As I write, I don’t know what Punxatawny Phil saw or said the other day. If he saw his shadow we will have a long winter. If he did not see his shadow we will have an early spring — Feb. 2 is halfway between the Solstice, the first and shortest day of winter, and the Spring Equinox, first day of spring when night and day are equal in length. So since we are halfway to spring it is pretty much a crap shoot.
Last year Phil predicted an early spring, but according to my records, it got very cold after Feb. 2, with below-zero temperatures. Still, there was no more snow — only rain until we had a light snow on the first day of spring. In all fairness, it had all melted by the end of the day.
Does that count as an early spring? I think it probably does.
Our backyard garden was clear of snow on Groundhog Day, but on Feb. 25, it was flooded because of the rains and the heavy clay soil was frozen. Yet on March 20, the first day of spring, buds were swelling on the shrubs in the south border and I went shopping for more shrubs.
There were no flowers in my garden in the early spring of 2016, and once again last fall, I missed the chance to buy the little bulbs that would give me the earliest spring blooms this year.
However, I know I can soon put in my order for fall delivery and not miss out again. By April 1, when the Bridge of Flowers opens, crocuses are the first blossoms dotting the beds. I want crocuses and more.
The crocus is often what first comes to mind when people think of the earliest spring blooming bulbs. There are two types of crocus. Species crocus are smaller and bloom earlier than the showier large crocus, but all are deer and rodent resistant and will increase and colonize.
Species crocus come in all the familiar shades of white, gold, lavender and violet. The tommasinianus, tommies crocus, have small blossoms, but the squirrels will not dig them up and they will increase energetically.
The large crocus have the same color palette, but they also have richer purple shades and a very showy large yellow for the yellow mammoth. Crocuses can be planted throughout the fall and even into November.
I grew Glory of the Snow scillas and grape hyacinths in Heath. The joy of these little bulbs is that they will spread, sometimes in inexplicable ways. Starry flowered Chionodoxa comes in shades of blue, pink and white and is only 5 or 6 inches tall.
Scillas, or Siberian squills, have delicate blue blossoms. People often plant them in their lawns, where they bloom in early April and look like a piece of the sky has fallen on the grass. The foliage dies and disappears by the time the lawn has to be mowed.
Remember, with any bulb, that the foliage must be given time to drink lots of sun so the bulbs can renew themselves and produce even more flowers the following year.
I especially love the grape hyacinths, because they produced a larger, more vibrant blossom that makes a bigger show. I grew the deep blue variety in Heath, but a look through any catalog will show you that they come in paler blue shades, a pale pink, a white and even yellow. Some have two shades, like Mount Hood, which is deep blue with a white topknot.
I wanted to grow snowdrops just because of the name, and then I loved the way they survived early spring snowfalls. After growing them in the lawn for a while, I moved some of them “in the green,” which is to say, when they began to bloom, I moved them to a spot in front of the house in front of a low stone wall, creating a bit of a heat sink. They bloomed even earlier and I could enjoy them more fully.
I don’t believe I have ever seen a garden with anemone blanda, 3- to 6-inch daisy-like plants, but I think they would make a beautiful spring groundcover. They come in shades of blue, pink and white. These can be counted on to begin blooming in mid May.
Any of the little bulbs — the ones that bloom earliest in spring — need to be planted in masses to make any kind of show, and often they come in bags of 25, 50 or 100. They’re modestly priced.
The easiest way to plant them is to dig up your chosen patch of soil. Then, loosen and remove some of that soil and put it aside to be enriched with some compost.
After they have been scattered so they are a few inches apart, most of these bulbs will need to be covered with about 4 inches of soil.
Most of these early bulbs make a good underplanting for flowers that will come later. By the time your other perennials are putting out flowers, the foliage of the little bulbs will have dried up and disappeared.
If you don’t have the patience to wait for your own bulbs — or your neighbor’s — to bloom, remember the spring flower shows at Smith College and Mount Holyoke College. They will begin March 4 and run through March 19. Walking through the fragrant aisles of these carefully forced hyacinths, tulips and daffodils is just the reminder we need that the first day of spring will arrive the day after the shows close.
“March” your calendars!
Pat Leuchtman has written and gardened since 1980. She lives in Greenfield. Readers can leave comments at her website: www.commonweeder.com