Spectacular summer bulbs: your bulb show doesn't have to end in spring--these bulbous plants thrive in the heat of summer

摘要

It's late summer and your garden has gone into its usual doldrums. Most of the perennials and shrubs have finished blooming, and their foliage is beginning to take on that brownish hue that comes from too many hot days. Wouldn't it be nice to have something just coming into bloom--something with lush, glossy green foliage and exotic-looking flowers? Consider trying some bulbous plants. While gladioli and dahlias are commonly used to add color in the late-summer garden, there are dozens of little-used but spectacular bulbous plants well suited to summer gardens or container plantings throughout North America. Here's a brief overview of a few of the best. One of the easiest summer bulbs to grow comes from the genus Galtonia. The three or four species in the genus are native to moist grasslands in South Africa, but only G. candicans--commonly known as summer hyacinth--is really worth growing. The genus was named after Sir Francis Galton, a 19th-century English scientist who traveled widely in SouthAfrica. Galton's wider claim to fame is that he is established the use of fingerprints as a means of identification.