April 2007 © Janet Davis
In my neighborhood, one of the
fleeting pleasures of early spring is the sight of front lawns and ravine
slopes blanketed in tiny,azure-
blue, spring-flowering bulbs. Around the middle of April (give or take a
week, depending on the weather), millions of little Siberian squill (Scilla sibirica) push their noses
through the newly-thawed soil. Emerging
just days after snowdrops, winter aconites and species crocuses, their leafy
appearance in front yards makes it seem that the lawns in which they have
multipled have suddenly turned bright-emerald green, when in reality the
Kentucky bluegrass is often still a few weeks from greening up. A few days later, the purplish-blue blossoms
of glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa forbesii)
add their starry presence to this spectacular flowering carpet. Together, they make a powerhouse team and an unforgettable sight.
Growing spring bulbs this way is called “naturalizing” them, and is easy to do.
Siberian squill or Scilla
sibirica (sometimes listed as Scilla siberica) is a small bulb native
from southern
For those enamored of blue
blossoms, Siberian squill is a true champion.
Christopher Lloyd calls it “quite a piercing
shade of true-blue”; Penelope Hobhouse
describes it as “brilliant deep blue”; Allen Lacy goes for “cobalt blue”. Whatever adjective is used, it is stunning,
especially coming so soon after the snow has melted and gardeners are desperate
for a splash of color after a long, bleak winter. Its flowers are campanulate-shaped and
nodding, intensely blue in color with a dark-blue mid-stripe. It grows 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) tall with the
stems extending during the bloom period.
Growing Siberian squill is ridiculously easy – some would say too easy for once it’s in your garden, it will spread like crazy, both from new bulb offsets and from seed. Plant the small bulbs in full sun and adquately moist, but well-drained, soil to a depth about three times their size, or 3 inches (7.5 cm). If you plant them close together initially, they make a more colorful show, but will spread in time no matter how closely you plant them early on. As for soil preference, in The Bulb Book, Martyn Rix and Roger Phillips say it “requires a rich, sandy soil to grow well and tends to fade away if planted in thick grass.” My experience is that it is quite happy in heavy clay soils too.
As with many of the tiny or “minor”, spring-flowering bulbs, it’s something of a chore to appreciate the beauty of individual flowers of Siberian squill, requiring you to lie flat on the ground to peer up into the center or to photograph them.
Glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa forbesii)
Taller, at 4-8 inches (10-20 cm) with six-petalled, out-facing, white-centered flowers that contain much more purple pigment, glory-of-the-snow is native to mountains and forests in western Turkey, Crete and Cyprus. Formerly called Chionodoxa luciliae, its common name alludes to the fact that its bloom time often coincides with a unseasonal early-spring snowfall.
Hardy to Zone 3, glory-of-the-snow likes the same cultivation and growing conditions as Siberian squill. But though it also spreads by bulb offsets and self-seeding, its territorial ambitions are not as aggressive and it forms colonies comparatively slowly over the years.
Like all bulbous plants, it’s important to let the foliage of Scilla and Chionodoxa turn yellow or “ripen” after blooming, allowing the plants to photosynthesize as long as possible and feed next year’s developing bud. In my garden, I don’t bother to deadhead the withered flowers of either bulb, letting them self-seed at will.
As for planting companions, both Siberian squill and glory-of-the-snow look enchanting mixed with daisy-like windflowers (Anemone blanda), striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides) and narcissus, especially miniature cultivars such as Tête-à-Tête. And for a truly stunning combination, plant them under a bright yellow forsythia.