shopping for flower bulbs, with ken druse

HAVE YOU DONE your bulb shopping yet? It’s ordering time both for fall-blooming treats like Colchicum, which you can only buy now if you hurry, and for the ever-wider assortment of fall-planted, spring-into-summer blooming species.

Ken Druse and I both have been making lists of bulbs we once grew but no longer have and want to replenish, or of ones we have but want to add more to improve the visual impact, and also some new-to-us goodies. Plus, we’ll talk about when and how to divide those Narcissus that might be blooming less lustily than they used to after many years in the ground.

Ken is a longtime friend and the author of 20 garden books who gardens in New Jersey, and he’s my co-host several times a year in our Virtual Garden Club series of online classes. His extensive gardens are loaded with exceptional plants, including a diversity of bulbs (we both love martagon lilies, for instance, like the ones at Ken’s, above).

Read along as you listen to the Aug. 26, 2024 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

bulb shopping and dividing, with ken druse

Ken Druse: Hi, Margaret. Every time you say, “Oh, let’s talk about bulbs,” I end up doing a little research, and I buy everything I see.

Margaret Roach: Are you charging me then? Is that what you’re trying to tell me; you’re sending me a bill?

Ken: No, no. That’s a good idea. You said making a list, and every year I think about making a list and I really don’t ever do it. But this year, I took pictures specifically to remember I would like to buy that, or I wish I had that, or I need more of that. So I actually had a photographic list.

Margaret: Oh, that’s a great idea actually, because in certain areas, in the front of beds or borders, I might have a few remaining of some little treasure that I had a lot more of years ago, but the bed’s gotten a little wider and other things in it have gotten bigger, and the bulbs have maybe diminished. If I had taken a picture, I’d know exactly where [laughter] and what now, yeah.

Ken: Well, you completely set me up.

Margaret: Oh, sorry.

Ken: There’s a patch of Narcissus pseudonarcissus [above], which is a species that grows in Europe and it grows in England and in Wales. It’s the subject of, well, it’s in William Robinson’s book about wild gardening, and it’s in Wordsworth’s poem, “I wandered lonely as a cloud, beside the lake beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze,” about the golden daffodils. It’s a small daffodil and it’s very early, it starts to bloom in March.

This year, we had a cool spring, it went on for over a month. But I’ve noticed that this patch, which used to naturalize, grow as if it was natural and got larger and larger, hasn’t gotten any larger. It’s doing O.K., but I planted it under a sapling of a weeping Katsura, which is now a gigantic tree. Even though it blooms and gets ripe pretty much before the leaves come out, it needs to be divided to be more healthy and to spread a little more. But also I need to move some of it to a sunnier spot.

Margaret: Yeah, and even what you were saying about the sapling turned into a big tree, even root competition can just be this unseen something that’s outpacing the needs of the bulbs that are among the big roots now, in terms of for nutrients and moisture and whatever. Yeah.

Well, we’re going to talk about dividing for sure. I think first, let’s do a little virtual shopping or lusting after things. When you got to your place, when you guys started making the garden there: How many years do you have that house now?

Ken: About 30 years.

Margaret: Yeah. I’m even a little longer than that where I am. Were there bulbs when you got there? Were there any that you remember in the existing place?

Ken: It’s funny, because I know we’re going to talk about some fall blooming things soon, but there were hardly any bulbs. Then there was a surprise [laughter] about this time of year when the Lycoris … In this place, the people who lived here last and before them for years hadn’t done anything. This place was a mess, but Lycoris [below], sometimes called naked ladies, or now they’re calling it mystery bulb or something, but they popped up: Surprise! Pink flower lily-like flowers on long stems. And we had them for a few years and then they disappeared because before we raised the wall a little bit, as you know we had floods, and a lot of things didn’t make it through, the plants.

Margaret: So the wall along the river or stream next to you?

Ken: Right, a fast branch of the river, this garden’s on an island in a small river, and we used to have lots of floods twice a year at least. And a lot of plants don’t like that.

Margaret: Right. Well, especially bulbs that they want to have usually a dry rest period during their dormancy. They don’t want to rot during that time. It’s interesting that you say that the surprise lilies or whatever we’re calling the Lycoris, Lycoris squamigera is the species: That was what I inherited also. And there’s a clump in the backyard on the hillside, and there’s a clump in the front yard. And every year they still surprise me because I completely forget because they’re one of those things that has no foliage except at a certain moment in the lifecycle. You know what I mean? Much of the year there’s no foliage, so it’s not like you see the clump and then the flower arises from the clump, and then you always see the leaves after and you know what I mean? [Photo above by Namazu-tron on Wikimedia Commons.]

Ken: I do.

Margaret: So it is a surprise. And they’re just so tough apparently, except when they live next to a river that floods [laughter]. So I didn’t plant them. And so they’ve got to be at least 35-plus years old and who knows. So it’s wonderful, and pink is not something I would’ve chosen, but it makes me happy. I just laugh every time: Up they come and there they go, and I enjoy them. And it’s in August usually, so fun. I was just saying-

Ken: It’s like, sorry, you mentioned that you don’t see them, and you don’t think about it, which makes me think of the Colchicum, because I do see those in the spring, because they have such big thick leaves and they’re in the way.

Margaret: Right. So they do. And so Colchicum, although we call them autumn crocus, they’re not a crocus. They do look like a big crocus, but they’re not. Crocus are in the iris family, Colchicum are in the lily family. So they’re different even though they look the same, which tells you why we shouldn’t use common names, even though we can’t pronounce the Latin ones most of the time [laughter]. And they’re both corms, not bulbs, so they’re easily confused, except they have this very different habit. You get a lot of big low-to-the-ground foliage in spring, but no flower then that fades away, that withers and you cut it back or whatever. [Above, ‘Waterlily’ Colchicum.]

And then suddenly, any day now at my place, I think any day now, next week, month, whatever, I’m going to start seeing these purple or white crocus-like flowers, but the flowers have more petals or whatever the parts are, and there’s more to them. It’s not like an individual flower or two out of each corm. It’s more like groups. And they’re wonderful and they are, again, a surprise because there’s nothing there marking their place from late spring until bloom time.

Ken: Well, the big trick I think, or the thing to think about horticulturally, is what you plant them next to or with because you want maybe hostas or something that comes up late in the spring because you want to disguise that foliage. It’s not the nicest foliage.

Margaret: In the, yeah. And it is, but it’s definitely a lot of foliage.

Ken: Right.

Margaret: And that’s one that you can only plant it in the early fall. You can only plant it or get it, order them, around this time of year. And I saw a lot of places are already selling out. So it’s something if you want to get the Colchicum, the so-called autumn crocus, you really have to do it summer or right now at the latest in order to take advantage of their season. They’re not something that’s sold later on.

Ken: Right. And I did [laughter]. That’s the thing.

Margaret: Yeah. Oh, so now you’re charging me for that. O.K. Put it on my bill.

Ken: I have some double white ones coming, I think.

Margaret: Oh, nice, nice, nice. Yeah. So we’ve all had successes and failures and so forth, and even again, without flooding and stuff, do you have one thing that you’d just like to quickly name as your biggest bulb of success, one that you do really well with? Is there anything like that? Mine is Eranthis [above], the winter aconite.

Ken: Oh, I’ll say.

Margaret: Which was my least successful in the beginning. And I thought, “What have I done? Why isn’t it growing?” And this goes back decades. And it was like I had two and then I had three. And then for now I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds because they love to, once they’re happy, they self-sow themselves much better than when you plant the bulbs. The success rate from those self-sowns is just so much better than when you put the bulbs in the ground. So now I have these mature swaths of them. So yeah, so I’d say Eranthis is my most successful. I just wondered if you had one that you think, “Oh, we’ve done really well with those.”

Ken: Well, you’re going to have to help me with the pronunciation.

Margaret: Oh, good luck with that [laughter].

Ken: Nectaroscordum.

Margaret: Yeah, you got it. Nectaroscordum. Right, right.

Ken: And it used to be Allium bulgaricum.

Margaret: Right, exactly. And now it’s Nectaroscordum siculum [above]. Yes, yes.

Ken: Right. Well, they’re just happy all by themselves.

