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Beautiful Bulbous Plants for the Open Air · John Weathers — chapter 2 of 16 · ~1,687 words · public domain

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Index ix

Introduction 1

Geographical Distribution 6

Something about Bulbs and Corms 7

Soil for Bulbous Plants 16

Hints to Beginners 18

How Deep should Bulbs be Planted? 22

Natural Sinking of Bulbs and Corms 25

Bulbs without Contractile Roots 27

Propagation of Bulbous Plants:-- By Offsets, Bulbils, Leaf-Scales, Division, Seeds. 29-36

Lifting and Storing Bulbs 36

Combinations of Bulbous and Non-Bulbous Plants 38

Naturalising Bulbous Plants in the Grass 41

Bulbous Plants under Trees and Shrubs 43

Bulbous Plants for Cut Flowers 43

Bulbous Plants for Cold Greenhouses 46

Bulbous Plants for Window Boxes 48

Descriptions, Culture, Propagation, &c., of the Best Bulbous Plants for the Open Air 50

Enemies of Bulbous Plants 141

Manuring Bulbous Plants 148

INDEX

BEAUTIFUL BULBOUS PLANTS.

INTRODUCTION.

The cultivation of Bulbous Plants has reached a point of popularity at the present day that it has never before attained. And there is every reason to believe that this popularity is increasing from year to year as more people become better acquainted with these plants, and the ease with which the great majority of them may be grown in almost any garden. Indeed there are now so many kinds of bulbous plants that there is no difficulty in making a selection to suit the smallest garden or the most modest purse.

Of course, some kinds, such as Tulips, Daffodils and Narcissi, Hyacinths, Crocuses, Snowdrops, Scillas, Bluebells, Chionodoxas, Grape Hyacinths, Lilies, Colchicums, Gladioli, and Montbretias, will be always probably amongst the first favourites with garden lovers. But there is no reason why the Mariposa Lilies and Star Tulips, the Brodiaeas and Millas, the Sternbergias and Fritillarias, and many others should not in the course of time become almost equally popular when they become better known.

Some kinds of bulbous plants have been known in British Gardens--and no doubt in continental ones also--ever since such a thing as gardening proper came to be distinguished from mere agriculture. Our native or naturalised bulbs--such as the Snake's Head Fritillary (Fritillaria Meleagris), the Yellow Star of Bethlehem (Gagea lutea), as well as the white ones (Ornithogalum nutans, pyrenaicum, and umbellatum), the Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale), the Lent Lily or Daffodil (Narcissus Pseudo-Narcissus), the Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), the Snowflake (Leucojum vernum), the Grape Hyacinth (Muscari racemosum), the Squill (Scilla verna), and the Bluebell (S. festalis), the Martagon Lily (Lilium Martagon), and the Wild Tulip (Tulipa sylvestris) have been grown as garden plants for 400 years or more.

The great monastic establishments were the seats of gardening as of learning, and it is in connection with them we find the first traces of bulbous or any other plants being intelligently cultivated. Besides the plants mentioned, our earliest garden records show that such bulbous plants as the Dog's Tooth Violet (Erythronium Dens-Canis), the Crown Imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), Gladiolus communis, the Garden Hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis), the Madonna Lily (Lilium candidum), the Poet's Narcissus and the Jonquil (N. poeticus and N. Jonquilla), the Star Hyacinth (Scilla amoena), the Lily of the Field (Sternbergia lutea), and Gesner's Tulip (T. Gesneriana), were among the first kinds cultivated from the beginning of the 16th century, and they are all more popular to-day than ever. Following these we find such Tulips as suaveolens and Clusiana, the yellow-flowered Onion (Allium Moly), the Cloth of Gold Crocus (C. Susianus), the Byzantine Gladiolus (G. byzantinus), and others in the 17th century. The beginning of the 18th century saw the introduction to our gardens of the Belladonna Lily (Amaryllis Belladonna), and later on the Babianas, Ixias, and other Gladioli like blandus, cuspidatus, and cardinalis.

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