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Every autumn, with late September sun on my back and the prospect of this very moment in mind, I spend an afternoon potting up the winter-flowering iris. A winter without them would be a winter without this particular prospect. A spear of optimism that pushes life regardless, into the dark months.

Here I save my hottest, driest spots for autumn-flowering Galanthus reginae-olgae, Amaryllis belladonna, Sternbergia lutea and the perennial, strappy-leaved Algerian Iris and so keep to the habit of growing the bulbous winter iris in pots. We are now spoiled for choice as there are so many named forms. The earliest to flower is Iris histriodes, which is distinct for having slightly shorter growth and wider flowers than Iris reticulata. There are also crosses between them and the yellow-flowered Iris winogradowii. Of them all I prefer the elegance of the Iris reticulata, which draw a more finely-penned line, but they are all worth exploring and every year we trial two or three new varieties and return to a favourite or two to reacquaint ourselves. 

I have learned over the years that growing them in pots is the best way to grow them here. Hailing from Turkey, where they have a summer bake ahead of them, they make the most of the winter rains and the short and furious growing season. A winter which is all about readying for spring and where rest is not an option. They bring all of that energy with them and are more than happy to do their best in our benign climate in Britain, but our summer is their downfall. Like tulips, they need the bake and the dry come the summer and you have to find them a free-draining site which emulates their homeland if you are to be successful in keeping them long-term in open ground. The damp of the West Country, in combination with our heavy soil, means that I have the tiniest slivers of such ground at the base of south-facing walls that would see them doing well. This is not to say that it is not worth trying, but if you do have the right position, plant them deep at 15 to 20cm so that they are below the runs of mice and voles.

The bulbs are small and you need no more than five to a pot. Any more, or plant them too densely, and the elegance of the flowers is lost in the crowd. The bulbs are planted deep in the pot and put in the frame to keep them on the dry side and with just that little bit of extra protection to steal a week or perhaps a couple on the winter. The first spears of foliage were visible at new year this year. These early signs draw you back regularly to check on the shift which takes place rapidly as soon as you see the papery, translucent sheath that protects the flower buds. If you wait until this moment and bring them into a cool room in the house, the pointed buds will rise fast and silently in a day. If you are prepared to cheat again and bring them into slightly more warmth you can witness the petals unfurling like a Chinese fortune fish that curls in your hand.

Inside the flowers last for no more than a weekend, but you do get to witness them up close and intimately as I am doing now as they sit in front of me on my desk. Then you will also be able to take in their fine but certain perfume, like a cross between primroses and distant violets. This year, the tallest of the three that have come together this weekend is ‘Painted Lady’ (main image), the first to flower. Yellow, speckled buds open palest lavender, the blue leopard spots staining the tips of the petals as if they were bleeding. Next to flower was ‘Frozen Planet’, again pale but well-named for the ice-blue cast that intensifies to colour the whole of the falls. Last of the three is ‘Fabiola’, a substitute made by the nursery. Although my “no substitutes” rule is usually hard and fast, I am pleased to have this one. It is always good to have a dark form in the group, so as to have the gold flare in the throat set off by rich royal purple velvety falls.

We love them all, but I do not have the heart to keep them inside for long, since they last a fortnight outside in the shelter of the house and we return to them daily to enjoy their every moment.

Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 1 February 2020

The autumn crocus appear late with the last of the asters and braving the change in the weather. Although I have only just planted the real saffron crocus, Crocus sativus, and wait to see whether it can handle our moist Somerset loam, I can now say squarely that I can depend upon Crocus speciosus, which are beginning to naturalise on the bulb bank behind the house. This year they came in the first two weeks of October during a fortnight of rain and heavy skies that accelerated the feeling of the evenings drawing in, but their appearance completely runs against the retreating tide and the feeling that goes with it.

