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BULB COLLECTION

Breaking through the winter gloom, cheery crocus, daffodils, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, and tulips color the landscape, followed by summer- and fall-flowering bulbs including lilies, cannas, caladiums, dahlias and autumn crocuses. All are part of the spectacular multi-season display of bulbs that bloom throughout the year in a carefully-planned and timed floral exhibition that reaches every corner of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

The Garden’s bulb collection is expansive—“There are over 1,000 different types of bulbous plants that are cycled through here in the spring, summer and fall,” explains Jason Delaney, senior outdoor horticulturalist in charge of the Heckman and Samuels Bulb Gardens, among other displays—and it is also nationally-recognized. The American Daffodil Society (ADS) named the Narcissus (daffodil) collection as the first sanctioned ADS Display Garden, which Delaney describes as “quite an honor.”

In a typical year, the Garden adds between 50,000 and 85,000 bulbs to its existing displays. In 2009, to honor the institution’s 150th anniversary, visitors will witness a total of 150,000 new bulbs throughout the grounds, timed to bloom throughout the year. Innumerable bulbs exist on the Garden’s 79-acre campus.

"The spring display, which is planted in fall, includes hardy bulbs—tulips, daffodils, a lot of the lilies, crocuses, and a lot of miscellany," Delaney said. These will be at their peak about the second week of April. "In the summertime, starting in late May, we remove the tulips and hyacinths, which are treated as annuals, and put in the tropical bulbs, including the elephant ears, dahlias, gladiolas and amaryllis.”

The Heckman and Samuels Bulb Gardens are home to the majority of the Garden’s bulbous plants, including the Narcissus collection of nearly 650 unique varieties. The pair lies on either side of the path south of the Gladney Rose Garden. However, flowering bulbs can be found throughout the Garden grounds, some in small clusters and others in eye-catching masses. There are thousands of crocuses dotting the lawn of the Lehmann Building. The recently-renovated main entrance of the Garden includes a central median of 10,000 bulbs, including a striking display of 1,500 giant flowering onions. Thousands of tulips are planted en masse in the formal beds flanking the aquatic pools in the Climatron® axis and in front of the Linnean House. More bulbs can be spotted in the Cherbonnier English Woodland Garden and the Kemper Center for Home Gardening.

In honor of the Garden’s sesquicentennial, several historic varieties of bulbs were added to the two Bulb Gardens’ spring display, according to Delaney. They include:

• Historic daffodils: ‘Conspicuus’ from 1869, ‘White Lady’ from 1897, ‘Seagull’ from 1868, and ‘Stella’ from before 1869. Already in the collection were ‘Empress’ from 1869, ‘Queen of the North’ from 1908 and ‘Sir Watkins’ from 1868. Delaney added 45 new daffodil varieties in the fall of 2008.
• Historic hyacinths: ‘Chestnut Flower’ from 1860, ‘City of Haarlem’ from 1893, ‘Madame Sophie’ from 1927, and ‘ Jan Bos’ from 1927. Fifteen new hyacinths were added in the fall of 2008. (In the 1800s hyacinths were considered the most popular bulb!)

The Bulb Gardens also include 90 new tulip varieties in 2009.
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A host of Victorian favorites will grace the Bulb Gardens come summer:

• Over 100 Hippeastrum, or amaryllis, will be on display, including the most popular from Victorian times, H x johnsonii, which was first introduced in 1799.
• Nearly 75 dahlias and more than 100 varieties of gladiolus.

All of the bulbous plants are clearly labeled with common name, genus, cultivar, family, name of the hybridizer, and date of registration, as applicable, Delaney explained. The collection aims to meet the needs of the gardener seeking to discover the rarest to most common, oldest to newest; there are even plants as yet unnamed and under evaluation that “will someday be the plants of the future,” Delaney said.

The Samuels Bulb Garden was created in 1985 through a donation by Mrs. Jane Jacobs in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Julian G. Samuels. The Heckman Garden followed in 1990 with a gift by Mr. and Mrs. William G. Heckman.

In 1992, a bronze figure of an Indian girl by American sculptor Sheila Hale Burlingame was installed in the Heckman Bulb Garden. It had been donated in 1989 in memory of Julia and Charles Lamy by their daughters, Julia, Mary and Isabel. A 35-inch brown pelican in flight called “Skimming the Waves” was added in memory of the William G. Heckman family. It is part of a limited edition by Geoffrey C. Smith, a leading sculptor of birds.

The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment, in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 150 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science and conservation, education and horticultural display.

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