Adding winter perennials will create opportunities for magic moments

Opinion: We can start planning next winter’s colour now by planting a selection of early flowering, uniquely foliaged shrubs that will provide great backdrops for winter-flowering bulbs.

A cheery spring mix of Anemone blanda and blue muscari. Photo by Courtesy of Florissa.com /PNG

After visiting the Netherlands in January a few years ago and discovering the value of winter-blooming bulbs, we decided this past winter to pot a number of minor bulbs and to watch their performance in terms of early garden colour. The minor bulbs have proven to be magnificent. No matter how the rest of our spring weather unfolds, the continuous sequence of their stunning early colour will continue to impress.

In coastal areas, many minor bulbs are already in bloom, but throughout the Lower Mainland and into the Interior, warming temperatures in these regions will dictate when their blooming period begins. With some careful planning, you can create a sequence of colour that will continue for months. In addition, as these bulbs naturalize and perennialize, their displays will only improve year-after-year.

The art of combining bulbs and integrating them into a garden is so important. Pairing them with smaller flowering shrubs and trees, like winter-flowering heathers, dwarf rhododendrons and azaleas, flowering red currants and dwarf forsythias, provides minor bulbs with safe, seldom-disturbed locations to naturalize.

Anemone blanda ‘White Splendour’ is an excellent minor bulb that lights up any spring garden. Photo by Courtesy of Florissa.com /PNG

When it comes to choosing the best options for gardens, I always recommend going with the longer-blooming varieties. Cool, wet weather will give you two-to-three more weeks of colour. When the sun does come out, it really shortens their display time. So, when warmer weather arrives, shady locations are often more favourable spots for lengthening the bloom time of minor bulbs.

Snowdrops, along with winter aconites (eranthis), are the earliest to bloom. They combine well with the rich dark colours of winter heathers, like Kramer’s Red, the black leaves of mondo grass (Ophiopogon Nigrescens) and the deep burgundy foliage of the many new bergenias.

Crocuses are the most popular minor bulbs, with snow or botanical crocuses being the earliest to bloom, but the large-flowered hybrid crocuses, especially when planted in separate colour blocks of yellow, white or purple, create a far greater impact. They complement well when planted around weeping red Japanese maples, when tucked under compact, red-stemmed shrub dogwoods or when growing alongside roses, especially when their early red foliage is showing. For an outstanding display, plant them among golden, evergreen Angelina sedums.

Muscari Grape Ice, with its snowy white cap, is a very unique minor bulb. Photo by Courtesy of Florissa.com /PNG

The ever-expanding family of grape hyacinths (muscari) is one of my favourites. Its wide colour range runs from the striking, traditional blue of M. armeniacum to such varieties as White Magic, Pink Surprise, paler blue Baby’s Breath and the dark blue Paradoxum. The soft blue Mount Hood and the purple Grape Ice are both bicolours topped with a white cap. They make refreshing, long lasting, ‘wow’ displays, whether planted by themselves in drifts or combined with companion plants, such as yellow-stemmed shrub dogwoods, forsythia and white iberis (candytuft).

Scillas, often known as bluebells, bloom right after the muscaris. Scilla siberica, a rich blue that grows about six inches tall, is pure magic planted around golden evergreen grasses, like Everillo and Evergold carex. Scilla campanulata, blended with anything pink, white or blue, creates quite a bright spot in any garden. Evergreen blue fescues, like Beyond Blue, are greatly enhanced by scillas’ April displays. Even though most scillas are somewhat shade-loving, cooler spring weather allows them to be quite at home almost anywhere in the garden.

White plays such an important role in our gardens, and there is a wide range of white-blooming bulbs that will provide great displays over a long period of time. For the first five months of the year, it’s quite possible to create a white garden by using early snowdrops, white scillas, Anemone blanda and the tiny, nodding flowers of leucojum, that continue blooming into May. Combining them with white winter heather, white arabis and candytuft, along with silvers, such as dusty miller, artemisia and Sedum acre, adds sophistication to the subtleties of a white garden.

When we think of narcissus, we always think of yellow, but one of the most unique and tiniest of all, growing only four inches high, is Arctic Bells, with its large white trumpets and tiny perianths. The narcissus Thalia, growing 12 inches tall, is rocking white with a profusion of tiny, white blooms from each bulb. It, too, naturalizes well.

The soft yellow/white narcissus, Jack Snipe, is both short and prolific. Golden Echo and Sailboat are two yellow/white narcissi that grow 10 inches tall, are extremely hardy and bloom a long time. Early blooming rhododendrons, like PJM, surrounded with the blooms of these lovely bulbs, creates a magnificent show.

We can start planning next winter’s colour now by planting a selection of early flowering, uniquely foliaged shrubs that will provide great backdrops for winter-flowering bulbs. Even adding winter perennials, like iberis, aubretias, arabis, bergenias and evergreen sedums, will create opportunities for magical combinations to come.

If you have a chance to visit some of our beautiful B.C. gardens at this time of year, please go and discover these amazing bulbs.