SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2003

One of the great things about life in the garden is that it keeps giving us something new to look forward to. The carpet of crocus fades into history and I shed a proverbial tear (so soon?), but all those multihued tulips are about to take their place, and they’re so much more colorful. I forget the crocus.

Soon there are pink roses and blue Siberian iris—a winning partnership if ever there was. And when they pass into history, the coneflowers and summer phlox take over. (I really must grub them out sometime. Maybe next year.)

To keep my dog-days August garden from living up to its name, I added three ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ dahlias this year. With red flowers atop 4-foot stalks of nearly black foliage, these big beauties should lead me happily into fall.

But then the pickins do slim down. ‘Hella Lacy’ aster waits until October to open its big-as-a-shrub ball of deep purple blooms (slothful Monarchs enroute to Mexico always manage to find it mid-month). There are mums, of course, but...but...

Just when you thought the fun was over, you step out into the garden one nippy day and see clusters of large lavender colchicums as late as November and purple autumn-flowering crocus. These are bulbs you can plant in August and still see them flowering before the snow flies. The downside (and doesn’t every plant have a downside?) is that the flowers need a little support to stand up nice and straight. Wind and heavy rain send them sprawling.

One solution used by my neighbors Rita and Kitty Picken is to grow the bulbs through a solid groundcover like ivy. During a mild fall like the one we had the year I snapped the photo above, their annual blue ‘Victoria’ salvia was still blooming when the colchicum popped through the ivy. It was a charming, successful combination and would no doubt work for autumn crocus as well.

I’ve been thinking a lot about autumn-flowering bulbs since Kate Jerome wrote her story on the subject (page 50) and have decided that what my garden most desperately needs right about now is, say, 50 new Crocus sativus speciosus, described by the McClure & Zimmerman bulb merchants in Friesland, Wisconsin, as “nearly fail proof” and “one of the easiest to grow.” While I’m at it, I think I’ll dabble in a dozen of the saffron crocus as well (C. sativus ‘Saffron’), even though these zone 5 bulbs are reputedly a little iffy here. And that order is going to include some colchicum as well, but with 16 different types listed in the catalog I’m having a hard time making a decision, although I’m sure I’ll rise to the challenge somehow.

If I get them planted in time this fall, I should still see flowers bloom before winter, but if not, there’s always next year. Life is good when I have something to look forward to.