Margaret: They are. That’s a fun one.

Ken: Sometimes pop up in the place you didn’t know, because this is a shady place. They don’t usually have straight stems. They’re funny like snakes. First they crawl along the ground, then they come up.

Margaret: Oh yeah. They like more sun to be erect and hold up those trusses of flowers. Yeah.

Ken: But there’s another species that is growing here, and it used to be really expensive. I don’t know if it still is, but is Nectaroscordum tripedale [below from Ken’s].

Margaret: I wonder if it’s pronounced tripedale. I don’t know. I’m just making that up.

Ken: Yeah, see, I told you I didn’t know it.

Margaret: Yeah, no, it’s O.K. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a spoken language, botanical Latin, right?

Ken: Those people are dead, all those humans. Have you ever seen that Nectaroscordum?

Margaret: Yes.

Ken: It’s gorgeous. Oh my gosh.

Margaret: Right. Beautiful. O.K., so that’s another one. So speaking of successes, failures. I can’t grow crocus because of the animals. Just forget about it. And tulips similarly, I’ve given up on, because it was just always having to protect them and whatever. It was too much of a pain in the neck. But yeah, crocus I don’t do well with because they’re just like candy for all the animals.

Ken: And there’s several, there’s actually quite a few fall-blooming crocus.

Margaret: Oh, and do you have any of those? Are you growing any of those?

Ken: Well, I do now [laughter].

Margaret: Uh-oh, he’s shopping folks. Uh-oh.

Ken: I always wanted to grow Crocus speciosus [above, at Ken’s], which is bluish and blooms in the fall, and I never have, but I will be this year and I think I’m going to try Sternbergia. Sternbergia lutea. I think that’s called autumn daffodil. It’s a common name I think, but it has yellow flowers. Looks like a crocus. And that’s another fall-blooming. So you’ve got me into this whole fall blooming thing.

Margaret: Oh, interesting. O.K. Blame Margaret. Just go ahead, blame Margaret. Yeah, like I said, I can’t grow crocus and I even tried the tommasinianus, the Tommies, the crocus. They’re supposed to be the most animal-resistant and they were a disaster also, for me. But generally speaking, those will do better. I just have a lot of very determined animals. Even if they don’t eat them exactly, they knock their heads off [laughter] and dig them up and things like that. So I gave up.

But speaking of animals, there are things, and I have a list of… There are animal-resistant bulbs, and some are even almost really animal-proof, like the Narcissus for instance, and the Colchicum that we’re just talking about. Really, nobody’s going to mess with those. And I think the Eranthis, the winter aconite that I mentioned before. Hyacinths, Galanthus, the ornamental onions; you just mentioned some of those and their relatives.

Ken: The Allium. Well, I also bought, I did this not because of you actually, because of our discussion, but I love the allium and they’ve been O.K. for the last few years coming back. But sometimes even those don’t because they’re crowded out or something. And they have foliage, a little bit before the flower and the foliage then turns yellow. But I don’t even see it because I’ve planted them among other things. And maybe that’s why they diminish in number because they’re a little crowded. I love the way they pop up. I don’t get the giant tall ones. They’re just too outer … Well, I was going to say they’re outer spacey, but those low big ones are outer spacey. And I like them for that. They’re Star Trek and they dry so well.

Margaret: I used to have more of the, which one is it that has the really fireworks looking? I’m going to just blank on the name.

Ken: As am I.

Margaret: And I also love karataviense…  Oh, schubertii. Allium schubertii, that looks like fireworks. I used to love to dry the flowerheads also. They make great dried flowers. And they peter out eventually. And karataviense, which has beautiful glaucous low blue leaves and pale pink globes lowish to the ground. I love both of those, but I don’t find that they last forever. So I might be replacing some of those. The little yellow Allium moly [above], did you ever grow that?

Ken: Yeah, that didn’t come back well either, actually.

Margaret: Yeah, I had it for many years, but then it finally also was lost. So that’s one that I’m thinking, it’s just so cheerful to have something just like the little Narcissus, a little miniature Narcissus and so forth, that front of the border or a little burst of bright yellow when spring’s just coming on, it’s just such a cheerful color and goes with what’s going on in springtime. So that’s another one that I’m thinking of.