Triggered by the very cool and the damp in the ground that puts an end to the growing season, they score the palest lilac tapers into the grassy banks. The true colour of the interior is suggested, but held back on the reverse when the buds are closed, but opened by sunshine or the warmth of a room if you pick one, they flare a bright lilac. Look inside and the violet tracery of dark veins maps an upward movement, the orange styles, luminous and hovering in a pool of colour. Look deeper and the dip of a yellow throat appears to throw light from this inner world.

Seen from the kitchen that is dug into the hill at the back of the house, the crocus appear just above eye level where I have planted them in an extensive drift. Standing tall at around 20cm, the stems push the flowers free of the meadow, which was cut late in August to make way for their arrival. The stems are impossibly delicate and, grown in an open position, they will easily break, not completely, but enough to topple the flower so that it lies fallen by those that have yet to do so. Planted in grass, which by October is grown just enough to support them, the majority stay standing and you can rely upon their display. A gentle autumn is what they enjoy most of course, but their emergence is always late enough to catch the turn in the weather.

Native to Greece, northern Turkey and Iran, the hot dry summers put the bulbs into ensured dormancy and a wet autumn triggers growth. Here they are best in a position that emulates their homeland and dries in the summer months and hydrates again in the winter when their foliage comes above ground to feed. A position under deciduous trees, where light comes to earth in the winter and the rootiness of ground dries in summer is ideal. Turf or meadow that remains uncut until their foliage withers in spring will also protects them during dormancy. If you are introducing the bulbs into turf, do so early in the bulb planting season to allow for their rise to October flower. Planting deep, up to 12cm, will also help keep them out of reach of mice, which are a favourite predator.

In the garden proper, I have been slowly introducing the white form, Crocus speciosus ‘Albus’, in areas that are sheltered from wind. In the lea of the barn where the low ground cover of violets and Waldsteinia ternata protect winter cyclamen, I have found them a niche. The white form is more ethereal still than the true species. Simpler for being white inside and out, but still with the charge of the orange style and the yellow throat, they are worth devoting a corner to for late season contemplation. Their grassy foliage with its silvery midrib comes in early winter and makes a pretty addition and complement to the marbling of the cyclamen leaves. Something to look forward to and to rely upon as the days shorten.

Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 26 October 2019

As regular readers know, every year we experiment with a new round of tulips, choosing ten or so varieties and thirty of each to expand a palette of favourites. When we moved here initially we grew them in orderly rows and, with room here to have plenty, we cut them liberally and with abandon for the house. Each year we have selected a different colour palette, diving off into the deep end with varieties that appealed in an image and usually going back to a couple that we know from the past for the joy of familiarity or the experiment of a new partner.

It was picking the flowers and feeling uninhibited about doing so that started to open up a new way of looking at these extraordinary flowers. Mixed together and evolving as the bunches aged, they leaned and reached for the light and grew into each other in a way that was impossible to replicate in the order of the cutting garden. We enjoyed the freedom in a bunch with forms and colours apparently juxtaposed and colliding unexpectedly. So, when the new kitchen garden was completed three years ago, we started to grow them differently, dispensing with the order of rows and instead throwing the bulbs together so that their combinations were random. Strictly judged in our initial selection, so that we have control over the aesthetic, but massed together with six or eight inches between the bulbs, we have found joy in the riot. 

Every year the outcome has been different for the choice and juxtaposition of varieties. Choosing forms that span the tulip season has assured us a smattering of earlies which age as they collide with the next in line and so on. Tulips last a long time and change as they move from bud to fully blown flower, so the combinations evolve from day to day as they rearrange themselves in height and colour saturation. We aim for a variety of flower shapes and sizes and  tend to choose forms with good long stems, those with shorter stems must have something extra in the flower to justify their presence. We cut them randomly as the mix evolves to refine more intended bunches for the house. In a cool spring the process of looking and cutting and then living with the flowers inside again can last almost six weeks. As the mix moves towards its climax there is usually a moment when you stop looking at the individual and take in the field of colour as if it were a textile or an abstract painting. It is a point of saturation and satiation and usually the point at which it becomes time to move on to the summer garden.

