Bulbs: Rock Garden Bulbs, 1 by patternmaker

patternmaker wrote:
What a nice website! Great rock garden too. I have a lot of 'small' bulbs that I have scattered throughout my rock garden too. I have found them at John Scheepers, and Bulbmeister. My favorites are the iris reticulatas, zephyranthes, and Colchicum. Living in zone 7 I have the advantage of keeping a larger variety of bulbs alive than you would up in Michigan. One thing I have learned though with bulbs is that if you want to keep bulb beyond you zone in the ground over the winter you can if you create the right conditions. I am able to keep bulbs all the way up to zone 10 in my rock garden. First, the soil must have excellent drainage and second, plant deeper than suggested, third use rocks as heat conductors. What you do is you sink large rocks into the ground around the area of the bulbs. The part of the rock exposed gets warmed by the sun and conducts that heat along the entire rock and into the ground!