Less Common Spring Bulbs

Chionodoxa Valentine Day

Hyacinthella heldreichii

Scilla biflora Norman Stevens

Scilla melaina.
All flowering for us today.

 

Beautiful Palustris!!! :thmb:

 

Food for thought

How are you growing them and interesting that they are all blue

 

The Chionodoxa is in a raised bed. The others are in the Alpine house, mainly because they are fairly small and better viwed close up. The gravel in the pictures is half inch stuff.
They are all blue ones cos I did not post the yellow or pink bulb pictures...........yet!

 

Lovely Palustris - I know you to be the bulb master amongst other things. :D

Did you see Gardener's World the other night? They were talking about Iris reticulata. They explained that it never returns the following year as our summers are not hot enough to set new flowers. I take never returning as dying., rather than just growing blind each year. However they said that there was one variety that did return. That sounds well worth having as they are so beautiful. Do you know the variety by any chance?

 

That's interesting Shiney.

I only tried a small number of Iris reticulata a couple of times, but they never came back - in fact one was Cantab. I don't persevere with bulbs because I am always digging the border up and replacing early flowering plants with later flowering ones - and bulbs don't like that much. But on Gardener's World they distinctly said something about not coming back because of the lack of summer heat. So I assumed that was the explantation for my failures. Nothing to do with my digging, of course. :D

Yours are lovely - they are so pretty.

 

Thank you for the lovely pics Palustrus.
Chionodoxa grows like a native wild flower round here.
It's flowering just now. It grows out of the gravel all along the foot of the front wall of my house.
I see all my neighbours have it too and on my walks I see it everywhere.
It is lovely.

 

The only Iris reticulata which come back for us are a set in a pot outside the Greenhouse. They get baked in Summer, so I suppose it is possible that heat is the answer. Also heard it postulated that they need planting very deeply otherwise the bulbs break up into tiny grains and take a long time to grow back to flowering size.
For the price they are you can treat them as annuals in my opinion. We do. Now Katherine Hodgkinson...... they come back every year.

 

Katherine Hodgkins, I think are the ones you are referring to Peter.

I have them, they are gorgeous things too-and they come back each year. They struggle in damp conditions and like it well drained.

 

Lollipop - thank you

Yes Katherine Hodgkins was the one they mentioned on Gardiners World.

 

Have those above in my yard, a little early now to appear, but they spread nicely. Part of my front yard is full of them. I love finding the unusual.

 

So, as threatened here are some more less common Spring bulbs.

Scilla biflora rosea.

Narcissus cyclamineus

Tulipa Jeantime.
And not a blue one in sight!