MALVERN Horticultural Society welcomed Ingrid Millington of Hillview Hardy Plants to their March meeting to talk about bulbs. Ingrid introduced her talk by saying that she was taking a wide definition of bulb as she would be including plants that grew from tubers, corms and rhizomes. Not that a selection of bulbs couldn’t give colour throughout the year, just that by introducing these other plants, we would have a much wider range of plants to use in different situations in our gardens.

And indeed, the first plant Ingrid showed was not from a bulb, but a tuber: an Arum. Popularly known as Lords and Ladies, the native Arum italicum can be almost overlooked until its bright orange-red berries appear in autumn. Its leaves grow large if it is shady, but it flowers best in sun. The crocus family is large, and probably everybody is familiar with the flowers that emerge in early spring. They range from purples to oranges and white, and some have two or three colours in their blooms. Tough as old boots, they can be planted deeply to give reliable displays year on year. Anemones are another spring favourite, as hardy as they come, and such a variety of species that they can be fitted in almost anywhere. Ingrid went on to describe many other spring flowering plants and gave tips on growing them successfully – such as that for Iris reticulata, which needs to be planted deeply or its bulbs tend to break up and become too small to flower.

Moving on through the months, Ingrid showed us her pictures of bluebells, Lily of the Valley, lesser celandines and grape hyacinths. Providing conditions are right, these are plants that once they are with you, they’ll always be with you.

Summer bulbs can provide the most spectacular of flowers. They can be large and loud, like colourful cannas, or more discreet, such as eucomis - where Sparkling Burgundy will provide a contrasting hot colour to add a fizz to bedding borders schemes. Graceful Dierramas come into this category as well. It is not for nothing that they are called Angel’s Fishing Rods and their apparently fine flower stalks and delicate looking flowers belie their actual toughness.

After the zeal and energy of the high summer months, are your borders and flower beds looking a bit down at heel? No problem – you can inject new life into them to perk them up with a whole variety of bulbs and tubers. The orange turk’s cap lily – Lilium lancifolium – or Tiger lily as it is popularly known, will grow up to five feet tall and is but one many garden worthy lilies. Watch out for the red backed lily beetle though. And of course there are the dahlias. A huge selection in all sorts of shapes and sizes are available, and they can be started off from seeds or basal cuttings, grown on in pots, and then planted out to fill gaps where they will flower to the first frosts. Crocosmias are increasing in popularity, and recent breeding work has considerably increased the colour range in these plants, from the bright red of ‘Lucifer’ down to more subtle shades of apricot-yellows such as you’ll find in ‘Sulphurea’.

Finishing off the year with a flourish, Nerines are coming into their own now. Their colour range is being augmented from the standard pinks to much darker hues and they are proving to be quite adaptive to our garden conditions. The Kaffir Lily, given plenty of moisture, will continue blooming well into late autumn. The autumn flowering cyclamen – C. hederifolium – will be pushing up its flowers now, long before the attractive silver and green leaves appear and, to complete the circle, autumn flowering crocuses, particularly the blue C. speciosus will be evident, basking in a sunny spot in the late year sunshine.

In her talk, Ingrid covered many bulbs, tubers, corms and so on, and illustrated the plants with her excellent photographs. She showed just what a versatile and clever group of plants these are as they have adapted themselves to cope with all manner of situations, from woodland plants blooming in the early sun before the leaf canopy cuts out the light, to those which rely on the sun to bake their rhizomes to produce next year’s flowers. Her talk gave inspiration and practical hints and tips for their practical uses of this group of plants in our gardens. And of course her talk and advice was very timely, as now is the time to start preparing for those summer displays of bulbs in our borders, pots and troughs.

Fittingly, the evening’s competitions were a specimen narcissus and a posy of spring flowers, with entries in the latter category including a number of flowers coming from bulbs.

The Malvern Horticultural Society meets every fourth Wednesday in the month at 7.30pm in the Sixth Form Block, The Chase Technology Centre. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 27 when Richard Fishbourne will be speaking on A Worm’s Eye View of Gardening for Wildlife. New members and visitors will be welcome.