Favorite Bulbs...

Get your carpal tunnels ready!  Autumn is around the corner, and that means, for those of us living, for once, in a place that has winter, bulb planting!  My sister and her wonderful yard were requested to take part in a botanical garden tour next spring, so I just sent her a list of my favorite bulbs.  Here it is:

Awesome!  Congratulations!!!  Better get serious about those bulbs... 

So for tulips, you can get amazing results by planning for three "seasons".  Pick a general color scheme (salmon, magenta, pink; or if you want to go classic, red, yellow; anything you want.)  We used to cut out pictures from a catalog and mix them around to find great combinations.  Then pick an early (March), a middle (April), and a late (May) of each color, and plant them all together, then as they get done, the later ones are blooming past them and it makes all sorts of lovely combinations.  As a general rule, smaller tulips bloom earlier, bigger later.  I will list my favorite tulips, which are almost all late.  Triumph tulips are a variety that has lots of color variation, but they are not known for being terribly perennial.  These pictures are all from vanengelen.com, which is a site that I ordered from in the past.  They have good info and descriptions.  Mix the tulips with daffodils and other bulbs.

Darwin tulips- my favorites:

Akebono

Apricot Impression

Daydream (my favorite tulip of all...)

Silverstream

Single Late Tulips:

Blushing beauty and Blushing Lady.  Actually hard to tell apart, though not in this picture...

Menton

Renown

Dordogne

Temple of Beauty

Oh, I love them!  These are all late (mid-April to mid-May), sturdy, tall, solidly perennial.

Next,

Species tulips:

bakeri Lilac Wonder (not lilac, pink)

Double Early Tulips:

Montreaux

Now for the daffodils.  These also have different "seasons", but they are all earlier than the late tulips.

Marieke

Little Gem

Topolino

Delibes

Segovia

Hawera- my favorite FAVORITE daff

Cragford- ok, I forgot about this one.  This one is great too.  Very fragrant.

Minnow- and this one.  These three are essential.

Other bulbs:

Hyacinthoides hispanica excelsior.  Go big on these.  Do not under any circumstances plant muscari.

Camssia- Idaho native, nice plant

Galanthus (snowdrops)

There.  My favorite bulbs.