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.
You’ll find three different species of these late-spring bloomers with the strappy leaves and spiky flowers of blue, white, lavender or pale pink.
A patch of camassias just getting started in front of my front white privacy fence.
Mine have come back and bloomed reliably for years in late spring. They grow two to three feet tall and aren’t (usually) eaten by animals.
I say “usually” because I dug, divided, and expanded my two patches of camassia after bloom this spring, and something pulled up a lot of them. I suspect rabbits or curious deer. The maddening part is that the animal didn’t even eat the bulbs… just left them on the surface to dry and die if I hadn’t noticed.
Another native I’ve had success with in the past is the woodland or northern spider lily (Hymenocallis occidentalis).
Native to the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, northern spider lilies are distinctive for their long, slender, arching white petals. They grow in clumps of arching, strappy 18- to 24-inch foliage, either in sun or part shade but ideally in damp to even wet soil.
Unlike most bulbs that rot in wet soil, spider lilies will grow even in bogs and rain gardens.
Northern spider lilies blooming in spring.
A third one I’d recommend is the best performer (by far) in my latest experiment involving the selection of native bulbs I bought and planted last fall: triteleia (a.k.a. brodiaea).
The variety I planted was ‘Queen Fabiola,’ a bluish-purple bloomer that I’d never seen growing in anyone’s garden – public or private. I didn’t know what to expect, although the photos in the John Scheepers catalog looked nice.
‘Queen Fabiola’ took forever to emerge. The daffodils were up and done blooming by the time I started getting feeble, skinny shoots from the 50 small triteleia/brodiaea bulbs that I planted.
By late May, little flower buds were forming at the top of the foot-tall shoots. Then came the surprise show from mid to late June.
The buds opened into upright-facing, trumpet-shaped, blue-purple flowers that were both beautiful and untouched by the bunnies and roaming deer. I was impressed, although I’d suggest planting them closely (four inches apart) and using at least 50 at a time to make the most out of each plant’s lean stature.
As with alliums, the foliage of triteleia/brodiaea can start to die back even before the flowers peak, which could explain why they aren’t more popular. Also, I don’t know yet how this plant will fare in year two and beyond. But so far, so good.
As for the others I’ve tried, I wish I could say I’ve had success with two native favorites – trilliums and trout lilies.
These both are beautiful in woodland colonies in nature, but I haven’t had any luck with either in two different yards and several areas of each. Both haven’t emerged well even in the first year, then they’ve disappeared altogether for me in the second year.
Trilliums are short, April-blooming native bulbs with distinctive three leaves and three petals. They come in four main species in Pennsylvania (white, yellow, golden-yellow, and red) and prefer moist, organic-rich soil with good drainage, sited out of afternoon sun.
Trout lilies, also known as “dog’s tooth violets” (Erythronium americanum), are foot-tall shade-preferrers that produce yellow, hanging, bell-shaped flowers in April and May. I’ve tried the variety ‘Pagoda.’
This is the best I could do with trout lilies.
Despite giving both of these the conditions they seem to like, trilliums and trout lilies have been fizzlers in my efforts.
Maybe these are plants that just prefer to be left alone in nature than cultivated in home gardens.
Nodding onions are an Eastern- and Midwest-U.S. native allium. They don’t flower until early summer when clusters of hanging pink flowers open atop the 18-inch stiff flower stems. The foliage is strappy, and plants grow best in full sun, including dry and rocky soils.
I grew them in my previous Cumberland County garden, and although they grew, returned, and spread well, I didn’t care for them. They weren’t very showy.
In fact, they grew a little too well and seeded around where I really didn’t want them. So even though a native plant can’t be “invasive” by definition, nodding onions were too “aggressive” and not attractive enough for long enough to earn my garden space.
Two other native bulbs I tried for the first time in my 2024-25 experiment were calochortus and dichelostemma.
Native to California, calochortus is a lily-family six-incher that supposedly produces narrow leaves and mid- to late-spring pinkish-white, cup-shaped flowers.
Dichelostemma are two-footers with silver-dollar-sized lavender flowers that open in late spring from clumps of narrow, bladed foliage.
In my garden, both were near no-shows and produced zero flowers. I planted 10 bulbs of each in a mostly sunny flower bed, and only about a handful emerged. Those shoots died before flowering.
Maybe these were particularly vulnerable to our ridiculously rainy May?
I might try calochortus and dichelostemma again some other year in some other garden. But chalk up Round 1 to failure.
Two other native bulbs I haven’t tried yet are spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) and bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). These are also woodland natives, so if you’ve had success with trilliums and trout lilies, you’ll probably do well with these.
Where to find native bulbs?
If you’d like to do your own native-bulb experimenting, here are some resources. (Note: I don’t get any financial benefit or kickbacks from any of the below.)
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources “Where to Buy Native Plants” web pages
Pennsylvania Native Plant Society’s listing of native-plant sellers
Wild Ones of South Central Pennsylvania listing of native-plant sellers
Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, Gloucester Va.
Longfield Gardens, Lakewood, N.J.
American Meadows, Shelburne, Vt.
Prairie Moon Nursery, Winona, Minn.
John Scheepers Inc., Bantam, Conn.
Seven Oaks Native Nursery, Corvallis, Ore.
Read George’s column on seven things that can go wrong with spring bulbs and how to overcome them
Read George’s tips on how to plant spring-flowering bulbs