Spring Delight
Who would expect March and April to be colourful months in the perennial flower beds, even in your lawn. As soon as the snow is gone you can enjoy many spring flowering bulbs, long before tulips have emerged. If you plan carefully you can have a continuous flower show from mid-March all the way into May. These are mostly smaller bulbs with bright colours.
Here is a list of bulbs that you can plant in the fall for spring flowering. They are available, as they say on TV, in all good Garden Centres.
The Galanthus is the 1st to flower in March, then Yellow Crocuses followed by the other colours and Chionodoxia, Scilla & Pushkinia. Exact date will change from year to year depending on spring temperatures.
Galanthus and Crocuses are well behaved and will increase slowly. In the Fall, you can lift some sod in a lawn, put place crocuses and then put the sod back in place for a show the following years. You will need to mow around the crocus leaves until they disappear by themselves.
Scilla and Chionodoxia will spread both by seed and bulb division. Be ready to find them everywhere after a few years. They will spread even into lawns and under trees. Quite a show if you’ve got the room. They will start blooming in early April and into early May.
Narcissus (Daffodils) will bloom from mid-April well into May depending on the varieties. There is wide choice of sizes, height, flower shapes and colour combinations.
Bee Friendly: also a Spring Delight for the honey bee. This is the first fresh food for bees and other pollinator, in mid-afternoon on a sunny day there are so many pollinators that these flowers can be heard.
Jean-Paul Soucy (Horticulture & Garden Centre Operations teacher)