The Accidental Gardener

Ross Collins | The Accidental Gardener
The end of February may mark the most dreary time for us Northland gardeners. The holidays are long over, the dark abyss of January has passed, and yet—February seems to offer scant hope that spring could actually arrive someday. Many of us compensate by grabbing any color we can. Amaryllis, for sure, but they are strictly houseplants in our climate. Why not think spring with tulips, daffodils or hyacinths?
Well, not outside. But “forced” pots of these spring-blooming bulbs generally reach the nurseries and grocery stores by February, and sometimes into March. I grabbed a last pot of pink tulips from a nursery, and then was lucky enough to find a lone pot of red ones at the grocery store. The potted tulips really didn’t last long, but did give a few days’ blooms before starting to fade. Question: should I throw them out?
“There are some who do think the bulbs aren’t worth bothering with,” my mother wrote in a 1970 garden article. They won’t bloom again in the pots, she noted, as they aren’t really houseplants. But they may bloom again outside. “It is possible to plant them outdoors and ‘fatten’ them up again for bloom,” she wrote. But it takes a couple seasons, and “some won’t ever amount to anything.”
Still, if you can’t bear throwing away your withered winter cheer, here’s the technique. Cut off the faded bloom stocks, but keep the plant in good light. “Keep the soil moist but not wet, and don’t let it dry out,” Dorothy suggested. “This is important. If it dries out, the bulbs will go dormant.”
Dorothy explained that keeping the bulbs growing give them time to store up food from the leaves. This also is why we avoid cutting back our outdoor spring tulips until the leaves have dried back—as unsightly as that is for a few weeks in the early summer flowerbeds. (Where are those rabbits when you need them?)
When leaves of the potted plants have yellowed, they are ready for hibernation. “The dormant period has arrived. Put the pots down in the basement in darkness and stop watering.” After tops are dry, cut off, remove bulbs, clean off the soil and store until fall planting time. Dorothy suggested keeping them dry by hanging in an old nylon stocking. Yes, she definitely was writing in the 70s. Today a basket should do. Plant the bulbs six inches deep in September. Mulch two to four inches.
What about those spectacular Easter lilies? Easter is late this year, but the bulbs can still be salvaged. Plant in May in a protected spot. The next year they may survive and bloom again at their normal time, July. Or they may re-bloom in September of the same year! This is not unusual, despite my mother’s writing that she received calls every year “about the wonders of nature—an Easter lily blooming just before freeze-up. THIS IS NORMAL.” (Her all-caps. We sense frustration.)
And if your bulbs don’t come back? Well, okay, my mother admitted her attempts to plant forced bulbs generally had failed, with the exception of a pink hyacinth. “Hyacinths,” she mused, “are not usually reliable. I shall keep trying to remind myself to look up the variety for sure.” She did say she thought the variety (we now call them cultivars) was ‘La Victoire.’ I think she made a good guess.
F-M Horticulture Society bids farewell
Dorothy was a founding member of what was once one of the area’s most active garden clubs, the F-M Horticulture Society. Established in 1977, it grew out of NDSU’s horticulture department. Early members included the late Neal Holland, former horticulture professor and owner of Sheyenne Gardens, and Don Kinzler, horticulturist who today writes the Forum’s garden features. At its zenith in the 1990s the club featured monthly educational meetings, two plant auctions a year, a holiday party, garden tours and an ambitious summer bus trip that included visits to gardens and nurseries as far away as Milwaukee and Regina, Sask.
But later years saw dwindling membership as old members moved away or died without younger members to take over. Many hobby clubs have seen similar membership drops. The pandemic hit left the F-M Hort Club with few options. Last fall remaining officers voted to dissolve the nearly half-century old club. Remaining treasury funds were donated to the Fargo Northern Plains Botanic Garden Society. Memory of one of the region’s liveliest garden clubs will remain with that society as a commemorative garden bench plaque. I have prepared “A Tradition of Growing,” an 82-slide PowerPoint presentation tracing the history of the club. If you’re interested, email me at ross.collins@ ndsu.edu, and I’ll send you the link.