"OK, Time to Confess, Bulbs Part III: Spring Cometh"

Hang in there Kylee. I hope you don't have the winter blues.

Margo, Semi-shade plants can enjoy the spring sun and be shaded by the towering and glorious lilies. (This is true of Hedera in my climate.) Perhaps this is true of Athyrium ferns where you are? Narcissus are perfect for it, as their leaves take time to ripen and will be covered just in time. Evergreen perrenials... Try Coral/foamy bells: Heuchera, Tiarella, or Heucherella. Helleborus... How about Ipheion? I've used them, as they have winter leaves. Or for that matter, Muscari armeniacum. The best carrots I've grown were sown in the summer shade of lilies. Calendula blooms early and can overwinter when young. Early and short lilies could benefit from shade themselves that they may get from late-season foliage plants like Canna, Ricinus, and Papaya. I like Creeping Nasturtium foliage with lilies.

Well, I'm just a-bust with ideas...
Kenton

If anyone is interested ~ Asiapets can be seen here: http://www.lilynook.mb.ca/library/library-Div%20VIII.htm (they're the first 8 pics shown)

"If anyone is interested" ? As though there is any possiblility to the contrary! Ha!
Oh, Moby. Thank you.

Anyone else fired up about "FIERY BELLES" ?

I could go into the red-style financing easily around here...

Ed. to ask Moby if you've grown any Asiapets? I am quite curious about size of flower/stem.

This message was edited Jan 13, 2006 10:14 PM

LOL I was was just trying to be polite and not assume that you all look at lilies the same way I do ~ like a rabid dog.

Thought I had one for you, but it's an OT.

Frothy mouth... Check.

*helpful hint ~ always were terrycloth bathrobe while surfing the 'net. one quick chin swipe with the sleeve to hide internet activities from spouse*

I use a towel, thanks.
From ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’ By Douglas Adams

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jagla Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you cansleep under it beneath theh stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of ht Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can's see it, it can't see you-daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

PPfftt... ROTFLMAO.... good thing I've got a napkin here to wipe off my screen!
You guys are too funny.

"*helpful hint ~ always were terrycloth bathrobe while surfing the 'net. one quick chin swipe with the sleeve to hide internet activities from spouse*" (i don't know how to do those quote boxes thingies).

The problem is that its hard to smuggle in those giant boxes of bulbs and plants!

OK - Margo, my favorite for the feet of lilies is soapwort. Soporanaria ocymoides. It seems to bloom for
a long time (late may through June) so you get a nice lead up to the lily bloom and then its just a nice green
carpet underneath. I interplant smaller allium and sometime annuals as well.

http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/13149/

Toooo funny! Winter is bringing us all to the brink of madness! LOL

Margo, I love planting in "layers", getting maximum use out of every inch of garden. There are areas I have lilies planted 9" deep, spring bulbs 3"above those, and sprawling perennials on top. I really love that 3D effect and having something pretty there at all times. I've found hardy geraniums nice for this, and now am trying Penstemon smallii and Silene diascous(sp?) in some other spots with lilies. I love using annuals around lilies ankles to. And the soapwort Tammy suggested is a great little plant, I've grown it for years. So pretty and unobtrusive with anything, and such a long season of "big" color. Also very pretty as an underplanting for single late tulips :)

Bulb smuggling? No problem!

"Honey, it's those dang DG people. They're just too generous! The return label?? Oh, it's just an old box that someone reused. They do that all the time." (DH's eyes rolling...) *snickering to self*

Gemini, funny you should mention the layering thing. I read about it and decided to play with the concept using a pot to plant daffs and tulips. The bulbs I used were:
Tulip single late Magazine Prima and
Tulip single late Maureen
and tazetta daffs.

I bought the tulips locally at my fav. nursery and the lady told me these do well here in houston area. I doubt they will come back but a few bucks spent for a pot, won't kill me.

Anybody heard of this company?

http://www.vdqbulbs.com.au/cat_tall_tulips.htm

Nice, Moby.

One thing about double- and triple- planting bulbs is to know where the bulbs will end up, as some will move up and others move down! Lilies go down and Chionodoxa, muscari, and others go up.

Who can help themselves but overplant? It is a mark of a real diehard. You just can't be part of this group unless you overplant (or have ten acres...). Speaking of such, should golden bamboo (P. aurea) be a nuisance when it is centered 3' from my house, garden path, and Banana in my temperate climate?

Do you know if it's a clumping cultivar? There's a good thread going about the bad wrap bamboos in general get, when there are great, noninvasive clumping varieties.

I have read both about it! One place said sunning tropical/clumping temperate. I think I had better move it. That sucker is still as green and leafy today as the day I bought it in Oregon!

voss--are you buying bulbs from Australia? I looked at the website and the farm is in an extinct volcano http://www.vdqbulbs.com.au/profile.htm#prince

I wonder if lava helps grow fine tulips? Sounds interesting. t.

no, i got them locally but the tags had a website and I just cked it out

voss, where the ones you bought locally as expensive as the site? The tulips I looked at were all $1 or more per bulb. I wonder if they're some of the tulips for the cut flower market (called French tulips), basically meaning they're huge(and beautiful!) and expensive. As cut flowers they retail for $5-8 each.
Neal.

