Bulbs

The great and varied bulb clan bolds no end of delights for gardeners. Bulbs usher in the garden's first colors in spring and see out the last blooms of fall. Ideal companions, they withdraw when their time is up, then reappear when you most appreciate them the next year.

Whether among their own kind or mixed with other types of flowers, as in the Virginia garden at left, bulbs make for a colorful scene. Here, tulips and jonquils form a pool of golden yellow with daisylike doron icums on an April morning. The rich violet-blue of grape byacinths offers a pretty contrast to the yellow bues and picks up the lavender-pink of a nearby azalea. The emerging foliage of bee balm, a frost-tinged silver gray, cools the scene.

Bulbs are amenable to every planting scheme from the regimental trim of a formal bed to the loose abundance of a woodland plot to the cozy confines of a window box. The following pages will show you how to cultivate, care for and propagate all types of bulbs in all of these settings