The Garden Club September 8, 2005

September 8, 2005

Fill Your Garden with
these Graceful, Autumn Blooming Bulbs.

- Autumn Colchicum 'The Giant'
- Labor Day Sale - Ends Today!
- Garden Q&A

Autumn Bulbs to Enjoy in a Matter of Weeks!
When most of us think of bulbs, the first things that come to mind are spring flowering hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips. Spring flowering bulbs require planting several months before their bloom time. You can also enjoy the beauty of bulbs not only in the autumn, but within a few weeks of their planting. This week we are featuring the most outstanding of these bulbs, Autumn Colchicum 'The Giant.'

The genus colchicum is comprised of several dozen species of fall and spring blooming bulbs that are related to the lily, but with flowers closely resembling crocus only much larger. Originally from northern Europe, Near East and North Africa, colchicums have naturalized through large portions of the British Isles, across northern and central Europe into Russia and the Iberian Peninsula. Colchicums are totally resistant to rodent damage and browsing deer.

All Colchicums are members of a diverse group of bulbs sometimes referred to as "naked ladies." This includes true late summer and fall blooming crocus, magic lilies (Lycoris), as well as the fall blooming colchicums.

Graceful Chalice-Shaped Blooms
'The Giant' is an exceptionally vigorous, large blooming hybrid bred in Holland at the turn of the 20th century from several different colchicum species. It is the tallest growing, largest flowering and in our opinion, the most desirable of the autumn colchicums. Once established, each bulb produces clusters of several dozen pinkish lavender, 6-8 inch wide blooms. The blooms are graceful, chalice-shaped cups with touches of white at the bases of the 6-8 inch flower stems. Think of 'The Giant' as a huge, lavender-flowered, autumn-blooming crocus. The medium green hosta-like foliage emerges in March and disappears by late spring. Colchicum 'The Giant' will slowly mature into large clumps which can be divided every 5 years or so.

When you receive your autumn colchicum, plant the bulbs immediately. 'The Giant' looks best planted amongst a low-growing ground cover or a mass of low-growing perennials. I have been particularly pleased planting the naked lavender-flowered colchicum amongst concurrently flowering electric blue plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides). Because the plumbago sprouts late I like to include some sun-loving, smaller-growing, spring-flowering bulbs, such as species tulips, dwarf daffodils, crocus or chinodoxia (Glory of the Snow). Besides plumbago, other good companions are Vinca minor, creeping phlox (both P. subulata and stolonifera) low-growing sedums, sempervivums (hens and chickens or cats and kittens), Astilbe chinensis pumila and Euonymus longwood.

Planting and Care

For best results plant in early fall.
Prefers full sun to light shade.
Plant 3-4 inches deep, 10 to 12 inches apart. Choose a spot with well drained soil or dampish soil. Performs poorly in wet soil.
Water regularly until established.
Requires a year or two to become established, before peak performance is achieved.
Fertilize with Bulb-Tone in early spring and mid-summer.
Hardy in zones 4-9.
Immune to deer and rodent damage.
Large 20-22 cm bulbs - largest we have ever had!
Price - 3/$8.85 or 10/$22.85.

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Autumn Colchicum 'The Giant'

Garden Club Frequently Asked Questions

Question: I planted a mock orange plant 3 years ago and it has grown well, is in full sun, but has produced no blooms. Is there anything I can do to make it produce flowers?

Answer: Mock Oranges vary greatly, by variety, as to how prolifically they bloom, at what age they bloom and how fragrant the blooms are.

You can encourage better bloom on the mock orange next year, if you treat the soil with super phosphate now, and spray the foliage now and then again in 3 weeks with Messenger. In the spring, spray with Messenger every 3 weeks from when the leaves are half size until just before normal blossom time.

Question: Can you tell me what containers are the best for container roses, and please give me the names of some easy ones to grow. How do you get them to survive over the winter? I live in Zone 7 southwest Virginia.

