Category: Bulbs and Tubers
After the Frost: Time to Start Digging up the Dahlia Tubers
This past weekend, we had our first frost, so I started to dig up the dahlia tubers for winter storage. I finished the tubers on Goldberry Hill and the Front Border (pictured), but still need to get the ones in the Cutting and Rose Gardens. For a full how-to, read my prior post, “How to Store Dahlia Tubers for Winter.”
Poemas del río Wang: Imperial crown
I grow and love Crown Imperial Fritillaria in the Rose Garden, but I’ve never seen such an amazing display as this–an entire mountainside in Iran: Poemas del río Wang: Imperial crown.
Purple Colchicum in the Front Border
Winter Aconite Seedheads: how Winter Aconite self-seeds
As a follow-up to my several posts from March about winter aconite in bloom and spreading, they have now formed their seedheads (pictured) by which they will self-seed.
How to Plant Tulips Throughout Your Garden: along pathways, in mixed borders, under trees, and in raised beds
As a follow-up to my my prior posts, “What I’ve Learned About Growing Tulips in New Jersey,” and “The Cutting Garden: the Joy of Spring Tulips,” here are more photographs of this year’s tulips. Where can and should you plant tulips? As you can see, you can (and I do) plant tulips almost everywhere in all sorts of colors and color combinations: along pathways, in mixed borders, under trees, and in raised beds.
.
Here are some dark purple tulips that I planted along the front steps.
Here is a mix of multi-colored tulips in the mixed Front Border.
Despite the removal of the old oak tree and stump, some of the orange tulip bulbs I had planted around it actually survived.
Here is a picture of some of the later blooming tulips in the Cutting Garden.
Here is a mix of yellow and purple tulips under the crabapple tree.
Here is a mix of white tulips along the back steps.
This is a close-up of some of those white tulips along the back steps.
Some medium purple tulips in the Bird Garden.Hyacinth in blue, white, pink, cream and purple – one of the most fragrant flowers of spring
Grape Hyacinth (Muscari) – minor bulbs that are good for mass plantings and/or as edging along mixed borders
The Cutting Garden: The Joy of Spring Tulips
One of my early posts on Heirloom Gardener was “Creating Space for a Garden: the Cutting Garden” in which I wrote about transforming the small 15×30 foot side yard from an unused space into a delightful little Cutting Garden.
These past few weeks have been a joy in the Cutting Garden, as the tulips (pictured) have begun to bloom.
Fresh cut tulips bring such great joy throughout my home, as well as to the homes of my friends, and the variety that you are able to grow at home is so much more amazing than what you can purchase.
And, as I mentioned in my Ten Tips for Planning a Children’s Garden, I plant enough in the Cutting Garden that my children can cut as many tulips as they wish without me worrying that they’ve cut too many.
Lastly, growing them in the fenced-in Cutting Garden protects them from the deer (though not the squirrels and chipmunks), that I wrote about in What I’ve Learned About Growing Tulips in New Jersey.
Heirloom Gardener 