Ken: Those are all some things that we love, and maybe need to replace or have more of because they did well. And you and I are both crazy for something that has to be planted in the fall, which are martagon lilies.

Margaret: Right. Which animals will eat [laughter]. But the martagon lilies are beautiful, European and more natural looking. Pendant, drooping; the flowers hang down. [Below, martagon lily ‘Claude Shride.’]

Ken: Yeah. Little Turk’s cap flowers and long, tall stems.

Margaret: Yeah, really pretty.

Ken: Very tall, like 3 feet at least.

Margaret: Some other things that animals just don’t eat, if people are interested, the glory of the snow, the Chionodoxa; the Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides; Muscari is supposed to be pretty animal-resistant. Not fully, but Siberian squill, the Scilla siberica; Camassia; Fritillaria; the Eremurus, the foxtail lilies—have you ever grown any of those? Some can be 5 feet tall. Those are incredible. I would like to try those, the foxtail lilies.

Ken: I tried those and they didn’t work for me.

Margaret: I want to try again. I haven’t tried them in many years and I just want to try again. Because they’re just so dramatic, so fun. So we’ll see. I might just buy a few, like three or five or something [laughter]. And the trout lilies, Erythronium, they’re animal-resistant and native as well. There’s various native ones around the country.

Ken: You mentioned camassias. I think there’s four or five North American species.

Margaret: Yes. And a number of them are Western, west of the Cascade Mountains.

Ken: Yeah, Pacific Northwestern.

Margaret: So yeah, I think there’s one that’s from California, the Sierra Nevadas, etc. And there’s a number, a couple of species at least. But there is one, I think it’s scilloides, that’s South Carolina to parts of Texas. And it goes up into western Pennsylvania and even into I think Wisconsin and Kansas in the Midwest and I think into Ontario. So that’s an interesting one. It’s the only one that’s more Eastern, I think among the three or four or however many natives there are. So again, not native everywhere and not particularly where we are, but still fun to look at.

Ken: And they have blue flowers.

Margaret: Yes, I think so. I think so.

Ken: I think they all have from light blue to dark blue that there is a white one, ‘Sacajawea.’ It’s a selection of leichtlinii, I think. Camassia leichtlinii.

Margaret: Leichtlinii [left], yeah, that’s a western one. Yeah. We want to save some time for dividing narcissus at the end. But speaking of natives, I love to look on the website of the Pacific Bulb Society, pacificbulbsociety.org. That has great bulb references for any use, but it also talks about natives. So that’s one fun reference for people.

And in terms of native bulbs, the Erythronium, the trout lilies that we talked about, there’s a couple species of those, a white-flowered one. They’re really Eastern part of the country, Eastern half or two-thirds of the country. There is a Western species and one even specific to California. So worth looking into, an Erythronium is, if you’re into native plants and you want to add some minor bulbs to your garden.

And there’s again, the Northwest really seems to have some great ones, some gorgeous little bulbs. They’re all related to each other, I think, like Calochortus and Brodiaea and the Dichelostemma—there’s one that’s called the firecracker flower that’s red and yellow, with yellow lips [below; photo by Dinkum from WIkimedia Commons]. That’s just a wonderful… a cut-flower farmer friend of mine grows that as a little tiny, wonderful cut-flower addition to smaller bouquets. And it’s just fabulous. So again, not native where I am, but native to the United States. So some possibilities. But I want to ask you about the dividing.

Ken: I was just going to say the most important thing is to know where the bulbs are. Unfortunately, with that big patch that I’m going to be working on any minute now of the Narcissus pseudonarcissus species, wild species, I know where they are because they’re under the tree and there’s a big patch. But if you don’t mark those daffodils to dig up and divide now before they really start making lots of roots, then you’re in trouble.

Margaret: Well, right now, we couldn’t tell where they were because they have no foliage.

Ken: Right.

Margaret: So we have to go on memory or pictures, like you were smart to take pictures.

Ken: Or tags.

Margaret: Right. And tags and so forth.

Ken: Tags, if you’re lucky enough that nobody steals them.

