My Bulb Experiment: Three Years Later
May 2nd, 2023
I wish I could say that my experiment growing 955 spring bulbs of 16 kinds has been a rousing success, carpeting my yard with vibrant color at a time when most everything else is just waking up.

These ‘Mando’ daffodils have been my strongest bulb-trial performer.
But three years after planting, only four of my bulb groupings put on a good show this spring. The rest have dwindled into meagerness or disappeared altogether.
Read more on the bulb game plan and what got planted
To get right to the point, the four winners have been:
1.) Yellow-blooming ‘Mando’ daffodils, which have bloomed long and strong all three years from mid to late March in several front-yard beds. These are actually growing in number.
2.) Siberian squill ‘Spring Beauty’ (Scilla siberica), a low-growing blue-bloomer that’s spread and seeded its way into a colony on a morning-sun driveway terrace bed that later fills with astilbes, brunnera, sweet woodruff, and hydrangeas. These also bloom in mid to late March.

A 25-bulb planting of summer snowflakes ‘Gravetye Giant’ is thriving after three years.
3.) Summer snowflakes ‘Gravetye Giant’ (Leucojum aestivum), foot-tall plants that produce hanging, bell-shaped white flowers for about two weeks from mid to late April. All 25 bulbs I planted in another driveway-terrace bed are still growing, blooming, and steadily expanding.
4.) Camassia leichtlinii ‘Caerulea,’ a little-known, seldom-used bulb that grows about a foot tall and produces bluish-purple flower spikes in late April. The 25 bulbs of these also have come back reliably for three years now, despite deer gnawing off the foliage of this supposed deer-resistant species.
I should add here that I’ve had excellent results, too, with allium ‘Globemaster,’ a softball-sized purple bloomer that I planted four years ago (technically not part of this experiment).