best to treat frankly as hardy annuals. But perhaps I would have better luck for these latter classes of tulips if I prepared my bulb beds properly and fertilized them yearly (see Doing A Bulb Right and Doing A Bulb Wrong, above).
Finding the Butt: Easy. It’s the flatter end. Hardy In Santa Fe?: Yes. Planting Depth: 4 inches. Bloom Time: March-May, depending on the variety. Forcing: Soil. Pet-Safe?: Yes. Mice are particularly fond of the bulbs.
For further study: Much of the information for this article was taken from Plants From The Past by David Stuart and James Sutherland (London: Viking Press, 1987) and Forcing, Etc. by Katherine Whitside (New York: Workman Publishing, 1999).
