SUMMER BULBS Care for eucomis and fritillaries now to ensure beautiful blooms

Look after those lovely

Fritillaries are a mixed and marvellous bunch, from shy brown and yellow flowers hiding themselves away to the lusty stems of the crown imperial supporting a whorl of giant bells in brilliant orange or yellow.

One is native to our shores; the snake’s head fritillary, a plant of damp meadows, has become rare in the wild, although it can still be found in a few protected sites. There’s a pure white form but by far the most attractive is the type with chequered bells in maroon and white, which look for all the world as though the fairy artists have been at work, so perfectly are these pendulous flowers tessellated.

In contrast to its rarity in the wild, it’s become a popular bulb in garden cultivation and commerce and can be bought cheaply. What’s more, if it enjoys the conditions, it will almost certainly self-seed and sizeable colonies soon build up. If you’re on damp and/or heavy ground and have a wildflower meadow – even of a few square feet – this is the ideal bulb to plant among native grasses and perennial wildflowers before they come into bloom. By midsummer only the seed heads of the fritillary will be left. They’re intriguing. As seeds set and mature, the seed head turns upwards. Then, as they begin to split apart, the seeds are plainly visible stacked one on top of the other. On a hot and windy summer’s day they’ll separate and fly away, a clever strategy to ensure distribution. This is the method used by most lilies to go forth and multiply.

The bulbs of F. meleagris are tiny but it’s still best to plant them deep – if you leave them near the surface, mice will demolish the lot. All fritillary bulbs have no outside covering and each has a depressed centre, sometimes going right through the bulb to the other side. With bigger fritillary bulbs, those of F. imperialis and F. persica, for example, they must be planted on their sides. It seems counterintuitive but, if they’re planted upright, water will accumulate in the hole and the bulb may rot.

Bulbs are such exciting organisms, buried out of sight for the winter and then shooting through the bare earth in spring. If they don’t appear, it’s very disappointing, so it’s always worth taking time and trouble when they initially go in.

All bulbs deserve the best treatment, including our collection of eucomis. These South African bulbs are related to fritillaries but their bulbs are tunicate – in layers like a daffodil, or an onion! We have a collection of these, mainly the dark-leaved, dark-flowered eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’. Whereas our imperial fritillaries are invisible as yet, tucked up cosily in the big egg pots on the terrace awaiting warmer days, our eucomis bulbs are undergoing some maintenance. Each year, during bleak midwinter when they’re dormant, they’re turfed out of their pots and potted on with a good compost mix containing lots of loam and grit. The bulbs are getting so big we’re running out of pots big enough to accommodate them. They’re watered sparingly, just enough to settle them in, then kept in the tunnel until warmer weather takes over – I can hardly wait.