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Home/Gardening/Flower bulbs

Bulbs, beyond the big five.

Everyone knows tulips and daffodils - the bulb world's real depth starts after them: snowdrops through actual snow, checkered fritillaries for damp lawns, nerines firing pink in October, cyclamen conquering dry shade under conifers. Here are 27 genus guides sequenced from late winter to autumn, with the planting tricks (soaks, depths, 'in the green') that decide success.

Bulbs
Snowdrop Late winter

Snowdrop

Snowdrops are winter's white flags - the first flower of the year, pushing through actual snow in January-February and carpeting woodlands before anything else dares.
Winter Aconite Late winter

Winter Aconite

Winter aconites are spilled gold coins on the February floor - buttercup-yellow cups in green ruffs that bloom WITH the snowdrops and spread into molten carpets under bare trees.
Siberian Squill Late winter

Siberian Squill

Siberian squill paints lawns BLUE - true gentian-blue nodding bells, 10 cm tall, that spread through grass and under shrubs into April lakes of color.
Glory-of-the-Snow Late winter

Glory-of-the-Snow

Glory-of-the-snow opens star-blue flowers with white hearts the moment drifts melt - the squill's upward-facing, softer-mannered cousin that spreads politely into lavender-blue pools without the takeover tendencies.
Reticulata Iris Late winter

Reticulata Iris

Reticulata iris are February's jewels - 10 cm sapphire-and-gold iris blooms opening with the snowdrops, perfect in gravel, troughs and bowls where their intricate faces meet your eye.
Grecian Windflower Late winter

Grecian Windflower

Grecian windflowers are the daisy carpet of March - starry sky-blue, pink and white daisies that open with the early daffodils and knit through beds into low flowering rugs.
Snake's Head Fritillary Spring

Snake's Head Fritillary

The snake's head fritillary wears the strangest pattern in spring - nodding bells CHECKERED in purple-and-white gingham, swaying over damp meadows like something designed by a chess-playing fairy.
Crown Imperial Spring

Crown Imperial

The crown imperial is the empress of spring bulbs - a meter-tall stem crowned with a ring of hanging orange or yellow bells under a pineapple tuft, straight out of Dutch Golden Age paintings.
Snowflake (Leucojum) Spring

Snowflake (Leucojum)

Snowflakes are snowdrops scaled UP for late spring - half-meter stems dangling clusters of white bells, each petal tipped with one green dot, thriving in the DAMP heavy soils bulb catalogs warn about.
English Bluebell Spring

English Bluebell

The English bluebell is the haze of legend - the violet-blue, honey-scented mist that floods British beech woods each May and tops every 'most beautiful place' list.
Camassia Spring

Camassia

Camassia is the meadow spire America gave the bulb world - meter-tall wands of starry blue opening upward in LATE spring, filling the gap after tulips quit, and thriving in the damp clay that kills Dutch bulbs.
Star-of-Bethlehem Spring

Star-of-Bethlehem

Ornithogalums split into two stories: the garden star-of-Bethlehem - white satin stars that naturalize (assertively - siting required) - and the florist's chincherinchee, whose cut spires last a legendary MONTH in water.
Dutch Iris Summer

Dutch Iris

Dutch iris are the florist's iris from a cheap fall bulb - orchid-elegant blooms in blues, yellows, whites and bronzes on 50 cm stems, effortless in the cutting row and dotted through borders.
Foxtail Lily Summer

Foxtail Lily

Foxtail lilies are the desert rockets - two-meter towers packed with thousands of starry blooms in peach, gold and white, rising from bizarre starfish roots.
Persian Buttercup Summer

Persian Buttercup

Ranunculus are the roses that grow from claws - impossibly layered crepe-paper blooms (a hundred petals deep) that rule wedding florals, sprouting from odd little octopus corms.
Nerine Autumn

Nerine

Nerines are October's fireworks - naked stems bursting into sugar-pink lily sprays when the rest of the garden is packing up.
Autumn Crocus (Colchicum) Autumn

Autumn Crocus (Colchicum)

Colchicums are September's naked ladies - goblet blooms of pink-lilac erupting leafless from bare soil, bigger and blowsier than any true crocus, with spring foliage arriving months later like a delayed apology.
Hardy Cyclamen Autumn

Hardy Cyclamen

Hardy cyclamen solve the impossible spot - DRY SHADE under trees - with shuttlecock blooms and silver-marbled ivy leaves, hederifolium firing in autumn and coum in late winter.
Tulip Spring

Tulip

The tulip is the bold, brilliant heart of the spring garden - the bulb that, more than any other, delivers pure, saturated color after a long winter.
Daffodil (Narcissus) Spring

Daffodil (Narcissus)

The daffodil is the most cheerful and dependable harbinger of spring there is - the bulb that, planted once and almost forgotten, returns faithfully year after year, multiplying into ever-larger drifts of gold.
Allium (Ornamental) Summer

Allium (Ornamental)

Ornamental alliums are among the most striking and architectural plants in the garden - perfect spheres of tiny star-shaped flowers, held aloft on tall, slender, leafless stems like purple lollipops floating above the early-summer border.
Crocus Spring

Crocus

The crocus is the brave little flower that opens first - pushing up through cold, bare ground, sometimes through snow, to bring the very first jewel-bright color of the year.
Hyacinth Spring

Hyacinth

The hyacinth is, above all, a fragrance - one of the most intense, far-reaching scents in the whole spring garden.
Lily (Asiatic & Oriental) Summer

Lily (Asiatic & Oriental)

The lily is one of the grandest flowers a bulb can give - tall, elegant stems carrying large, often spectacularly fragrant blooms that turn a summer border into something glamorous.
Gladiolus Summer

Gladiolus

The gladiolus is the great vertical flourish of the summer garden - tall, dramatic spires densely packed with large, funnel-shaped flowers that open in sequence from the bottom up, in almost every color imaginable.
Dahlia Summer

Dahlia

The dahlia is the dazzling star of the late-summer and autumn garden - a plant of almost unbelievable variety, from tiny button pompons to "dinner-plate" blooms the size of a face, in every color but true blue, and in a dozen distinct flower forms.
Muscari (Grape Hyacinth) Spring

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

Muscari, commonly known as the Grape Hyacinth, is one of the easiest and most cheerful of all spring bulbs.
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The 10-month bulb calendar

Layer by season and something always blooms: snowdrops-aconites-squills (Jan-Mar) → daffodils-tulips-fritillaries (Apr-May) → alliums-camassia-foxtail lilies (May-Jun) → nerines-colchicums-cyclamen (Sep-Nov). Almost all plant in one October afternoon.

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