We move the tulips around from beds to bed each year to avoid Tulip Fire occuring more than it should. Last year, with a wet spring, it was bad and I am guessing that our West country damp doesn’t help, for there is almost always a reappearance. This year the tulips made the pumpkin bed their home and the dry spring has seen us through, removing the odd plant that has shown the twist and distortion of the Fire. When the bulbs are finished I must confess to digging and discarding them to start again next year, but the best and strongest varieties that show signs of resistance will be found a more permanent home in a dry part of the garden where they will be less tested by our heavy ground.

In order of flowering our selection this year was;

Very early to flower in late March. Good strong stem. The coral pink flower intensifies in colour as it ages. 50cm.

Unusual shade of brownish maroon with fine dark stem. Perfect egg-shaped flower. Very elegant cut flower. 40cm.

An old favourite, although threatened with being taken off the market in favour of newer varieties. Vibrant scarlet with a heavy bloom to the new petals. 25-30cm.

Another we return to from time to time. Another elegant flower in a restrained shade of cardinal red. Upright grower. Strong stem. 30cm.

A large lily-flowered tulip in an appropriately named shade of wine. However, the flower seems too large for the stem length and the petals too large for the flower, looking disturbingly like livid tongues. 50cm.

A substitute by the supplier for Tulip ‘Fantasy’, a deep pink parrot tulip with green veining, this also has variegated foliage which is usually a complete no-no. Although brighter in the mix than intended it made a dramatic cut flower. 40cm.

A tall, very elegant fringed tulip of deepest burgundy. Very upright, making it a little stiff when cut. 45cm.

Our very favourite parrot tulip which we return to again and again. Very tall for a parrot tulip. Slender stemmed and with smallish, deeply cut flowers with a heavy bloom. 55cm.

A new variety for us, which we wanted try despite the off-putting name. A semi-parrot in a shade of deep old rose. The shortish petals twist and turn which give it the appearance of a pair of the eponymous frilly undies. 50cm.

Not burgundy at all, but an eye-catching shade of shocking pink. A good strong tulip with a straight stem. 60cm

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 4 May 2019

This first week in the month has brought with it change.  The tip in the season is mapped in the scoring of luminous hazel catkins, their streamers hatching verticals into the backdrop of dark wood and hedgerow. These catkins are one of my favourite moments, catching the push of the cold easterlies and the sun when it breaks through the grey. And at their feet, pushing up leaf mould, the snowdrops have made their claim on the shortest month.

Despite the evidence that the grip of winter is loosening, I am always happy to have planned for more. Be it a small effort in the fullness of the previous autumn, a few pots of Iris reticulata are an essential.  Just a handful of bulbs is all that is needed to bridge the need for new life and the trickle of spring which, by the time the iris are over, will be sure to be moving and constant.

Hailing from the Middle East, where they bask in winter sunshine when they are in leaf and bake whilst dormant in summer, they are difficult to keep here in the damp of Britain. That said, the bulbs are cheap and easy if you are open to the fact that they are fugitive, so the act of throwing the bulbs after they are over is less guilt-inducing. Plant them deep, to the depth of a trowel in free draining ground and you may have success, but on our hearty soil here they make nothing but leaf in the second year. I prefer the surety of an annual order and the promise they bring to the kitchen table.

Iris histrioides ‘George’

I’ve learned over the years that, if you are growing them for display, less is definitely more and that three to five bulbs is enough in a six inch pot. Plant any more and the flowers collide and become confused. The greater part of their charm is in their exquisite outline, slim as pencils when in bud and then pure and finely drawn in their asymmetry once in flower.

Potted in a free-draining compost and kept in a protected place such as the closeness of a house wall or a frame, they need little attention in the first half of winter. Come January, you will see that the spears of foliage have already broken the compost and, towards the end of the month, the tissue-paper sheath reveals the presence of buds held tightly in the base of the leaves. When you see the colour of the buds through the sheath, it is time to bring them in to a cool room to force the flowers and steal a march on the season.

