plantings around bulbs?

A very nice combination is daylilies, which can be planted now, and daffodils, which you would plant in-between them in the fall. The daylilies are tough, don't need a lot of maintenance, and provide a splash of cheerful color, and the foliage looks good all summer long. They will spread somewhat and shade out weeds, although you should mulch them at first and provide supplemental water if needed.

The daffodils will emerge and bloom first in the spring. You need to let their foliage ripen and turn brown in order to insure blossoms the next year, but the neat thing is that the daylily foliage, which is similar in form and color, will come in at just the right time and help conceal the browning daffodils.

Irises are wonderful flowers, and tall bearded irises are the most wonderful of all, but growing them can be problematic. They are prone to borers, which are tough to treat, the foliage looks ratty most of the summer, and every few years they need to be dug and divided. I still have a bed of them, because I love them despite their shortcomings, but you should know what you're getting into. A better choice for the less dedicated gardener is Siberian irises--the flowers are not as stupendous, but still quite beautiful, and the foliage and habit is a lot easier to live with. You could have clumps of them in with your daylilies and daffodils.

Tulips (also fall planted) are lovely, but are not as reliably perennial as daffodils. (Some kinds, like the Darwin hybrids, are billed as more perennial, but a lot depends your climate, your soil, and the whims of the gods.) I plant them anyhow, am pleased if they return, and if they don't, I figure they were still cheaper than cut flowers at the florist.

Cheers, Sue

Good ideas, except I don't think iris foliage looks 'ratty' any time I've noticed it. :-) And daffs need to be dug up and divided from time to time, 'though if they keep blooming, you can leave them. All your suggestions are pretty easy care, and should last a good long time.

One of my standard cheap sun annual groundcovers is sweet alyssum, from seed. In the long term, I like mixtures of perennials, with annual fill-ins, and groundcovers like candytuft, creeping phlox, but away from building foundations, not plastered right up on the sides.

Remember to keep wood mulches well away from wood siding and such in termite and carpenter ant country.

Thanks everyone! I ended up getting a couple of daylillies and can't wait until they bloom. Even just the foliage looks nice. I just picked up whatever they had at the closest garden center (an orange Stella something and a yellow one I can't remember the name of) since I had to get them in quickly. When is the best time to plant them? I'd like to do some more research as to the best types for my area and get a couple more. Can I plant them from bulbs (the plants were a little on the expensive side)? Are there any mail-order sources you'd recommend?

I went to the garden center before I got your note, Kay, but happened to pick up some alyssum because I thought they looked nice so glad to see they were a recommendation! Next year I'll do them from seed.

Thanks again for all your help!

Cheers, Laura

I have ordered Asiatic lilies from catalogues which are expensive - like I must have paid $2.99/bulb. This year I bought them from COSTCO

They are absolutely gargeous and come year after year with not much of maintainance. But I do get disappointed when the brach that is full of buds gets eaten by the deers.

Thanks for the suggestion. Luckily, I live in the middle of the city so deer shouldn't be a problem for me :) Skunks, yes, squirrels, yes, but not deer.

LauraJ

As the sweet alyssum grows, you'll see the flowers stay on the tips of the branches, but you'll see roundish "leaves" just below. Those aren't leaves, they're fruits. In the fall, you can cut or pull the plants and spread them on newspapers to dry for a few days, then crunch them up and give them a good winnowing, and you've got seed for next year. Or you can do the same in July or August, when they start looking a bit ratty... just scissor them back a bit (takes about 2 weeks for them to start blooming again), and do the drying/crunching/winnowing trick. Near a house wall, you may find it blooming well into December some years.

I like the tall sweet alyssum for a number of uses, and it's harder to find seed for than the more popular creeping sort, so I save my own seed each year. It's easy to germinate, and grows quickly.

I also use both types in front of some rock walls we have... the deer knock stones over now and then, so I tend to stay well back from them with the mower, to avoid nasty surprises. The alyssum looks good, and if I give it a little trim with the mower blades, no harm done. Works around tree roots, too, or over clematis roots (which like shaded soil but full sun on the top.)

Do you like dahlias? Some of the seed-raised dahlias like 'Redskin' (18", maroonish foliage) or Figaro (12", green foliage) also do well in summer over bulbs, and can complement daylilies nicely. For a faster start the following year, you can save the tubers from the dahlias.

I did that last fall and only about 1/2 of the bulbs planted bloomed. It aggravated me, until I figured it was still cheaper than what I had paid before. Now I'm waiting on the Dahlia bulbs that I bought at Costco to see if they come up at all. Doesn't look too promising at this point.

Nancy Zone 6a

Cham