A Growing Affection for Late Bloomers

Naked, they’re a pretty unglamorous-looking lot.

They have thin, flaky skin, bulbous shapes and they’re a little hairy. But give them some time, a little care and wait for them to appear in their spring wardrobe, and they’ll dazzle you with glorious good looks.

Bulbs--whether purchased at your neighborhood gardening store or ordered from a specialty catalog, which imports them from Holland--are vibrant surprises. And though much of fall and all of winter are still ahead, this is the time to be thinking about and preparing bulbs, whose burst of sweet scent and riotous color will arrive in early spring.

As beautiful as bulbs are, many weekend gardeners and more-avid toilers of the soil shy away from them, fearing they require too much preparation before planting or too much fussing in the dirt afterward.

“Bulbs are like anything else,” said Rich Melendez, a certified nurseryman and salesman at Sperling Nursery in Calabasas. “You can be elaborate or basic. And it really doesn’t matter what you do because it will all look nice, whether it’s three bulbs next to a mailbox or a yard full of them.”

And some gardeners do get elaborate, timing their plantings so that their gardens pulse with color throughout late winter, spring and summer.

*

But beginners should not be discouraged by the time or knowledge it takes to create a field of blooms. You can always start simple.

“People who haven’t planted bulbs think they’re very hard,” said Chuck Tarpley, owner of Enchanted Way Nursery in Simi Valley, which stocks 100 varieties. “But once they do it, they realize that it’s a very easy, simple job, and the results are excellent.

“There are also physical and psychological rewards to working in the garden,” he added. “I always say that in this business we sell happiness.”

After all, a row of ruby red tulips beckoning from a garden or window box would lift anyone’s spirits. And a clump of laughing daffodils can brighten a rainy spring day.

While experts take pleasure in debunking the myth that bulbs are difficult to plant and tougher still to grow, they acknowledge that bulbs do not meet every gardener’s needs.

For one thing, bulbs must be planted during a fall window, usually now through January, in order to produce a spring bloom. Some bulbs have to be chilled first, and none provides immediate gratification by filling an empty spot the day they are sown. Bulb gardeners must wait two, three or four months for their rewards.

In addition, bulbs aren’t in bloom long--anywhere from several days to several weeks--and a winter or spring Santa Ana wind, with its hot, dry breath, can blow the life right out of a new bloom.

“We can have a heat wave here in March or April just when tulips are doing wondrous things,” said Kathleen Caillier, manager at Sheridan Gardens Nursery in Sun Valley. “If it’s hot and dry when they come up, they’ll last about half a day. Down here, we seem to get the hot, drying winds.”

And even when the weather is right, bulbs require a little preparation and some ongoing maintenance, minimal though it may be. In general, bulbs like a spot with sun or light shade. They prefer soil with good drainage and a touch of bone meal in the bottom of the planting hole, which should be dug to the right depth for the variety.

They like a good soaking every few weeks during rooting season and a little fertilizer every few weeks after the first foliage appears.

Thousands of Southern Californians plant bulbs every fall and spring as a ritual that signals the coming of a new season. And rather than scare first-time bulb growers away, the experts encourage them to give bulbs a chance, following a few simple, but very important, directions. Bulb producers supply nurseries with simple-to-follow guides for each variety selected, where they are handed out with each purchase.

*

Whether you want to add color to a border of shrubs, fill a garden or create a splash of color for your apartment patio, you can find the bulb that matches your commitment and desire. (Many, like irises and ranunculuses and lilies, are not technically bulbs. But because they are planted similarly and grow like bulbs, they are lumped together here and in nursery hand-outs and bins.)

Now, a few words about the touchy ones: tulips, hyacinths and crocuses. They’re really not so difficult, but they must be purchased at the garden store now so they can be refrigerated for six weeks before planting. Putting them in cold storage tricks them into thinking there is a blanket of snow above them, which simulates their native land of Holland.

So buy them now, label the paper sacks they came in and toss them in the back of the vegetable crisper for retrieval in December or January. They’ll reward you with blooms in March or April.

But remember that, in Southern California, bulbs must be pulled up during the summer, dried out and stored. Then, come early fall, they should be refrigerated again before planting.

