Making Your Garden Part 3
Making Your Garden Part 3
When the plants have bloomed and their leaves have died, bulbs go through a period of dormancy (rest) before their roots start to grow again in the fall. Some bulbs can be left in the ground to bloom year after year.
Corms look like bulbs, but instead of being made up of layers of leaves, they are a solid mass of food for the growing plant. The crocus and the gladiolus are both corms. Spring-blooming crocuses are planted in the fall, and fall-blooming varieties are planted in August. The corms should be planted 3 or 4 inches deep. Crocuses look best when they are planted 2 or 3 inches apart in clumps, rather than in rows.
The gladiolus blooms in the summer. The corms (usually called bulbs) can be set out in a number of plantings from early spring through early summer so that there are blooms all summer long. The corms should be planted from 3 to 6 inches deep, depending on their size. Gladiolus corms will not survive the winter if they are left in the ground, so they must be lifted when their blooming season is over and stored in a cool, dry place.
Another kind of underground stem is the rhizome. It looks like a long, thick root. Irises and cannas, the brilliant summer flowers often seen in formal public gardens, grow from rhizomes.
Irises bloom in the spring and early summer. They should be planted in the late summer and early fall. The rhizomes are planted so that they lie along the ground close to the surface. They are never planted upright as a bulb is. The ground should be pressed down firmly after planting. Rhizomes grow longer each year and develop new buds. After several years irises should be lifted and divided.
Cannas are planted in the spring when the danger of frost is past. In cool climates they must be taken out of the ground in the fall.
The potato and the vegetable known as the Jerusalem artichoke are examples of another underground stem—the tuber. Tubers, like corms, are solid masses of plant food. They develop buds called eyes. New plants grow from these eyes. Tubers are planted deeper in the ground than rhizomes.
Some plants, like the dahlia and the sweet potato, grow from a swollen underground root rather than from a stem. This root is often called a tuber, but it is more correct to call it a tuberous root.