"Early Bloomers"

(Written 4/26/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Uglier Marylanders Blog)

The old adage "April Showers Bring May Flowers" hints at one challenge for gardeners. There really isn't much flowering going on IN April--much less March--for many folks. Sure, some smaller trees (cherry, dogwood, magnolia, redbud, and plum) kick in about mid-April. As do several medium-to-large shrubs, mostly the azalea-rhododendron-pieris group along with kerria and quince. But other than the forsythia, there's precious little in March or very early April. And there's almost nothing close to the ground other than creeping phlox.

To the rescue come bulbs! They've become less popular over the past 10 years or so because of the general impatience of people. ("I plant them NOW, but I don't see anything for five months???") I've always thought that a mistaken notion because there's a huge variety of sizes, shapes and colors for bulbs blooming from mid-March (crocus, hyacinth, dwarf iris), early April (daffodil, glory of the snow, grape hyacinth, puschkinia, squill, windflower), and mid-April (tulip).

And bulbs are far easier to plant and maintain than perennials. You just dig a moderate-size hole, plop in the bulbs, dump in a bunch of amended soil and fertilizer, add water, then forget about them for five months. Although the 1,700 bulbs I planted for this year sounds like a LOT, keep in mind that I plant them in clusters of 10-50, and even did one 40' trench with 200 of them.

There are many designs to use for bulbs. Although I tend towards the small clusters strewn all about, your imagination is your only real limit. At my old house, I did a large valentine with several different colors of crocus. A few examples follow:

A fine early-April bulb is the Grape Hyacinth, which also naturalizes (multiplies) very well (here in a cluster of about 45):













Tulips are a classic cluster type and come in many colors, shapes, and sizes. Below is a group of 15 small 'Apple Blossom Mix' near my patio.



I like to use larger tulips to surround plain evergreen shrubs. Here are 50 'Spring Essentials Mix' tulips surrounding a juniper.

My one major bulb project was the group of 200 I mentioned, which is along my parking lot. It's 125 grape hyacinth in front of 75 daffodils ('Dutch Master'). They both multiple readily, so in a few years they will have doubled or more and will look absolutely awesome. In the pic below, the daffodils had already started to fade a bit.













Another way to show color early in the year is plants noted for their foliage, and which don't die over the winter. Below are a couple of lovely coral bells ('Key Lime Pie' and 'Caramel') beside my shed. I have about 20 coral bells in a wide variety of colors and patterns.














As I mentioned, there are a few good shrubs that flower this early. One of my favs--just because the flower is so strange looking--is a fothergilla ('Blue Shadow'), below. They also smell like honey. Incidentally, its foliage starts out as blue-green and in the falls turns gorgeous shades of red, orange, and yellow.













Lastly, the pieris has weird-looking flowers if you've never seen one before. This one was planted long ago by the prior owner, so it's fully grown.



So, the message clearly is... PLANT SOME BULBS!