Answer: Hardy roses are relatively easy to winter over in zone 7, but you must choose winter hardy roses. To start with, I recommend you choose from: Carefree Beauty, Honey Perfume, any of the Knockout series, The Fairy and Lovely Fairy, Carefree Sunshine, Bonica and Earth Song, to start with. The containers must be large, at least 10 gallons; the larger the better. They must have drainage holes, but the material doesn't matter; although, for durability, I do not recommend plastic or these foam-like plastics that are so popular now. Wooden whiskey barrels are ideal. Use a light professional soilless growing mix with a little bit of water holding polymer mixed in. Careful attention to watering at all times, including winter is critical.

For the winter, place the pots up against the east wall of a building. Wrap the pots in bubble wrap for the winter and pile the roses up with as high a cone of mulch as is practical (about 12-15 inches) from November 30th to early March.

Question: I know I should lime every fall. I also fertilize in the spring and fall. Why do I need to do both? What does the liming accomplish?

Answer: The ideal PH (acidity/alkalinity) for lawn soil is 6.5. You need to lime only if your soil is below (more acid than) 6.5. A soil test will determine the PH of your soil. Carroll Gardens does free soil tests in the store. Please bring in one or two samples (a cupful each) in plastic food storage bags. If your soil is significantly below the 6.5 level, I do not recommend changing the PH level more than .5 per year. The bag of lime will tell you how much to use to achieve the desired change. Liming is best accomplished once a year only, in early October.

Liming a soil which is too acidic will achieve several benefits:

**The major benefit from liming is to make the soil nutrients, whether from fertilizer or natural nutrients already in the soil, more available to the grass.

**Liming to the proper PH will also improve soil structure and microbial activity.

**Because grass and weeds growing in the soil will grow more vigorously with the proper PH level, lawn weed killers will be more effective.

**Finally liming also reduces the availability of certain trace elements, especially manganese, which can hinder plant growth if they are available in excess quantities.

Question: I seem to recall that last year on the radio you gave some tips as to how to make tulips come back for years. Can you repeat them in your newsletter?

Answer:

1. You must select tulips that tend to perennialize. The large flowered tulips that do this best are the Darwin Hybrids.

2. Buy the largest bulbs that you can find. The bulbs sold prepackaged in plastic bags are usually not the largest available. Go to a garden center that sells the bulbs loose, where you bag them yourself.

3. It is important to understand the growth cycle of a tulip bulb. Each year the tulip makes a new bulb and the old bulb dies. If the new bulb is too small, it will not bloom. Therefore you must do everything possible to keep the tulip actively growing for the longest period of time, thus making its new bulb larger. The tulip stops growing when the soil becomes warm. That's why tulips do so well in northern Europe where the sky is usually misty and cloudy and the summer temperatures are cool. To help keep the tulip bulb cool, you should plant deeply, about 12 inches deep.

4. Plant the bulb where there are a few hours of shade to protect the tulip from the hottest afternoon sun. Tulips do best where the soil is well-drained, but lightly moist.

5. Snip off the seed head (just the seed head, nothing more) as soon as the flower petals drop, so the tulip doesn't waste energy growing seeds rather than growing a new larger bulb.

6. Fertilize the tulips when planting and top dress with fertilizer every fall thereafter so that fertilizer will be carried down into the soil by the melting snows. Bulb foods such as Bulb-Tone alone do not provide enough nitrogen for tulips. Mix Bulb-Tone half and half with Plant-Tone. I have also had great success mixing bone meal with Milorganite.

7. Never remove the foliage until it has turned totally brown.

8. A tulip which sends up only one leaf is too small to flower. However, do not dig it up and throw it away. Because the tulip bulb is not expending energy on the flowering this year, next year it will often be larger, sprout two or more leaves and bloom.

9. If you have a problem with rodents eating your tulips, plant them with Espoma's Soil Perfector surrounding the bulbs.

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