Category Archives: bulbs

bulbs, drought tolerant, months 01-03: winter, months 04-06: spring, months 10-12: fall, perrennials

Cyclamen Seedpods

06/30/2019 svseekins 1 Comment

What does Southern Vancouver Island have in common with Turkey on the Mediterranean?
Hardy Cyclamen.

hardy cyclamen, persian violet, , ivy-leaved cyclamen or sowbread, garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

Cyclamen hederifolium is native to Turkey, and that climate is quite like ours.
Would you’ve guessed?
So it kinda makes sense:
What prospers there…
prospers here.

garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

Hardy Cyclamen likes our dry summer. It goes dormant. Later, the cooling temperatures & returning rain of September triggers the awakening. One morning flowers are popping out of the ground & dancing in the dappled shade. What a lovely surprise. Flowers in autumn!
(Plus, what a bonus – a pretty plant that doesn’t need me dragging around a garden hose… AND one that’s happy in those tough-to-garden spots under trees!)

After pollinators do their thing, the flower stems curl into tight coils, pulling the seed pods to the ground. Leaves emerge, protecting the pods from our winter wind & rain. How tidy is that? I never feel the urge to deadhead. (Extra bonus – decorative foliage that stays green through our long, glum winter. And IF we get snow & severe cold, the cyclamen survives to -28C a colder winter than we’re likely to get.)

While so much of the garden is going nuts through spring, Cyclamen hederifolium is wrapping up its display. The leaves die back, revealing the maturing seed pods. A matt of balls on coil springs remind me where the plant is preparing for sleep. Doesn’t it look GROOVY?

Ants think it’s pretty groovy, too. The seeds are coated with a sweet film. Ants gather them & take them home to feed the masses.
Win – Win – Win.
Ants get a treat.
The seed is sown.
And the gardener has a new no-fuss plant.

What an ingenious system for naturalizing through the garden … and beyond.

Barely noticeable little seedlings sprout in lawns & woodland parks alike. Eventually, the tiny corms can grow to the size of dinner plates.
Welcome or not.

hardy cyclamen coum, eastern cyclamen C. coum garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

I grow a few varieties of Hardy Cyclamen. Over 10 years, I’ve noticed a couple baby plants growing near their parents. I’m particularly fond of the February bloomer Cyclamen coum.

C. coum is a timid seeder in comparison with the C. hederifolium. The fall bloomer out-competes the winter bloomer. I’m very careful to keep each cyclamen variety in its own bed.

Believe it or not — C. hederifolium is on the District of Saanich’s Invasive Plants list! It naturalizes that well around here. It must out-compete more than just the C. coum.

I have to admit to still holding a torch for these funky plants.
Does it count in my favour that I’ve dug some cyclamen invaders out of a couple wild parklands?
They’ve been planted in spots they’re not likely to escape without notice…

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bulbs, drought tolerant, garden chores, months 01-03: winter, months 04-06: spring, projects, urban deer

Digging Bluebells

05/29/2019 svseekins 7 Comments

Hyacinthoides hispanica – bluebells spanish blue bells garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

For a few years, I thought bluebells were lovely spring flowers & welcomed them into our beds & borders. And no wonder:

Each stem bears a profusion of bellflowers.
The bells dangle & shift delicately in the breeze.
Deer ignore the blossoms.
Bluebells are just so darn pretty.
Great masses of them are even prettier. Have you seen the blue carpets of English woodlands in bloom?

In the Pacific Northwest, we have similar growing conditions to the UK. Bluebells grow just as well here but aren’t as welcome. (preference is for our native Camas.) It’s becoming more apparent to me how thuggish bluebells can be – overwhelming whatever they’re grown with, especially other bulbs – – like Camas. 😦 It’s a pity something so pretty can be such a bully.

before the dig - Hyacinthoides hispanica – bluebells spanish blue bells garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

This spring, my challenge is to clear one bed of as much bluebell as possible. Here’s a “Before the dig” photo: I do like the lush spring foliage of the bluebells, but can you see any of the perennials? Those plants are hidden from sunshine by masses of bluebell leaf.

