Do You Have Spring Bulbs Breaking Ground?
As usual we’ve had a lot of wind and rain this winter, but we’ve also had some early, sunny, relatively warm days too. Have you taken a look outside at the bulb garden you planted last fall? Are your bulbs like mine – already a few inches of leaves breaking through the soil? It’s more than a month early! AAAWKK! Although we tend to get over-excited about those little white flakes falling from the sky, some of that cold arctic air that has hit the Each Coast is headed out towards our Washington Coast. Even if it doesn’t snow we just might get a freeze or two.
Will a freeze now kill off our precious spring flower crop? To answer that go out and take a good look at exactly what is breaking the ground. Look for thin bulb leaves and perhaps flower buds among the leaves. Remember what is planted in the area. What flowers are coming up? Are they from small bulbs and corms like: snowdrops, crocus, fritillaria, scilla (squill), grape hyacinths, camassia, or mini varieties of daffodils or iris? Are they larger bulbs like: daffodils, tulips, alliums, or hyacinths? Especially with daffodils and tulips, did you plant early, middle or late spring varieties?
The smaller bulbs have a better chance of surviving late freezes. The larger bulbs, especially tulips are chancier. (Dang! My taller bulb early appearances are tulips for the first time ever.) The earlier varieties of every flower also have a better chance of survival. But even earlier tulip varieties generally follow most daffodils so they are of more concern.
If you have leaves alone (no flower buds yet) watch the leaf tips. If they begin to turn yellow or brown, that’s a sign that our winds are drying them faster than our rains can keep them hydrated. Watering them should be all they need.
If you already have flower buds (my mini daffodils do) you need to take more drastic action. If the buds freeze, that’s the end of the flower for this season. Try adding mulch, especially if you did not do this in the fall. If it’s practical, try to cover the buds, but now you will have to track the freezing nights. As soon “as it looks like” the freezes are over, uncover the buds so they can flower. Of course this will be a guess, since our maritime weather is notoriously erratic. Small bark chips and leaves have been my mulches of choice, but this year I have been saving up coffee grounds and checking the “coffee for gardeners” bins at any coffee shops I visit. Deer are not supposed to like the coffee scent, so I thought it was worth a try. I’ll report on this later.
Snowdrops are super early and mine are already in bloom. My crocus are usually not far behind, and this season they are a few weeks early. Both often bloom before I am thinking “spring” and I sometimes miss their flowering entirely. My crocus are not very tall yet. In fact my daffodils and tulips look further along. I mulched the tulips and daffodils and as many of my crocus as I could before I ran out of mulch. That gives me an automatic experiment, which I’ll note in my gardening journal along with the results of my coffee mulch.
Early sprouting flowers are tender, juicy deer food around here. As far as I can tell Ocean Shores Deer don’t go after daffodils (or early sprouting mature rhodys either.) I did a lot of Ocean Shores Deer homework and my fall planting included all kind of daffodils, fritillaria, poppies and Shasta daisies. All of these looked like good bets, not just from “deer resistant” lists, but from long time Ocean Shores gardeners. I also recommended rhododendrons to my sister who spent more than I ever would on getting several of the largest and most mature ones she could find. (I planted a few tulips among some daffodils, just to see if I could get lucky. I didn’t.) If you garden, you probably know what I’m going to whine about next: this year’s deer are eating everything! I’ve never heard of them munching on daffodils or mature rhodys but every gardener I know is moaning about deer evidence where it hasn’t been before. What’s different this year, I don’t know. Maybe too many baby Bambis are trying things. They do seem to be leaving some of them alone though. That makes mulching worth the effort. (So far I have fewer deer tracks in my coffee covered gardens.)
Even if you don’t get blooms or you just get chewed off plant starts, keep the leaves you have on all your bulbs as long as possible, and give the plants some slow release bulb fertilizer. At least give them a chance to try again next year.
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The Garden by The Sea (GBTS) located behind the Galilean Lutheran Church. We have deer fenced garden plots available for rent for the season. For more information email info@GardenByTheSeaOceanShores.org
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, February 2019.