In the warmth, the bud pushes free of its papery protection and rises a little, like a champagne flute on a pale, fine stem so that you can see the full outline. This happens fast when they are ready, over a day or two days at most and, if you are patient, you might witness the flowers open. One fall first, the next and then the third, jerking quietly out and then down to reveal the inner markings. These are exquisite, and variable in the many named varieties, some spotted and flecked, others pure colour broken only by a flame in the throat and the pollen of stamens. Inside, in the still and warmth of a room, you will also catch their delicate perfume. As welcome and as soft as that of primroses and easily lost outside in the blow of an easterly.

Iris histrioides ‘Finola’

Every year we experiment with a new variety or two, buying ten bulbs of each and three or four varieties at most. We have found our favourites over the years. The slim, dark elegance of ‘J S Dijt’ is one that I would grow every year, and I generally prefer the rich plums of ‘George’ and ‘Pauline’ to the royal and denim blues of ‘Edward’, ‘Gordon’ and ‘Cantab’. However, we loved ‘Blue Note’ last year, with its narrow petals of deepest midnight and ‘Harmony’ (main image) is the quintessential blue spring iris of Japanese woodcuts.

I also have an enduring fondness for the curiosity of ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ with her washed-out, pale blue flowers with greenish veining and yellow leopard spots. Though we do not have it this year, the ghostly mother-of-pearl whiteness of ‘Finola’ is a recent find that I would like to revisit. It is always worth growing something new as there are many to choose from and a wealth of potential future favourites if you see each year as an opportunity for discovery. I already have the clear, sherbet-yellow ‘Katherine’s Gold’ and palest blue ‘Polar Ice’ picked out for next year.

Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’

As you perfect the art of knowing when to bring them in, you can relay your pots for succession. Though the flowers last just a few days inside, if you have a half dozen pots and keep half in a shadier spot than the others, you will have flower for a fortnight to three weeks. Time enough to bridge the seasons.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 3 February 2018

The tulips are finally over or, more to the point, we are taking control this weekend and will bring their extraordinary display to a close by lifting the bulbs and clearing the bed. As is the way with Christmas decorations, I feel almost as much pleasure in finally stripping away their ornamentation after the period of illumination and, for a moment, for there to be quiet. And, with the cool, dry weather this year, they have been flowering for a full six weeks.

We started growing tulips in earnest in the garden in Peckham, ordering a handful of varieties to fill the pots on the terraces.  Each year, a favourite was kept on to get to know it better and winkled into the beds to see if it would last in the ground. That was how we discovered that we preferred ‘Sapporo’ to ‘White Triumphator’, for the fact that it ages from primrose to ivory, and it has been hard to match the perfume and vibrant tangerine of ‘Ballerina’.

When we moved here we continued to experiment, upping the number of varieties and planting the tulips in rows in the vegetable garden to slowly build an armoury of favoured varieties. As we became more confident with our experimentations and learned how to extend the season by including early, mid and late season tulips, we began a to grow them altogether differently.

Tulipa ‘Sorbet’

Tulipa ‘Sorbet’

Tulipa ‘First Proud’

Tulipa ‘Perestroyka’

I was in the process of planting up a client’s walled garden and, for cutting as much as display, we created a series of mixes to play with the sheer breadth of varieties. We chose colour combinations to conjour a series of moods and colour fields, some dark, some pale or pastel, but always with a top or bottom note of vibrancy or depth to offset the predominating mood. The flowering groups were combined together to lengthen the season so that the early varieties were covered for by the late, and short with tall so that the combinations were layered. We also included differing types – doubles, parrots, flamed, fringed and picotee – for that sweetie box feeling of delight in variety.

At home, this has now become the favoured way of keeping up the experiment. Each year we buy thirty or fifty bulbs of up to eight varieties and dedicate a bed in the kitchen garden exclusively to a spring display. We have moved them from bed to bed to avoid Tulip Fire. Tulips are most prone to the fungal infection when repeatedly grown in the same ground, but rotate on a three or five year cycle and you will diminish the chance of infection. In combination with our thirst to try new varieties, it has also been the reason that, at the end of the season, we discard the bulbs and start again with a new batch for November planting. The bulbs, which are cheap enough to buy in quantity wholesale,  are planted late at the end of the bulb planting season. They are debagged and thoroughly mixed on a tarpaulin before being spread evenly on the surface of the bed and winkled in with a trowel a finger’s width apart so that they are not touching.

