Undependable Garden Bulbs
totototo@telus.net (Sun, 04 May 2008 21:40:56 PDT)

Interesting to read of the dependables, but what about the
undependables, those bulbs that you would expect to be good
performers but turn out to be duds?

Plant performance is critically dependant on the details of the
environment, of course: soil, pH, drainage, altitude, latitude,
aspect, climate, geography, precipitation & its distribution
throughout the year etc. As a result, plants considered easy in some
places are quite difficult in others.

In my own garden, the following have been surprisingly bad performers:

1. Leucojum vernum. I've planted hundreds of bulbs of this over the
years, in any number of different locations, and only in one small
location do they survive and grow. When I say small, I mean an area
that may be no more than a few feet each way.

No, this isn't because the bulbs I've planted have been terminally
dessicated. I know enough to soak L. vernum bulbs until they are
plump and firm before planting, and those planted usually came up
just fine the first spring, but then disappeared.

It's a mystery: I have no idea what is special about the one and only
spot. Perhaps there's simply too much root competition from nearby
trees everywhere else I've tried them. In Janis Ruksans book, there's
a photo of L. vernum growing wild somewhere in eastern Europe; the
site is a dead flat meadow with nary a tree in sight.

2. Tricyrtis. They have never survived more than two seasons.
Probably due to the distaste of Japanese plants for a dry-summer, wet-
winter climate plus the fact that I live in a former marsh which gets
soaking wet, and stays that way, once the winter rains have set in in
earnest.

3. The double form of Galanthus nivalis. It hates me.

4. Most daffodils. The narcissus fly cleans these out in a hurry,
some types much faster than others, though some cultivars survive and
flower well year after year. The beautiful triandrus hybrids such as
Libery Bells last only one season and then they're gone, not even
grassy leaves to mark the site of their demise.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate

on beautiful Vancouver Island