Double flowers. If you live in the woods with limited sunlight and are longing for colorful flowers, tuberous begonias offer lush textures, intense colors and a tropical aura that make this tender plant well worth cultivating. Velvety flowers bloom all summer, drooping languidly amidst red-tinted foliage. Excellent bedding or container plants. Camellia multiflora type.
Plant 2" deep, 8– 12" apart, in rich moist but not soggy well-drained soil.
Spring-planted bulbs offer wonderful variety to the cutflower market and are a staple in old-fashioned gardens. Spring-planted bulbs are not hardy to northern climes. Smart and thrifty people lift and store them over the winter; the rest of us treat them as annuals.
Overwintering Summer Bulbs
Dig spring-planted summer-blooming bulbs up in the fall after the foliage dies, gently brush off any soil and debris, and dry them. Store somewhere dark and cool (40–50°) in dry peat or sawdust, then replant in spring. You can also grow them in pots and relocate as the weather dictates.
You may want to try leaving the bulbs in the ground if you’re gardening somewhere warmer than Maine. Zone ratings:
Crocosmia - Z6.
Gladiolus - Z6; maybe Z5 with heavy snow cover.
