Bulbs: The best garden investment you could make

Chosen well and planted by the end of May, a canny selection of bulbs could provide you with bountiful dividends for years to come.

Most bulbs look best en masse, so try to invest in one or two kinds rather in too much variety... use them as if they were water moving through, underneath and around objects." This excellent advice comes from star garden designer Dan Pearson.

However, bulbs have become extremely expensive and mass planting of a few hundred could leave a large hole in the average gardener's budget.

The answer is to think in terms of growth potential: start with a few of those bulbs that will multiply and bloom year after year and in five years you could have 50 or more, from both seed and offsets.

There are other tempting short-term wonders too, usually exotics that, in South African conditions, burn themselves out in one glorious spring splash. Which is also money well spent - so treat yourself to a pot or two.

INDIGENOUS BULBS

What to buy:

• For sunny spots: violet Babiana angustifolia, tall, flame-flowered Chasmanthe floribunda, rosy Watsonia borbonica, and Ixia and Sparaxis hybrids, which are Cape bulbs that adapt well to summer rainfall.
• For semi-shade and shade: orange or primrose Clivia miniata, Cyrtanthus mackenii (fragrant, long-flowering and lovely for picking), yellow Bulbinella and pink Veltheimia bracteata.

Expect to spend:

• Shopping around online, the cheapest indigenous bulbs worked out at about R2.50 each, but most were much more. The two cheapest bulbs we found were exotics, Anemone and Ipheion at 50c each - excellent value for mass planting and a lovely combination.
• The anemones will last only one season, but at that price it doesn't matter. Their flowers - scarlet, mauve and white - appear from midwinter and make superb cut flowers (R50 for a pack of 100).
• The little spring star flower (Ipheion spp.) is a delight and will return in ever-increasing numbers every spring (R100 for 200).

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EXOTIC OPTIONS

What to buy:

Exotic bulbs that will naturalise well in the right (usually cool) conditions include Narcissus 'Paperwhite', Brodiaea 'Queen Fabiola', Leucojum vernum (snowflake) and Hyacinthoides (bluebells), all good in dappled sunlight.

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Expect to spend:

Be tempted by the fabulous new selection of tulips from Hadeco: R175 for a pack of 10.

HOW TO LOOK AFTER YOUR INVESTMENT

• For long-term growth and easy gardening, indigenous bulbs from your rainfall region are the best choice. This means that they will receive rainwater in their growth period and remain safely dry in their dormant season.
• Many bulbs are deciduous, disappearing without trace during dormancy; if you want them to survive and bloom the following year, you will need to mark their planting site and make sure they are not dug up, overwatered or swamped by other plants.
• For sun lovers, planting in gravel is a good idea. Shade lovers can rest under leaf litter or bark chips.

Useful websites: hadecoshop.com, shirebulbs.co.za, simplyindigenous.co.za, capeseedandbulb.com.