A Year in Bloom: Flowering Bulbs for Every Season by Lucy Bellamy with photographs by Jason Ingram New York: Phaidon Press, 2024. $39.95 list $33.92 Amazon
Leaves have turned from green to gold, orange, red. Then fall. Flannel sheets on our bed. House plants hurried in from outdoors where they spent the summer. It feels like a withdrawing. But fall is also for planting.
Regardless of their time to flower, bulbs from spring crocus, hyacinths to tulips and daffodils, summer's lilies and autumn's colchicum are planted in autumn. Like an affirmation that this fall of the year, it too will pass. By planting bulbs in the fall we are offered a hopeful look forward. Advice on which bulbs to choose, where to plant and how to do it is always helpful. A Year in Bloom is like an expanded catalog, ordering options and possibilities, flowering bulbs, corms, and tubers for every season.
Sensible advice is needed because nonsense abounds. I saw something that suggested, "When planting directly into the lawn, don’t fret about placement. Just toss a handful of bulbs into the air and plant them where they land. In spring, they’ll look like they’ve been there for years. Trust me on this." Hmm yes, it is not so. Some of the bulbs pitched into the air will fall and hit your head, others drop at your feet, and any remainder roll away, to vanish under leaves. Straight rows look like a crop field. What to do? Sandy Snyder, a friend in Littleton, Colorado planted her buffalo grass lawn with bulbs in a spiral pattern. Excellent solution.
A Year in Bloom is like an expanded catalog of 150 bulbs, offering a full page of image and information for each of a diversity of bulbs, corms, and tubers. Regardless of their time to flower, bulbs from spring crocus, hyacinths to tulips and daffodils, summer's lilies and autumn's colchicum are planted in autumn. Advice is always helpful, and Lucy Bellamy sought suggestions from nearly 50 "Nominators", mostly from the UK and the Netherlands, a handful from the USA, and a few from elsewhere. They are referenced in the book, and helpfully, in the index.
Let us look at Late Winter and Early Spring. Of course, snowdrops.
In established, naturalized planting of snowdrops, Galanthus, in Somerset, UK.
Then there are several pages of uncommon cultivars. Nice to know, difficult to find.
These two sections, for Late Winter and Early Spring, together with Late Spring make up the majority of the book. After all, bulbs are a plant's strategy to survive hard times and spring into quick growth while conditions are still difficult. Plus, just compare March and May, and it becomes obvious that early and late spring are very different.
Seasons turn, and there are sections for Late Spring. Bearded iris, and a special two page spread on Cedric Morris' Benton bearded iris. He was an interesting man and there is even a dwarf Natcissus with the cultivar name ‘Cedric Morris’.
Summer, Autumn and Early Winter - the latter is where we find information about
bulbs in pots such as Nerine, paperwhite narcissus, and a few Hippeastrum.
A few pages at the end of the book offer suggestions: lists of bulbs by use: useful for pollinators, for scent, for naturalizing and more. Practical information: bulb essentials, how many, sustainability. A short glossary of terms.
There is also a page of bulb vendors, mainly in the UK, a few in the the USA, a couple in France and the Netherlands. Now that you have perused the pages of A Year in Bloom and discovered the wide variety of bulbs to beautify your garden all around the year, you realize you won't find everything in the big box stores. For special items like the bulb-like corms of autumn crocus, Colchicum bornmuelleri, you will need to look in the mail order catalogs such as Brent and Becky's Bulbs
So remember, start now with A Year in Bloom. Peruse its useful text and enticing pictures.
Choose those bulbs that appeal to you. Hurry and buy some right away. Because, as we now know Fall is for planting. Plant now, enjoy later.
Judy Glattstein is especially fond of bulbs. Perhaps this explains why three of her eight books are about bulbs. And why she enjoys reviewing other authors books about them.