Pernell Gerver's Featured Plant of the Month Colchicum Colchicum 'Waterlily' A beautiful autumn scene - Colchicum 'Waterlily' in bloom with New England aster and ornamental grasses A mass planting of Colchicum 'Lilac Wonder' Look closely - 20 flowers with more buds to come all from one Colchicum 'Lilac Wonder' bulb! Colchicum 'Lilac Wonder' blooming through white sweet alyssum  To order Colchicum from Pernell Gerver's Online Store click here.

Fall is a time when many gardeners begin thinking about bulbs. It's the time to plant all those wonderful spring-blooming bulbs like daffodil, tulip, hyacinth, and all the rest. Did you also know it's time to plant fall-blooming bulbs? That's right - fall-blooming bulbs. One of the best fall-blooming bulbs is colchicum. It's an amazing little plant, actually. It grows from a large bulb about the size of an orange. What's so amazing about this bulb is you plant it in fall and within two weeks it's in full bloom. Flowers burst out of the ground without any foliage and bloom for weeks and weeks right through frost. One bulb produces numerous flowers. I've seen as many as 20 or more flowers from just one bulb! Colchicum is a hardy perennial bulb that stays in the ground from year and year and gets better and better every year. It's also very dependable. Almost like clockwork on the first day of autumn I can count on colchicum to begin blooming. It's a good companion to other fall-blooming plants like ornamental grasses, asters, chrysanthemums, and Japanese anemone. Foliage of colchicum appears in spring. It bears foot-long, chartreuse-green, strap-like leaves that die back to the ground by early summer, leaving no evidence of a plant underground. Be sure to mark its location in the garden so you don't disturb it in summer. One of my favorite varieties of colchicum is 'Waterlily.' It bears fully-double flowers that really do look like a waterlily flower. Each flower has numerous, slender, pointed flower petals. The flowers are bright, rosy pink and are about six inches wide. The flowers stand about four to five inches tall and tend to hug the ground. It produces many flowers, up to a dozen or more from each bulb. I like to plant this variety in clumps of three for a really stunning effect. Another nice variety of colchicum that is also a favorite of mine is 'Lilac Wonder.' It bears huge, six- to eight-inch-tall flowers that resemble crocus flowers, only larger. The flowers are a beautiful rosy lilac fading to a white center. As the flowers age, they open up wide into a star shape, revealing their white center. I planted a row of this variety along a stone wall in my garden and when it comes into bloom in fall it's just eye catching. In another flower bed I planted white sweet alyssum in a border along the edge of the bed and in autumn, the colchicum flowers poke right through, creating a beautiful combination. For one last burst of color in the garden, count on colchicums to surprise you with their late-season blooms year after year. To order Colchicum from Pernell Gerver's Online Store click here. Back to the plant of the month archives