A pitchfork worked well in the moist soil. Great clumps of bluebell came out. Apparently, bluebells don’t leave their survival to seed dispersal alone. Each bulb can produce offsets, forming dense clusters. Clever. Check out how deep some bulbs were! The bluebells in this photo had only just reached the surface of the soil! That’s a loooong climb through darkness. Imagine how much energy the bulb had stored in order to grow that much stem in search of sunshine!! (If only we could harness that energy!)

Then… I started noticing how some of the shoots were creating replacement bulbs closer to the surface. Isn’t that clever, too? Another excellent survival strategy. I wonder how deeply a bulb can be buried before it just cannot reach the soil surface & re-establish itself?

And THEN… I noticed how some bulbs were sending out ‘runners.’ This is undoubtedly an effective way of increasing its distribution in the bed! These bluebells are determined to take over.

There were masses of new starts– baby plants that likely grew from the seeds that fell last year. I tried my best to get them all. But just think about it — my digging has likely exposed more of the seed bank to the sunshine. More bluebells are about to sprout. There’s no way I dug out ALL the bulbs. Many stems broke off, leaving the bulbs deep in the ground. Hopefully, depriving the bulb of this year’s leaf will starve it enough that it won’t grow next year. What are the chances?

after the dig - Hyacinthoides hispanica – bluebells spanish blue bells garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

I’ll continue to pull any that I find this spring. For now, the bed is clear enough that the other plants have access to the sunshine & a chance to grow. I guess we’ll have to wait until next spring to see how well the effort pays off…

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Other plants that might be considered ‘weeds’:

bulbs, garden visits, months 01-03: winter, months 04-06: spring, urban deer

Daffodil Meadow

03/17/2019 svseekins 1 Comment

Years ago, I lived beside Beacon Hill Park’s daffodil meadow. It was the first I’d ever seen. Spring magic.

Narcissus Daffodil, jonquil, daffadowndilly, garden Victoria BC Pacific Northwest — photo by BE Hansen

The happy yellow blooms delight me. Plus, I like the little trumpets that protect the flower’s naughty bits from the early rains.
Clever, eh? 🙂

The deer-resistant Narcissus is easy to grow in Victoria. Many varieties are even cold tolerant to zone 3, surviving -40 degrees C! We don’t get anywhere near that cold here. Actually, as our winters gradually become milder, we’re encountering daffodil woes similar to England’s.

Many of the daffs that show up in your local grocery store’s flower stand originate in Victoria. Famous for producing the largest crop of daffodils in Canada, Vantreights took an early lead in making the daffodil the Flower of Hope for the Canadian Cancer Society.

At one point, Vantreights farmed on a leased parcel of land that is now The Horticultural Centre of the Pacific: one of my favourite gardens. Today the HCP enjoys a residual daffodil meadow sloping down to the lake.

daffodils Narcissus at Camosun College garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

Vantreights farmed in Gordon Head before that land became a residential subdivision. I’ve even heard that our street, on the southern slope of Mt. Tolmie, hosted a farm that grew the bulbs, too.

There are some tricks to growing a spring-flowering meadow. Although daffodils bloom before the grasses start to grow strongly, their leaves are still busy collecting energy for next year’s flowers when C has the uncontrollable urge to dust off the lawnmower. Zip, there goes the meadow!

The park’s staff at Beacon Hill let the meadow grow naturally all through May before mowing. By then, the ephemeral bulbs have ripened & receded into dormancy.

Shorter growing spring bulbs, like crocus, stand half a chance in our lawn, but not daffodils. Ditto for snowdrops, tulips & camas. These I’ll leave to naturalize in our beds & borders instead.

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Here are some other meadow faves: