From the Ground Up
by Rex Watson

Sometimes I'm running amok on a busy day at the Home Depot, and someone will ask me: "Where are your bulbs?" So I ask them, "The ones you screw into the ceiling or plant in the ground?" They look at me kind’a funny and tell me they want to plant them. So I usher them out of the electrical department and show them what I have in the garden department - freesia, gladiola, iris, narcissus, tulips, ranunculas, which bloom repeatedly year after year if removed after blooming and replanted in the fall. You can separate the “doubled” bulbs.

A bulb by definition is "a modified stem acting as a storage organ." That means they keep coming back, like in-laws. But unlike the former mentioned, you can look forward to their appearance. To ensure this will happen, you have to put them in their place, plant them in un-decomposed peat moss with charcoal (the bulbs, not the in-laws) if you grow them in a pot. There are many bulb planting mixes on the market - a handful of bonemeal at the bottom of the planting hole (like adding salt to spaghetti water) will be successful.

But, like spaghetti, things can get sticky. Flies or ink spots (not the singers) can attack irises and look like yellow or black spots on the leaves. It's fungus and needs to be treated as such. You could spray a fungicide on it, but my suggestion would be to rotate the plants. It's moving things around that sometimes saves a plant from what is destroying it.

Try to keep plants where they are most happy. When you bought your bulbs, they were dry and clean and kind of small because they were younger plants. The sooner you get them into the ground, the more production you will enjoy - with the exception of tulips. To make them bloom again, dig them up, store them in a dry place, and in October, put them in the fridge for 6 weeks. Then plant them, six inches under, keep them wet and give them a fair amount of sun. As for your other bulbs, don’t cut the fronds after they bloom. These nourish the bulb for next year’s bloom. Feed them at this time.

Rex Watson is the nursery specialist at Home Depo in No. Hollywood.