Basic Flower Bulb Botany
If you've ever looked carefully at a flower bulb, you'll probably agree that the appearance doesn't fill one with confidence that breathtaking blooms will be forthcoming. Usually, not a speck of green growth can be seen and sometimes the general shape is gnarled and unattractive. Don't let looks fool you.
Flower bulbs have descended from tough garden plants that grew in regions where drought and severe cold were the norm. To survive, these plants developed underground storehouses of nutrients and moisture. Whether technically bulbs, tubers, corms or rhizomes, all these modified roots serve the same purpose; storage.
At the end of each growing season, flower bulbs pass into a resting or dormant state. While they sleep, the bulbs can be dug, moved and replanted, bringing with them all the nutrients they need to start off the next growing season fully prepared. This is why bulbs are ideal for new gardeners.
When it comes time to make more bulbs, most of the activity takes place underground, in the safety of the soil. This offers protection from hungry birds, rabbits, mice, marmots, woodchucks and deer. Small bulbs, called bulbils or bulblets, or tiny corms, known as cormels, develop along the sides of mother bulbs (or mother corms) or along the base of the flower stems. Over time, these miniatures break off, develop their own roots and grow in separate plants. This process takes as little as a single season or as long as 6 to 8 years, depending of the variety.
In the same way a banana is Nature's perfect portable snack food, bulbs are easy to handle future plants. Complete with little built-in lunch boxes, these botanical bundles are ready to settle into your welcoming garden soil and thrive. Eventually, they'll create more plants, by multiplying in your garden soil. Over time, they'll create a garden tapestry, full and beautiful.
Why not begin a flower bulb garden this season and get the botanical ball rolling?
Giant Tecolote Ranunculus Bulbs
If you haven't yet planted Giant
Tecolote ranunculus bulbs, you're not alone, but you're missing out on something pretty wonderful. Here are 7 reasons to change that, this year.
