Unless you are an extraordinarily organized gardener with a razor-sharp memory, you, like me, will be delighted this month when coming upon foliage and flowers you have no recollection of planting or possessing.
Until very recently, I was envious of a friend, an avid gardener, who had bought an old house one autumn.
With the advent of spring, she had been discovering all sorts of beautiful things in her newly acquired garden. For example, what she had assumed over the winter to be bare earth turned out to be beds filled with anemones, daffodils, irises, primulas and tulips.
Once in bloom, several leafless, uninspiring shrubs of winter quickly became keepers as they were readily identified as weigelas and winter currants.
Such discoveries to gardeners are akin to children opening their Christmas presents. Hence my envy.
But now that I have been happening upon plants in my own garden that I had completely forgotten, I feel as if I’m the kid unwrapping the presents.
It’s not so strange that I didn’t remember my clumps of spring starflowers (Ipheion uniflora), because the low-growing plants completely die back in late spring. Native to Uruguay, Argentina and Chile, the tiny bulbs are among the easiest ones to grow, and they also are long-lived.
During fall, the bulbs should be planted in full sun to…
