Tiny bulbs
Jane McGary (Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:18:56 PST)

Mary Sue wrote,

hearing a woman with hot summers say she had to water hers every day,
sometimes more often I lost interest. ... If you were picking tiny bulbs to
go in a trough for year round interest, wouldn't they have to be bulbs or
corms that would be happy with wet conditions both in winter and summer?

Reply: It would of course depend on what else you were growing in the
trough, and how large it was. Larger, deeper troughs hold moisture longer,
and you can of course manipulate the composition of the fill, or put them
in partial shade so they don't dry out or heat up too fast. It seems to me
that if you combine your bulbs with dwarf shrubs and perennials from the
same type of climate and habitat, you could grow them together happily. For
example, western American penstemons, eriogonums, and fritillarias; or
Balkan daphnes, campanulas, and crocuses.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA