George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

10 Out-of-the-Ordinary Ways to Use Spring-Flowering Bulbs

October 21st, 2025

   We’re in the heart of bulb-planting season right now in Pennsylvania, and if you’re part of the majority, you’re either lining up a few packs of tulips across the front foundation or planting none at all.

Bulbs can be way more showy than lined up single file along the house front.

   Few gardeners take advantage of the full potential of spring bulbs – those little onion-looking things that get planted in fall and blossom into beautiful flowers early the following spring.

   Maybe it’s because of that delayed gratification that our yards are seriously under-bulbed. Or maybe we’re just not sure how and where to use them.

   Either way, if you’re up for trying to step up your bulb game, October is the month to do something about it.

   Last week we took a look at how some of the smaller, earlier bulbs can be planted into the lawn to spruce up our oceans of green.

   Here are 10 other less-ordinary ways to light up next spring with bulbs:

Masses, not lines

   Bulbs give way more impact when planted in clusters or masses than lined up single-file.

Pick an empty area (or dig a new bed), and plant bulbs four to six inches apart in all directions. Think circles or blocks at least three bulbs deep instead of lines.

   This is the technique that gives public tulip displays such as a Hershey Gardens and Longwood Gardens their “wow” factor each April.

Success Story: Bulbs in the Lawn

October 7th, 2025

   Trying to plant a half-acre, deer-infested, clay-laden yard that was neglected for a decade – at Medicare age, no less – has been a “challenging” endeavor for me the last few years.

Here’s what my bulb lawn looked like in March of the third spring.

   Muscles were strained, gallons of sweat were poured, and much money was invested, not to mention that visit to the ER when I smashed my finger trying to hammer a stake into my coal-in-the-making “soil.”

   But one of the small victories I can report is the section of bulb lawn out front.

   A bulb lawn is a regular lawn most of the year, but it’s one planted with small flower bulbs that come up in early spring to add color to this otherwise sea of green.

   Few people know it’s possible to do this.

   Longwood Gardens has displayed large swaths of the idea for years, and in 2022, Flowerbulbs.com (an arm of the Dutch bulb industry) reported that there was brewing new interest in bulb lawns.

   The year before, the Connecticut-based bulb company Colorblends rolled out a five-mix line called “Color Your Grass” that was geared specifically for planting in lawns.

   Besides adding color at a time when little else is flowering, bulb lawns offer an early-season pollen and nectar source for pollinators – a factor that could be fueling at least a little of the supposed new bulb-lawn interest.

   Since I had never tried this myself, I took the plunge and invested $300 in a 1,000-bulb crate of Colorblends’ Lawn Suite mix.

   I planted the bulbs in October of 2022 in a section of my sunny front yard.

How Do Native Bulbs Perform in a Real Home Garden?

September 23rd, 2025

   When it comes to spring-blooming bulbs, almost all of the mainstream favorites are non-native species.

Native triteliaea/brodiaea ‘Queen Fabiola’ blooming in George’s June garden.

   Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, snowdrops, squill, fritillaria, summer snowflakes, and just about everything else bulbous we plant for spring color originate in lands other than the U.S.

   That poses a bit of a drawback for those trying to stay as native as possible with their plant choices.

   Native-leaning gardeners do have some native spring-bulb choices, though. It’s just that they’re little known and harder to find than the bags full of tulips and daffodils widely sold each fall.

   I wrote a garden column last fall for The Patriot-News and PennLive.com on 10 of these native-bulbs choices. They range from somewhat known plants such as trillium, trout lily, and spring beauties to ones that even seasoned gardeners seldom know (calochortus or dichelostemma anyone?)

   I’ve grown some on that list in the past, but to see if any others are worthy of a try, I ordered a selection of native bulbs that I planted in my home garden last October.

   Before I get to the results, I should mention that there’s nothing “wrong” with any of the mainstream bulbs. None of them are on our state’s invasive-plant list, and many of them attract at least some native insects and wildlife.

   Anyone who’s seen a whole bed full of tulips disappear overnight knows that that plant is a particular favorite feast of native deer and bunnies.

   But the main draw of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and such is that they’re some of the first plants out of the gate at winter’s end – giving us color and living interest at a time when the rest of the yard is just waking up.

Read George’s post on the best bulbs for various situations

George’s native-bulb experience

   Getting back to native bulbs, I thought I’d share my first-hand, home-garden results in case you want to give any a try this fall-planting season. (Bulbs are best planted in Pennsylvania throughout October into early November.)

   The native bulb that I’ve grown for years and would recommend first is camassia, also known as camass or wild hyacinth.

Gardening in the Twilight Zone

September 9th, 2025

   Warning: We are about to enter the Twilight Zone.

How does your yard look as the sun starts to set on another season?

   No, not the Rod Serling version but that time of the gardening season between peak plant performance and that final, glorious blast of fall foliage.

   It’s a time when little might be going on in the yard – if you haven’t planned for interest now.

   In that case, you might be looking at more of a black hole than a twilight zone. That’s especially true in yards with little diversity.

   I suspect the reason for this September dearth is because most people plant-shop in May when the gardening hormones kick in. And that means yards get loaded up with things that look good then, such as azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, dogwoods, peonies, and the “safe time” to plant summer annuals.

   A homely little beautyberry bush that won’t produce its stunning sprays of metallic lavender berries until September is no match in May for an azalea’s bright rosy-red, big-bang-ball of color.

   A bag of shriveled brown hockey pucks called “dahlias” can’t compete with the fist-sized blooms of a peony plant.

   And crape myrtles haven’t even leafed out yet in early May while the dogwood blooms are more alluring than a doughnut shop to a dieter.

   It’s unfair competition. If beautyberries had antitrust lawyers, they’d no doubt sue.

   One way to brighten the dog days of late summer is to plant more variety. If you plant enough different things, you’re bound to end up with at least a few plants that look decent down the home stretch.

   Plant-shopping at this time of year – at the beginning of fall planting season – is another good way to turn the tables on the competition.

   This is when the dahlias look great and the peonies are looking ratty. It’s when the asters and goldenrods are in glorious bloom while the lilacs are dropping leaves from powdery mildew.

   A third strategy is planning for home-stretch interest no matter when you buy.

   When you stop and think about it, there’s actually a lot of potential beauty to tap into these next six weeks. The choices fall into five categories:

Help Those Heat-Beat Plants Recover

August 26th, 2025

   We should be past the worst of another summer’s heat and dryness and, if we catch a break, about to head into at least a few weeks of ideal growing time.

Don’t worry too much about scorched tree leaves like these.

   September and October can be two of our best months for plant growth. Baking temperatures back off, the soil stays warm enough for good root growth, and we usually get a little more useful rain.

   Those same conditions also are exactly what our heat- and drought-stressed plants need to recover.

   Don’t despair too much over plants with brown-edged leaves or bare branches. So long as the roots are OK, most plants should bounce back. Shedding leaves is one strategy that trees and flowering shrubs employ to survive drought since those are the main way they lose moisture in summer.

   The most important thing gardeners can do now to aid in plant recovery is give the ground a good, deep soaking and then keep it consistently damp right up until the ground freezes.

   That should be easier to do in fall as water demands go down and rainfall goes up (usually).

   Damp soil in fall aids root growth and helps plants recover from summer stresses. It also prevents plants from going into winter already dry and stressed, which is a particular threat to broadleaf evergreens, such as rhododendrons, azaleas, hollies, cherry laurels, nandinas, and boxwoods. (Evergreens continue to lose moisture in winter through their needles and leaves at a time when frozen ground can prevent them from taking up new moisture through the roots.)

   Bottom line: Don’t put away the hose too soon. We can get dry spells in September and October.