Show Me Smart Gardening With Spring Bulbs

MaryAnn’s Smart Choices for Missouri –

Show Me Smart Gardening With Spring Bulbs

Collectively termed geophytes, bulbs are divided into various subcategories based on their specialized root structures. These include corms—swollen underground stems; true bulbs—modified leaves and scales usually with a papery covering; tubers—a mass of modified stem tissue with several points of growth; tuberous roots—swollen roots that serve as storage organs; and rhizomes—subsurface, horizontal swollen stems.
Other sometimes hard to find native bulbs and other Missouri favorites that are often over looked but also have storage capacity in their root zone:

Ornamental Onions
Allium canadense*, Allium stellatum, Allium cernuum, Allium tricoccum

Wild Hyacinth
Camassia scilloides, Camassia esculenta,

Spring beauty
Claytonia caroliniana and C. virginica

Dutchman's breeches
Dicentra cucullaria

Trout lily
Erythronium americanum

Liverwort
Hepaticas (Anemone acutiloba, A. americana; these were formerly in the genus Hepatica)

Spider lily
Hymenocallis caroliniana,

Iris
Iris fulva, virginica, Iris brevicaulis and cristata,

Bloodroot
Sanguinaria Canadensis

Bouquet tulips –Consider these a diverse group of tulips with short term life span. Consider these like annuals that require great drainage.


Candy Club (white flamed flowers with rose pink 18 - 20" (46-50 cm) tall, late spring flowering) Happy Family (deep rose, 20" (50 cm) tall, mid-spring flowering, Triumph Tulip*Praestans Fusilier (vermillion red, 8 - 10" (20 - 25 cm) tall, plant 4" (10 cm) deep, early spring flowering, Botanical Species Tulip)**
This antique variety and my favorite fragrant daffodils varieties are deer resistant and easy to grow!


Thalia * –This is one of the oldest most reliable performers. It is non-invasive but naturalizes very well.
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Cheerfulness / Yellow Cheerfulness