Three forms of Tulipa ‘Gudoshnik’

This year we have also started growing the Broken and Breeder tulips from the Hortus Bulborum Foundation. This range of old varieties – some of which date back to the 17th century – fell out of popularity in the 1920’s because, in the main, they are late flowering, and the quest for colour to break with winter began to favour the earlier flowering varieties. Their lateness has been a delight, as they have come just as we have begun to tire of the resilience of the modern tulips. Because they are choice (and expensive) we bought just three or five of each, combining them in pans and planting an individual specimen of each in 5 inch clay pots, so that they could be brought into the house for close observation.

Inside, they last for a week in a cool room and continue to evolve whilst in residence, their more subtle colouring, feathering and breaks filling out and flushing in the maturing process. They feel precious and not disposable like the Dutch tulips, so we plan to try and keep the bulbs when they are over. I will grow them on to feed the bulbs for six weeks after they have flowered, before drying and storing the bulbs in the shed until the autumn. I am hoping they will come to more than just leaf next year.

A mix of Broken and Breeder tulips from Hortus Bulborum

Tulipa ‘Absalon’

A more subtly marked form of Tulipa ‘Absalon’

Tulipa ‘Prince of Wales’

Tulipa ‘Lord Stanley’

As cut flowers tulips continue to grow, their stems often lengthening as much as a foot or more in a tall-flowered variety such as ‘First Proud’. This has been a new favourite this year, rising up to 90cm; as tall as, but later than, ‘Perestroyka’.  A mixed selection of varieties is also good in a bunch and, as they age, the stems arch and lean, sensing each other it seems, so that a vase full will fan out like a firework exploding. The flowers change too, opening and closing with the heat and light and changing colour, sometimes intensifying, sometimes bruising  from tone to tone as they fade. The mercurial colour changes are the most interesting and offer far more in terms of value than those that change less, and a new personal favourite this year has been ‘Gudoshnik’, the flowers of which you would swear were different varieties; some are pure vermilion, others red with yellow feathering, others yellow with red streaks. We have also enjoyed the raspberry ripple breaks and freckling of ‘Sorbet’.

If you are experimenting as we are the mixes can be hit or miss, and this year’s wasn’t one of the best, because we didn’t warm to a couple of varieties that have thrown the colour off. We won’t be growing ‘Zurel’ again. The flowers are boxy, the petals stiff and waxy and the flaming is rather coarse. ‘Slawa’ was worth a try, because it looked interesting when we ordered from the catalogue, but it felt too graphic in the mix. The colour combination of peach and plum needs careful placing, and the flowers are less graceful than some. Harsh criticism, perhaps, but a good combination is easily let down by an element that isn’t quite right.

Tulipa ‘Insulinde’

Tulipa ‘Marie-Louise’

Tulipa ‘Beauty of Bath’

Tulipa ‘Panorama’

Tulipa ‘Royal Sovereign’

The less successful varieties were also shown in a new light by the older varieties. The  breaks, feathering and flaming of the Broken tulips, and the rich tones and pastel gradations of the Breeder tulips are altogether more sophisticated.  Put side by side the latter are certainly a rather superior race. Not without their problems I’m guessing, because they are less robust in appearance when compared to the modern hybrids. Particular favourites have been ‘Insulinde’, streaked the colours of blackcurrant fool, ‘Marie Louise’, a Breeder of a delicate, graduated lavender pink, ‘Panorama’, a Breeder of a strong copper orange and ‘Absalon’, a Broken tulip (and one of the original Rembrandt tulips) which has ranged from the flamed, blood-red and yellow you see in illustrations to a more subtle mix of mahogany streaked with tan, like an old-fashioned humbug.

