Home » Plants & Animals » Shade Gardening » Bulbs for Shady Places -- Part 1

Bulbs for Shady Places -- Part 1

© Marge Talt

"Bulbs" is a term used to describe plants that grow from true bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers. If you've ever been confused about the difference between true bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, tuberous roots, and enlarged hypocotyls, Clemson Universitie's Types of Geophytes page will straighten them out for you. Descriptions as well as line drawings make the differences clear.

It's getting a bit late in the season to start thinking about bulbs, but I've been enjoying some new acquisitions that are in bloom right now, and I have a few more to plant. So, my mind's been on bulbs. It's not too late to plant them, if you can find them. You can plant anytime the ground isn't frozen. I've planted tulips on New Year's Day and had them bloom in spring. But, for many of them, it's best to plant in early fall so they have more time to establish their roots.

There are hundreds of bulbous plants for the garden. Many prefer or tolerate shade, particularly the minor spring flowering bulbs who grow, flower and die down before the leaves are fully out on deciduous trees and shrubs.

The minor bulbs are so easy to grow — so undemanding, and, in my USDA zone 7 garden, they provide sheets of color in early spring. My garden would be a dull place, indeed, without them.

I'm an irregular bulb planter. Some years I get busy and order lots of them and some years I plant none. Some years I plant tulips, although I know they don't like my climate and conditions. While they will grow and bloom in part shade, they really want hot sun and dry soil in summer when they are dormant. Some stick around for a few years, but they never achieve their original glory.

Visit Mary Lou Gripshover's Daffodil topic on Suite 101 to learn everything you need to know about planting daffodils. Follow her links for more information about them.

Daffodils and other members of the Narcissus family are great for shady gardens. I've got hundreds of them naturalized in woodland areas, as well as in clumps and drifts in just about every border. The one thing to their detriment is their long, slow and ugly death. You absolutely have to let the foliage die off naturally, if you want flowers in future. This isn't much of a problem if you've got them coming up through ivy or another robust ground cover. But their lingering death looks awful at the edge of a path. The large hostas are good at hiding the dying foliage of daffodils and tulips, by the way.

The copyright of the article Bulbs for Shady Places -- Part 1 in Shade Gardening is owned by . Permission to republish Bulbs for Shady Places -- Part 1 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.