BEST BULBS OR RHIZOMES TO PLANT UNDER TREES

Erythronium

These little blooms seem to dance under trees, bobbing with reflexed petals reaching slightly taller than any bulbs planted underneath. Vivid-yellow ‘Pagoda’ contrasts with blue plants or native primroses.

Wood anemones

Give Anemone nemorosa cool shade under trees and shrubs, where it can carpet in blue and white. Rhizomes need planting just under the soil. It’ll flower from early until late spring, with a faint scent.

English bluebells

Cool semi-shade is the perfect spot for this woodlander. Obviously, its home is happiest under trees, where they thrive in May. Be careful to not encourage its arch-nemesis, Spanish bluebells, as they’re bullies!

Grape hyacinth

A little ‘doer’ plant to usefully clump pretty much anywhere. Produces little blobs of blue in spring and is a nice counteractive colour to complement yellows, whites and pinks. They come in classic purple-blues, but pictured is demure ‘Peppermint’.

Iris foetidissima

There’s so much going for this rhizomatous spreader. Stinking iris’ evergreen leaves sit below understated blooms all summer, and then its real floorshow starts. Clusters of orange berries burst out of seed pods and stay put all winter.