Margaret: But would this be the time when you would divide them? When they’re-

Ken: Yeah.

Margaret: So at bulb-planting time, so to speak, you would also harvest some of your own and move them around?

Ken: Some of them might have some roots, just short roots, but that’s O.K. So I’d dig them up, and if you’ve ever even purchased a daffodil that they sometimes call them noses, that has more than one-

Margaret: Double-nosed?

Ken: Yeah. That are attached to each other, you can pry those apart, and when you dig up yours, and if they have a few bulbs stuck together, you can pry those apart. But I usually, I’ll dig them up and it looks like one daffodil and it turns out it’s six. So I just dig them up with a garden fork, pry them apart. You can let them dry if you need to, or just replant them right away. And sometimes, frankly, they may rest a year and not give you a big show. But after that, the second year, they really go gangbusters. And if your daffodils are slowing down, digging them up and dividing them is one way to get them going again. And you’ll have… If you have 10, you’ll have a hundred.

Margaret: Yeah. Because a lot of the ones that I planted when I first got here, they’re in much more shade than they were because the woody plants adjacent have grown a lot, like what you were talking about earlier. And they need to be rescued, or obviously they’re not doing anybody any harm, it’s just that they’re not performing, really. They send up greenery in the spring, and I let that fully develop and ripen. And usually around July 4th, I rake it off, clean up around them when they fully have withered, the foliage has withered. But I’m not getting the flowers like I did years ago, to the degree that I did years ago. So yeah, I definitely need to do that. I may just do an experimental clump or two and see how it goes.

Ken: It will make them happier.

Margaret: Yeah. And the thing is, you’re going to pierce some bulbs because you’re not going to know where exactly they are if you didn’t mark them when they had all their foliage. I mean if you didn’t mark the perimeter exactly, do you know what I mean? And that’s O.K.

Ken: It may not kill them actually.

Margaret: Right. And we just have to be O.K. about that, because it’s for the greater good, right? [Laughter.]

Ken: Maybe go slow. And you mentioned cleaning up in July. We’re saying divide them now, but you can divide them when they’re dormant, really starting in July, I would say. But this is the end of the time you can dig them up and divide them, as you said, the time you purchased dormant bulbs.

Margaret: Right. So in the last minute or so, tell me, is there anything else on your wishlist that I’m paying for now? [Laughter.] Is there anything else we didn’t mention or that you’re getting more of or you haven’t had before?

Ken: Well, the tripedale, I’m going to get that.

Margaret: You’re going to keep calling it tripedale?

Ken: It’s such a nice name.

Margaret: But I don’t know. You’re right. Who knows?

Ken: Of course you’re right. Why wouldn’t you call it tripedale? That sounds like a street in London or something. I can’t believe it. That’s crazy. [Laughter.]

Margaret: So you’re going to get more of that. You’re going to get that.

Ken: Oh, just one more maybe. Usually you want … That’s one thing to say, buy enough.

Margaret: Right. Don’t skimp.

Ken: But in the case of the tripedale, it’s so spectacular. You can have just a couple. And it’s tall and it’s a big show and it’s beautiful and it’s even beautiful cut. But you mentioned Brodiaea, which I think changed its name to Triteleia.

Margaret: Yeah. Triteleia, yeah.

Ken: Oh, see I’m mispronouncing things.

Margaret: No, I think it either way. It doesn’t matter. Again, it doesn’t matter.

Ken: Well, the Brodiaea, I had that for years, and it has blue flowers, blooms a little late in the spring, and it’s just easy and reliable until you put a paving stone on top of it, which is someone who shall remain nameless, because we’re doing-

Margaret: Paved it.

Ken: … a little construction, it got a paving stone. And it may come back next year, but I think I should get more of those, because they did really well. That’s one thing, if you got something that’s done really well-

Margaret: Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Ken: … maybe get some more repeat.

Margaret: Yeah. All right, well no paving stones on your bulbs, everybody, but go order some bulbs, everybody. So that’s our message today, our dual message [laughter]. Thanks Ken for making time. And I have a feeling I’m having a shopping binge a little later after we hang up.

Ken: Dangerous.

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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 15th year in March 2024. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Aug. 26, 2024 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).