Old Gardens and Old Bulbs

It is amazing what wonderful plants can come up in an old garden. Today's homeowner takes their perennial bulbs with them. But in the older home people often left their perennials. I currently have a lovely lace lavender lace pattern covering my back yard.

We were lucky the first year we moved here. There was not enough time to work on the gardens early in the year. I would have destroyed flowers that might be heritage flowers by putting weed killer on the yard.

We will put weed killer on the yard, some day. But not until after we've harvested a nice collection of these bulb flowers. The first two years we did try to dig some up. And learned the wrong way.

Old bulbs, unlike to-days, cannot be dug out of the ground and treated like tulip bulbs. Dig around them making sure you get well below the roots. I am not sure if changing the soil will damage the flowers, or their roots are sensitive. I just know that if you try to use a tulip planter to dig up the roots then you'll kill the old bulbs.