Though we have heard much about their growing popularity, seeing them in the flesh has been a little like discovering really good chocolate. I fear we have now been spoiled and it won’t be possible to be without them.

Words: Dan Pearson / Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 13 May 2017

This year I have limited myself with the bulb orders as the newly landscaped ornamental garden is a year or so away from being ready for them.  Bulbs are best placed where you know they can be left undisturbed so, in order for spring not to arrive without something new to look at, we have ordered a selection of tulips for cutting, a handful of Iris reticulata for pots and wild narcissus varieties to continue the ribbon that I am unravelling in stops and starts along the length of the stream at the bottom of the hill.

I started the ribbon when we first arrived, and have been adding to it every year with a couple of hundred bulbs.  But that quantity of bulbs runs for just a small stretch, even if spaced in groups that smatter and appear at random among the leaf mould. So last year I grew impatient and ordered 500 and I’ve done so again this year to make the ribbon go the distance.

Our native Narcissus pseudonarcissus is most at home in open woodland where its young foliage can feast on early sunshine before the woodland canopy closes. I know them from Hampshire where they colonise hazel coppice on the lower slopes of the South Downs. Once they are established they clump densely, but the flowers rarely register as fiercely as the hosts of hybrid daffodils that you see littering parks in March. The wild daffodil is smaller in stature – just 30cm – and the flowers are fine, with twisting outer petals of pale primrose and only the trumpet a saturated gold.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus

Narcissus pseudonarcissus massed under the new coppice on the lower slope of The Tump

Unlike hybrid daffodils Narcissus pseudonarcissus is slower to establish and will often sulk for a couple of years before building up to a regular show of flower. No matter, it is worth the wait and I have already started my relay. The fourth leg runs into the area on the lower slopes of The Tump where the ground is too heavy for wild flowers and too steep for hay making and where I have taken some of the field back to plant a coppice. The hazel and hornbeam are just saplings, but it is good to think of the narcissus getting their feet in ahead of the trees.

About three years ago my parents bought me a sweet chestnut for Christmas, which I planted alone in the coppice. It will be allowed to become a standalone tree to pool shade in the future and rise up above the rhythm of the coppice as it ages. Here I have started a drift of Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus, the white-flowered form of the native, which has been in cultivation since the 17th century.

The elegant, downward-facing flowers are ivory as they open, fading slowly to a chalky white in all their parts. It is a beautiful thing and will be distinctive in the dim shade of the chestnut. I planted these bulbs as a memorial to my father who died the year the tree was planted and at the same time as the narcissus flower in late March.  This variety is hard to find and this year I have only been able to source 50, but I am happy to add a small number annually. I like that it will take some time to come together and for the annual opportunity that this gives one to ruminate.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus

Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. moschatus planted around the sweet chestnut

The Tenby Daffodil, Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. obvallaris, is the final part of this autumn’s order. This brighter yellow flower is also a native and, as its common name suggests, is most commonly found in Wales and the west.  I have bought just a hundred and plan to trial it in the sun on the banks at the top of the brook near the beehive.  Knowing your daffodils before you put them into grass is really important, as once they are in they are a nightmare to try and remove if they are wrong.  I want to be confident that they aren’t too bright for their position and flare garishly where they shouldn’t. This will be my first time growing them for myself, so I want to get it right.

A square of lifted sod

Plant the bulbs two and a half to three times the depth of the bulb

I am planting a little late this year as the wild daffodils prefer to be in the ground in August or September. They will be fine in the long run, but the green leaf tips are showing already and I can see that it would be better for them to be drawing upon new root rather than the sap of the bulb to produce this growth.  To plant I lift a square sod of turf by making three slits and then levering the sod on the hinge that remains uncut. I put the bulbs in three to five per hole and at two and a half to three times the depth of the bulb.  The flap is kicked back into place and firmed gently with the foot to remove any air pockets. A moment or two stepping back and imagining the same scene on the other side of winter is a very satisfying way to finish the day.

Words: Dan Pearson | Photographs: Huw Morgan

Published 8 October 2016

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