Autumn ’84 has come early

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 15

Autumn ’84 has come early

jWARDENER’S W DIARY

Derrick Rooney

Condensation on the windows in the morning and the sudden — and, it seems to me, early — reappearance of autumn-flowering bulbs are sharp reminders that summer, such as it was, is at ah end. From here the mean temperatures will start going down. I’ve always maintained that autumn in my garden begins in February, but this year the weather has proven me wrong: autumn began in January when bulbs with “autumnalis” in their names began to flower.

One of these is Leucojum autumnalis, a tiny, pure white, gem-like flower that would be one of my favourites no matter when it appeared.

Another, also a favourite but for different reasons, is Scilla autumnalis. Scilla is a large genus in the lily family made up entirely of bulbous plants and has a very wide natural range, throughout most of Europe, western Asia, and extending east to India and China and south through Africa to the Cape Province, where there are upwards of 80 species.

Once it was an even larger family, but the species with tubular flowers (such as the English and Spanish bluebells) have been separated out, and the name “scilla” is now restricted to plants with starry flowers.

Their common name is “squill” — apparently de-

rived from the Latin word for lily. Despite its size, scilla must be one of the least cultivated genera of bulbs, because probably fewer than 10 per cent of the hundreds of wild species are cultivated, and you could count all the common cultivated species without running out of fingers. Of upwards of 100 in South Africa, for example, only three are seen outside the most specialised collections — and two of these are glasshouse plants: tender miniatures with striped or spotted leaves and fat bulbs which sit on top of the ground. These are Scilla violacea and S. paucifolia, sometimes grown in succulent collec-

tions. The related Scilla adlamii, which is hardy and grows well in the rock garden, has subterranean bulbs and striped leaves. Some botanists now place this group in a separate genus, Ledebouria. Thus Scilla. adlamii is now also known as Ledebouria cooperi — a point to be noted when browsing in catalogues. I was caught by this last year. Only one other South African squill is grown in New Zealand gardens —

and it is far from common. This is Scilla natalensis, which grows into a very large, summer-green clump with strap-shaped leaves and amethyst-blue flower spikes which may be a metre tall — a giant in a genus dominated by small bulbs of alpine meadows. Like the great majority of its cousins, S. natalensis flowers in late spring. Of the handful of recorded autumn-flowering species only two are in cultivation: Scilla autumnalis and S. scilloides. The latter is from China and Japan, but it is difficult to find information about it, presumably because it is not hardy in Britain where most of the books about bulbs are written.

The first time I grew it I lost it in the winter. Although I blamed frost at the time, I think I must have been wrong because since then I have grown a clump in a pot. Although the pot has been frozen solid on occasion the bulbs have come to no harm.

Usually this species flowers in March, when Scilla autumnalis is fading away, but here it is, only the beginning of February, and the buds are well advanced.

They will be open in a week or so: rosy-purple spikes rather like little redhot pokers. Curiously, neither of these species is mentioned among the encyclopaedic collection of bulbs described by E. A. Bowles in the autumn-win-ter volume of his great gardening trilogy, so presumably he did not grow them.

This may be because the one is tender in Britain and the other, though one of the most common wild European bulbs, is frequently a wispy and dowdy thing. Some of the Eastern forms which may not have been available to Bowles have more substance, and one of the best is a Turkish form which is grown by a number of enthusiasts in New Zealand. This came into the country as seed collected during a British botanical expedition financed by subscriptions in the 19605.

A veteran gardener who had been one of the subscribers gave me a couple of bulbs a few years ago, and they have increased very slowly. I assume that is why this bulb is rarely offered by nurseries.

I keep mine in a pot, not because I am afraid of losing them but because this is actually one of the bulbs which are better off if grown in a pot, where their restrained charms can be admired at close range. Out in the rock garden it might increase more quickly, but would be a bit lost at this time of the year. Similar remarks could be made about the sole autumn-flowering representative of the related genus Muscari: the autumn grape hyacinth, Muscari parviflorum, a little Eastern Mediterranean bulb which has the dubious distinctions of being not only the smallest known grape hyacinth, but the species which has been described as the dowdiest in the genus.

I think it’s a pretty little thing, when seen in isolation from floristic competition, and if I could only find it I would lift a bulb today and put it in a pot. I have it in the garden, and know its location — to within a square metre or two. Unfortunately, there’s always something else to do at the time of year when it is both visible and safely transplanted, and I never remember about it until after it has disappeared. The spot could be marked, of course, but I dislike the graveyard effect of garden labels. Back to Scilla autumnalis. Its usual flowering time is February-March but this year it advanced to midJanuary, and the first spikes are nearly finished already. More are emerging from the bulbs.

That is one of the good things about this autumn squill — it doesn’t just have a single spike per bulb, as many species do, but has a succession of spikes over a month or more. The colour is pale lilac mauve. No matter how you stretched the imagination you couldn’t call it bold or spectacular, but .it does have a compellingly restrained charm. There is no risk of confusing the autumn squill with Scilla scilloides. The latter has, as I mentioned, a dense red-hot poker-like spike of flowers,' whereas Scilla autumnalis has a loose, open inflorescence, more like the spring-flowering cousins. It could be confused with the Sicilian Scilla intermedia, also autumn flowering, but I doubt if the latter is in cultivation.

In any case, the difference is so tiny as to be meaningless to most gardeners: Scilla autumnalis has smooth leaves, whereas S. intermedia has minute hairs on the leaf edges. Only a good magnifying glas.'pcan segregate them.