Old Wordsworth was right, wasn’t he? You’d have to be a miserable soul not to be cheered by the sight of a sheet of golden daffodils in spring. Snowdrops are sweet but daffs are the first really happy eyeful.
Still, what comes next? You’ve got your patch of rough grass or verge, maybe under the edge of trees, and the daffs are fading, but what’s to follow? Yes, I know long grass is good for wildlife but you need not stop there. There are other bulbs you can grow in grass that will keep you smiling for a while longer yet. So long as the grass is not so thick and lush that bulb foliage has no chance of competing there are many things you could grow, and although it’s more normal to plant dry in autumn, many of the fancier varieties are sold potted now.
Leucojum
The summer snowflake, Leucojum aestivum, flowers in spring and gets going with the daffs in March but outlasts them, often into May. Think of it as a big-headed snowdrop on 50cm stilts.
More often than not it’s the massive variety ‘Gravetye Giant’ you see for sale, a towering 80cm when it’s in moist soil near a pond, but it’s so vigorous that it makes heavy clumps that look a bit ponderous in grass. The straight species, Leucojum aestivum, looks much more natural and has a lighter touch. It’s also shorter. But then if you were trying to compete with lush grass maybe ‘Gravetye Giant’ would be your best choice.
Bluebells
We may think of bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scriptus) as true cool woodlanders and perhaps not compatible with daffs, which prefer more light, but it’s not quite so if you live somewhere higher and naturally cooler, where bluebells may be happy in the open. It’s always worth trying them, as long as the grass isn’t too thick.
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Camassias
On the other hand, camassias, while not native, do provide a more striking show because they get their heads out of the grass. Camassia leichtlinii makes spires at least knee high that continue to open from the top as they rise. There are pale forms as well as dark forms and doubles, all commonly potted.
Trouble with these guys, mind you, is they are not cheap. If you want lots you have to plant lots in the first place, or do regular, serious division. C. quamash is shorter and darker — more ordinary — but much cheaper.
Fritillaries
There is something almost unnatural about the drooping maroon (or white) flowers of snake’s head fritillaries, Fritillaria meleagris (30cm), patterned in that strange chequerboard effect. It’s not unique, you can find it in some colchicums such as C. agrippinum, but in snake’s head fritillaries the effect is so much more conspicuous. Instagram loves it, of course.
It’s a plant for moist meadows where, if it’s happy, it will self-seed. It has its occasional enemies — bud-gobbling pheasants and sometimes lily beetles, but don’t be put off.
Tulips
Tulips are kind of bonkers in grass and to look right you have to be confident and plant lots of them — even in mixed colours, single plants, tall as you like, till the grass is spangled with them. Plant them 15cm deep. You should get a few years’ flower out of the bulbs, but you’ll probably have to keep topping up to maintain numbers or particular colours. Not for lush grass.
Alliums
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On the other hand, the bigger, knee and thigh-high alliums seem to do remarkably well in really quite lush grass, perhaps because they leaf up and die back so soon; they get their feeding done before the grass overwhelms them. And they stand up very well indeed.
Good old Allium aflatunense works well and so does ‘Purple Rain’, which you can see in sheets at Wisley.
Irises
Not many people grow Dutch irises (70cm) in grass, perhaps because we consider them to be florists’ flowers, and yet you could say the same about daffs or tulips. We grow plenty of dwarf bulbous irises outdoors, and we can even grow bearded iris species such as I. germanica and I. pallida in thin grass under small trees in hot parts of the UK.
So why not try Dutch irises in meadow grass (I. x hollandica)? It works. Like tulips they don’t last forever, but while they do they’re great. Best not to mix the colours or use bi-colours if you don’t want the florist’s look.
Who could be bothered dead-heading daffodils in grass? But if you have fancy ones in pots or expensive posh new ones, it is worth dead-heading them, to make sure all the energy is put back into the bulbs and next year’s flowers. Learn to do it with finger and thumb, then it’s quick. Then try two-handed!
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Snowdrops can be divided now in leaf — “in the green” — and so can erythroniums like the big yellow ‘Pagoda’. It’s a good idea to do it as they are in leaf for such a short time then they’re gone and invisible again before you know it. They both need the same conditions for planting: in spring light and moisture, and in summer shade and dryer, such as under trees.
Time to sow hardy annuals, those easiest of flowers — calendulas, nasturtiums, cornflowers, lavateras etc. Choose patches where you want them to grow, and sow thinly and shallowly. You can raise hardy annuals in small pots or modules and plant them out as soon as they are established, but plants which have germinated in situ will always have better anchorage through the season.
In mild gardens and by the sea, hardy fuchsias such as Fuchsia magellanica, ‘Tricolor’, ‘Riccartonii’, ‘Hawkshead’ and var. molinae can make big gawky shrubs that need tidying up now, removing all those small shoots that died back in winter and perhaps thinning out crossed branches. In colder gardens, where die-back is more severe, they are better cut down to 10cm to produce a fountain of 1m stems, which will flower slightly later than the larger shrubs. Give them a compost mulch.
Pinch out the tips of the shoots of indoor fuchsias to make them bushy. It seems cruel, but it’s more important to establish a bushy plant at this stage than to get them up and flowering. Remember they will happily be flowering in November, there’s no rush.
Q. I have a small apple tree in my garden. It’s very old and I’d expect the grass underneath it to be starved and yet it’s incredibly green. Why would that be? I have to mow it more than the lawn around it.
D Goss
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A. You’re right about likely starvation. But I bet anything you have bird feeders in the tree. Lots of birds means lots of bird muck as well as a mulch of peanut husks or whatever — quite enough to fertilise the grass. Rehang them elsewhere if it really troubles you. Incidentally, if you feel it’s dangerously unhygienic for birds to be constantly feeding among their own faeces, take a look at Finches Friend bird feeders (finchesfriend.com) which separate food, water and faeces, keeping the birds safer from parasites, and the food safe from squirrels and parakeets. Not cheap, but then peanuts cost the earth, frankly.
Q. What’s the name of the aquilegia with fluffy flowers? I’ve seen it a few times and want to get it.
G Hollins
A. There isn’t one, unless you mean the very double-flowered forms like ‘Nora Barlow’. Perhaps you have been looking at thalictrums (meadow rues), whose leaves and stems do look very similar: upright, delicate and brittle-looking. One of them is called Thalictrum aquilegiifolium (mauve, and there’s a white form, ‘Album’), and instead of the ‘Granny’s bonnet’ flowers of an aquilegia it has dense clouds of powder puffs. Flowering time is June-July, overlapping with aquilegias in May-June, and it looks great with pale Scots roses. Thalictrum flavum is pale yellow and like many a meadow rue, its foliage is grey-blue. But if you really like thalictrums, try T. rochebrunianum, which flowers later, in July-August. It’s as tall as you, but the tiny pink flowers are held in a tall, open haze. Several plants together look magical.
Send your questions to stephen.anderton@thetimes.co.uk
