There was a time when spring blooming bulb lists and catalogs wouldn’t show up until late summer.  The obsessed would have orders in the mail before heading out to the beach again, but the more sensible would dillydally with other distractions until that first chilly afternoon got them thinking about planting up for the next season.  It was a logical model.  Most spring blooming bulbs are dug in the summer and who has the time to count bulbs, set prices, and send out a catalog when you have acres of tulips to dig?  But times change, and these days the bulb merchants are perhaps willing to take a bit of a gamble on prices and harvests, and know gardeners are at their weakest now when the cold of winter is still fresh in our minds and a hillside of daffodils sounds like a good idea.  It is a good idea! With things sprouting everywhere the gardener doesn’t even think twice about last November and all the mumbling about planting bulbs before the ground freezes and another daffodil hillside would be brilliant 😉

Not daffodils, but a range of Corydalis solida seedlings coming up in the front street border.

Maybe there’s no daffodil hill in your future, but don’t give up because of that.  Take a browse through the ‘minor bulb’ section, or the ‘miscellaneous bulbs’ tab and realize that tiny bulbs are barely any work to plant and can sometimes make just as big a display.  Corydalis solida comes to mind and this year they’re quite an excellent show as the cool (somewhat gloomy) weather is keeping them in flower and keeping their colors nearly as bright as the day they opened.

Corydalis solida squeezing in where they can amongst the snowdrop and winter aconite foliage.  This bed is a free for all until the next thing sprouts up and takes over.

Back in the day this blogger made a better effort at providing somewhat useful information, but that day is not today so let me suggest this post from 2016 when I was still just dabbling in the corydalis world.  The best moment for me in my 2016 flashback was my wonder at seeing the first seedlings and how they differed from the mother plants.  Good times.  I believe nearly everything in the garden now is a seedling, and the originals are all gone, so if you adhere to a strict color palette and mauve in your melon offends your vision I’d say skip corydalis.

A visit to 2016 also reminded me that there were just two pink and one white hyacinths in this patch, and just a single bunch of pink corydalis solida.  Old me was much neater.

Since we wandered into the recent past I guess some more lessons learned are that other minor bulbs also spread freely.  I’m thinking the blue Scilla siberica in the last photo, and I’m wondering if I should evict it from other parts of the garden before it really mounts an invasion.  Grape hyacinths (Muscari) can also spread more than you might like but are easier to deadhead… until you miss a batch…

Corydalis solida in one of the snowdrops beds.  Obviously I just walk past this section when I’m wandering the garden with a homeless new plant in my hand, there’s not a single spot left for new things.  

Well this post appears to be wandering off track as usual.  I hope everyone enjoyed a nice Easter weekend and didn’t spend too much time looking at bulb catalogs whenever there was a lull in the family time, and I almost made it through this post without mentioning the weather or snowdrops.

One of the latest to bloom, Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ would be a keeper even if she flowered in the thick of the season, before all the others had faded and she’s the only drop left standing. 

Oh weather.  We’re about two or three weeks ahead of a normal season and there’s two or three inches of rain forecast for the next few days.  Ugh.  It better straighten out before all the daffs and tulips open is all I’ll add.

Have a great week 🙂