How to Naturalize Spring Flower Bulbs in the Landscape
Naturalistic landscapes are my favorites. I’m more at home in a wildflower meadow than on a manicured lawn bordered by topiary-pruned boxwoods and well-behaved rose bushes.
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Give me a woodsy setting with drifts of bluebells and tulips frolicking beneath the trees any day. I like randomness and surprises, as if Mother Nature scattered flowers with reckless abandon.
Instead of fitting plants into beds and borders, this article focuses on naturalizing flowering bulbs to create ever-increasing expanses of seasonal color in the home landscape.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Ready? Get your garden planner out, because we’re about to begin!
The Naturalistic LandscapeWhen spring comes to a naturalistic setting, yellow winter aconite covers streambeds and works its way up hillsides, with nodding snowdrops pushing up alongside them.
Hillsides shade to violet as grape hyacinths pop up among the grass.
Sunny daffodils rise cheerily from beds of Siberian squill.
And some of my absolute favorites, checkered fritillaria, are a wonder of nature if ever there was one, with squares of contrasting colors adorning their petals.
The beauty is in the chaos – the riot of color renewing spring’s promise to return at winter’s end.
Best Bulbs for NaturalizingWinter aconite, snowdrops, grape hyacinths, daffodils, Siberian squill, and fritillaria are spring-flowering bulbs that readily naturalize.
Others are:
English Bluebells Crocuses Dwarf Woodland Irises Glory of the Snow Wood AnemonesUnder ideal conditions, naturalizing bulbs produce “offsets” that spread through the soil. In
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