For the past three weeks, I have been teaching a class on herbaceous plants at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. What continues to amaze me is not what people come to learn, but the knowledge with which they arrive to class. Gardeners, whether novices or seasoned pros, all have something to share, because the power of observation allows them — no matter what their level of expertise — to gather information that others may not even have considered or, more importantly, questioned. Each of us brings our own unique experiences in the garden, leading to everyone sharing advice on things such as cutting back perennial salvias to promote rebloom or using guerilla tactics to remove wild cucumber vine. Gardeners are often wildly generous with what they have learned, which makes gardening a collective process.
A case in point: a friend visiting the Berkshires this week stopped by and shared with our class his knowledge of bulbs. He didn’t just talk about selecting and planting bulbs, such as hyacinths and muscari; he also suggested ways to plant perennials, such as bleeding hearts, in ways to cover the fading foliage of small spring blooming bulbs or, in the case of the lax flower stalks of fall crocus, to prop up their flowers (he recommends ‘Rozanne’ geranium or lady’s mantle.) His talk inspired me to think of bulbs that I often overlook, such as fall-blooming colchicum and autumn crocus, which he thinks can be nicely complemented by seasonal foliage or the patterned bark of our native Stewartia or a kousa dogwood.
He focused his talk on minor bulbs, leaving behind tulips and daffodils which he considers to be the cover models of the bulb world. I agreed with him that daffodils and tulips seem to get most of the attention and was excited when he shared images of a Camassia scilloides, a white to blue flowering Northeast native that has the appearance of a wild hyacinth. (I will seek out this one for my bulb order next summer.) But his talk also got me thinking about tulips, not the oversized cover girls he felt garner too much attention, but the wild, or species, tulips from which many of the cover girl varieties were developed.
As he shared images of grape hyacinths in Greece, I began to dream about the wild tulips that come from the same part of the world. I love the small-statured Tulipa turkestanica with its demure white and yellow flowers that bob their heads mere inches above the ground; they felt more appropriate to my garden, which is more naturalistic and wild, than lanky orange-and purple parrot tulips and pink-cupped, frilled daffodil varieties that make me think of fashion models who are too tall and skinny (yes, there is such a thing – or at least there is a setting in which they don’t belong.)
Dreaming of bulbs can happen in the moment, but accessing them takes planning, as most need to be ordered by mail well in advance of their planting season. This is especially true for some of the lesser-known forms, and even more so this year, as many of these bulbs have been caught in the same transportation bottleneck as some of the more essential necessities of life. Fortunately, I am just days away from a delivery of wild tulips from Colorblends, a bulb company based in Connecticut. It includes the aforementioned tulip as well as Tulipa hageri ‘Little Beauty,’ a selection with magenta flowers with a blue center and grass-like foliage that surrounds the four-inch tall flowers. These will join Tulipa bakeri, a lilac flowered wild tulip native to Crete, that I have managed to naturalize along the edge of my property. Wild tulips, unlike many of the larger showgirl tulips, often come back stronger each year. I have even found them to be more deer resistant, perhaps because their smaller stature meant the deer would need to bend their necks uncomfortably in order to eat them. So much for evolution and survival of the fittest! Perhaps the wild forms have something preferable to the stature of their highly cultivated counterparts. (You see, one really can be too tall and slender.) Tulipa praestans stands a little taller than some of the other wild tulips, but I am curious to see how the narrow orange cups of this Tajikistani native will hold up to an army of deer and rabbits.
And in the spirit of my class, and our visitor, I look forward to getting to share what I learn as these plants take hold in my garden.
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A gardener grows through observation, experimentation, and learning from the failures, triumphs, and hard work of oneself and others. In this sense, all gardeners are self-taught, while at the same time intrinsically connected to a tradition and a community that finds satisfaction through working the soil and sharing their experiences with one another. This column explores those relationships and how we learn about the world around us from plants and our fellow gardeners.