Neal, I don't remember but I doubt I would have bought them if they were more than $2 ea, at the absolute most. I was feeling left out 'cause everybody north of me can grow tulips, so in order to join the bandwagon I bought a few for a pot.

I chilled these for 8 weeks before planting.

Neal, I re-read the post and I guess you're saying $1 ea is high. Well, that just tells you how little I know about tulips. I didn't realize that was high. I have never really looked at tulips til I started snooping in the bulb forum. lol

This message was edited Jan 15, 2006 4:39 PM

Voss - you're gonna have tulips!!!! Yeah!!!! Be sure to post the pictures.

The bigger bulbs are the best for growing in pots, and yes, would love to see pics.

who couldn't fall in love with a Tulip?

hee hee Snooping around the bulb forum can surely bring a person trouble! Hope your tulips are lovely.

Bulb sales alerts - T&M has a lovely amaryllis on sale for $3 and Parks had sales on mixed daffodils.

Thanks, Tam, that's what this thread is for, eh?

here's the link.
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/us/en/product/amar/1

edited to add, by posting the link, not only am I an addict, I am now an enabler. Good! all-around amaryllis nut!

This message was edited Jan 16, 2006 10:18 AM

By the by, folks: An Armenian gent mailed me, hoping to find someone who will help him acquire some Tulips that are not available over there. The apex of Bulb Addict? Of course, easily relating to him, I've agreed.
Kenton

voss, in truth, for smaller quantities of some varieties, that may not be too expensive, especially for forcing sized bulbs. However I'm incredibly cheap, hehe. I feel like primitive man returning from the successful hunt when I've scored an amazing bargain! I guess it's a good addiction to go along with plant addiction, LOL.

Along with the doldrums of winter, my paperwhites (planted really late) started blooming. Having lovely, springy flowers and forced to play indoors, I had fun arranging some things in the living room to show them off.

very nice! what do you do w/ them afterwards?

Thanks! I guess I'll just toss em in the compost pile. They're not hardy here, and they were part of the big Lowes haul, so the bulbs in that pot were all of 20cents! I have another blue and white pot with them that should be in bloom next week, so I can switch them out.

Speaking of that big Lowes haul, I just had to go look in my car trunk for something and found a box of bulbs I'd missed! Of course they were all mush and there was'nt much in that box, but I still could'nt believe it.
Neal.

Now here I thought that paperwhites were hardy in my zone. What are those things that grow all over the place, in ditches, in cemeteries, in gardens? They look like paperwhites to me! I guess they're some sort of daffodil/jonquil?

There is a little multiflowering white narcissus I see naturalized around here to, and they do look very similar and smell very sweet. I think it's an old Poeticus variety, and I bet that's what you've seen. The ones I see around here bloom much later than the other daffs.

That's probably it, Neal. I do remember hearing them called paper narcissus here. They multiply like crazy.

that's gorgeous, neal. bulbs in white and blue pots.

sorry i'm so behind here. just got back from outside planting more giant daffs for naturalizing (about 100 more to go....maybe less). i would have been ALMOST done if i didn't get side-tracked planting bareroot roses, and burying LILIES. bad, bad, bad. but happy, happy, happy girl.

=)

Annapet, you must post pictures of Keukenhof, er, I mean, your back yard come spring.
There are ways to bribe...

I have a request for my fellow bulb-addicts: Where might a person find Single late Tulip 'Deep RIver?'

Another picture to keep the winter blues away:

Lovely pic Kenton! And sorry - no help with that tulip. You tried PlantFinder I assume?

You might try Van Bourgondien's for "Deep River". They used to carry it, but it's pretty late in the 'season', now...

Love your crocuses--are they in bloom now in Colorado?!

Tabasco: The crocus were thinking about it until we had a rare snow, which knocked a bit of sense into all of the plants that thought it was time to bloom. And thanks for the vanB tipoff, as I saw that they had offered them last year. I hope that they are more available next fall. One can see I'm starting early?

Come spring, come!

Hi Gang ! This might be the wrong place to ask this but....I used indelible ink on white plant markers and then taped over it with clear packaging tape to aviod sun bleaching....and it did no good. None of my tags are legible. I am sick, sick, sick !! My lilies, daylilies and even some of my brug cuttings....I think I might go cry a bit. Big, sad sighhhh :( God bless you all, Margo

Oh no!! Go ahead and cry a bit, I would. :..( You'll get things figured out when they start blooming.

Oh, Margo.
Your friends on Dave's will certainly help you ID them. You might try writing on all but the top of the plant marker, and then shove the marker deep inot the soil to bury the written bit, only exposing the top. Maybe that will work for a system that you have already started using until you can come up with a new one. I recall having my popsicle stick tags eaten by soil organisms, and sun shattering the plastic ones.