After a remarkably dry, warm winter (the jet stream stole our weather
and took it to the other side of the Rocky Mountains), this weekend we
in western Oregon have seen heavy rain and high wind. (It's still
warm.) I went out to see how the front garden is doing just now,
before hastening indoors for fear a large Douglas fir would fall over
on me, and noticed how well the flowering bulbs are standing up to it.

The first that caught my eye was Iris bucharica, bright yellow flowers
cheerfully upright and open atop a gravelly berm. In the same area I
noticed Narcissus rupicola, Narcissus alpestris (I think; it came as
N. moschatus), and a couple of taller Narcissus species. Erythronium
grandiflorum and a neighboring geophyte, Dodecatheon clevelandii,
stood up too. Muscari species are completely stormproof with their
stout stems and little nodding florets, and not all of them are
aggressive. In the flat part of the garden Erythronium hendersonii
looks good, as do the delicate-appearing flowers of Corydalis 'Beth
Evans'. Early Ranunculus and Anemone species close up a little in the
dim light but seem undamaged, including Anemone blanda, Anemone
nemorosa, Anemone palmata, Anemone appenina, and a couple of the
mild-mannered Ranunculus ficaria double forms. Still in bud but well
supported by their tall stems are Notholirion thomsonianum,
Fritillaria amana, and Fritillaria acmopetala. Over in the bulb lawn
the grass is helping support its later bloomers, such as Narcissus
calcicola (don't be shocked; it got there as random seedlings) and
low-growing Ornithogalum species that flower close to the ground. A
little berm above that feature is displaying several Dodecatheon
species from the Pacific Northwest. In the border many Fritillaria
meleagris are up far enough to be raising their opening flowers; you
will see that many Fritillaria species keep their stems bent over near
ground level until on the point of opening, which may be a way of
avoiding grazing animals. And across the road frontage, a lot of
cheap daffodils are still standing, except for 'Cheerfulness', a
double that I had to cut for the house.

It's nice to know that however refined our plants may look, they have
evolved resistance to the storms of spring.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/