Caillier in Sun Valley doesn’t recommend tulips for the warmer areas of the Valley. “This is not tulip country,” she said. “It’s not cold enough and it gets too hot.”

Some blooms native to the colder climes of Europe and North Africa, like daffodils and narcissuses, do very well in Southern California. They will naturalize, or bloom, year after year without replanting, said Liz Kimmel, bulb buyer for Sperling Nursery.

“But in most cases, the bulbs native to South Africa perform the best in Southern California,” she said.

She and other experts in the area say they sell more of the freesia, watsonia, amaryllis, ranuculus and sparaxis varieties, all natives to South Africa, where the climate is similar to the Valley’s.

Ranunculuses are particularly adept at withstanding the warmer temperatures, Kimmel said.

“They are good because they repeat their bloom,” she said. “They have more than one flower per bulb and they keep blooming until the warm weather sets in and persists.”

But she cautioned that a very wet winter can be as harmful as a hot, dry spell, causing some bulbs, especially ranunculuses, to rot if they are planted too deeply in heavy soil.

There are dozens of other bulbs to try, most of which will do very well here without much work.

For bulb beginners, however, it’s getting started that might be the hardest part.

Some people plot out their gardens, using a pencil and paper to map the design. They plan what bulbs to plant where, based on height, color, scent, and timing and duration of blooms.

*

Garden experts applaud that approach. But for someone new to bulbs, that kind of plotting might be the roadblock that keeps them out of the dirt. Sometimes, experts say, the best method to get going is just to drive to the garden store, have a look at the pictures of the plants in bloom and buy what appeals to the senses.

But beware: Buying bulbs can add up quickly. A recent trip to a nursery for some garden color of my own set me back $27. Of course, that included tulips at six for $3.59, irises at six for $2.29, daffodils at six for $5.39, six scilla bulbs for $2.98, six narcissuses at $4.19, and a bag of bone meal for $4.79 to mix in with the soil.

But it’s not as if you have to go back to the store to buy more bulbs every year, though many do. Bulbs propagate on their own and can be dug up at the end of their growing season, separated and replanted elsewhere in the garden.

They also can easily be dug up and moved. We have gladioli, bulbs planted in spring for summer and fall blooming, that my husband moved from my parents’ house after my father died. Each time I see their beautiful blooms, I am reminded of my mother and father.

Our neighbors, Gordon and Sue Stolla, have canna lilies from their grandmother’s garden. They have passed some of them on to their own grown children, other family members and friends.

“Most of our friends and many of their newly married children,” said Sue Stolla, “have at least one little canna lily patch in their yards.”

It’s easy to get carried away when you’re buying or planting bulbs: The nursery is filled with colorful pictures of gorgeous blooms and the words “Easy to Grow” written over the bulb packages.

This year I may have gotten carried away, considering the profusion of flora already planted around my house.

I guess spring will tell.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Dirt on Bulbs

* Find a sunny spot for most bulbs, but light shade is OK for scilla, freesia, hyacinth, narcissus, oxalis, calla, crocus, cyclamen and anemone.

* Buy a 5-pound bag of bone meal (about $4) to mix into the soil as a slow-release fertilizer.

* Buy the biggest bulbs for the biggest flowers.

* Try to keep some of that flaky skin around the bulbs as you plant them; it helps insulate them.

* The hairy part--actually the roots--point down.

* Follow the directions on refrigerating tulips, hyacinth and crocuses. It’s not a big deal; just label the paper sacks they come in with the type of bulb and the date and throw them in the back of the crisper. You might want to mark your calendar for the date to take them out, too.

* Don’t cut the foliage as soon as the bloom is wilted. Let the foliage die by itself and wait until the weather warms before you snip it. That gives them time to rejuvenate.

* MOST FRAGRANT BULBS: Freesia, narcissus, cyclamen, hyacinth.

* BEST-BET BULBS: Daffodil, narcissus, iris and ranunculus.

* BULBS IN POTS: Grow almost any bulb in a pot. Just follow the directions on light and planting depth.

* MOST COMMON MISTAKES: Planting at incorrect depth. Not chilling bulbs that require it.