Little Bulbs

Crocus

Some years ago, I read Elizabeth Lawrence's book The Little Bulbs: A Tale of Two Gardens, published in 1986.  If you haven't discovered Elizabeth Lawrence yet, you should.  She does the kind of informal but vastly informed garden writing one sees so often in British garden writers.  Of course, it helps to live in the southern half of the United States, as she writes from her home in the south. I had never tried the many little spring bulbs she writes about, but a couple of years ago I got inspired and ordered a few.  The crocus is delicate and beautiful, a real harbinger of the bulb season to come.  The little iris bucharica seems particularly to love it here, although Elizabeth Lawrence said she couldn't keep it.  It will be a little later, and bloom a brilliant soft yellow before the main iris season.

Iris bucharica