Don't Give Up on Tulips and Crocus

Tulips grown, many Daffodils, a good many Crocuses, some Snowdrops and a few others, but there is a vast reservoir of beauty and interest that is seldom tapped by any, save the gardener with an explorative or adventurous turn of mind. ~ Louise Beebe Wilder, 1936

 Do you love tulips and crocus but have given up on them because the deer eat your tulips and the squirrels eat or dig up your crocus?

 As its spring bulb planting time, I get a lot of questions (and grumbling) from folks who have given up on tulips and crocus because of deer and squirrels. 

I have a few suggestions, based on my experience with these bulbs and wildlife. 

At your nursery look for packaging that is specifically labeled "deer resistant " or "squirrel resistant". These will, in most cases, be species crocus or species tulips. 

As for Crocus, look for Crocus tommasinianus. This species contains bitter compounds, undesirable to squirrels. “Tommies” feature a small, light purple flower. It will naturalize both by seed and bulb division, so you will get more each year as long as it is planted in the sunniest sites with good drainage. It will come up through thin groundcovers as long as it doesn't have to compete. It naturalizes nicely in lawns that are thin and weak. I have a lush green lawn that I mow high, and is shaded in the spring by my house so the crocus Tommies I planted in it do not thrive. I planted 50 several years ago and I only get a few each year. However, those I planted in a sunnier site, mulched with wood chip do well and have multiplied.

Crocus tommasinianus

For Tulips I have never had deer eat my species tulips, but they do eat the big Dutch hybrids. Steer clear of the hybrids and focus on species tulips with names like Tulipa turkestanica, Tulipa batalinii, Tulipa whitallii to name a few of my favorites.

Tulipa turkestanica

Tulipa whitallii

In both cases, the species crocus and tulip are generally smaller in stature than hybrid choices. Personally, I prefer the smaller, more delicate nature of the species. I'm not particularly enamored with big, brassy, showy or bold tulips. When we moved to this house there were some Dutch hybrids. Deer ate the flowers and some of the leaves every year, thereby weakening the bulbs and eventually it succumbed to tulip fire fungus. Needless to say, I wasn’t sorry to dig them up and discard them in the trash. That’s one less desirable food source to draw the deer into my garden.

 The best selections are often mail-order but some nurseries carry a small selection of the species. If more people bought them, nurseries would start bringing in more choices. 

 Perhaps gardeners just haven't caught on yet, which makes the deer and squirrels very happy.

 Happy gardeners on the other hand, have the species bulbs in their gardens, watching as “them blasted creatures” move through and out without destroying their tulips and crocus.

Personally, I enjoy watching wildlife and gardening in such a way that they are not totally destructive to my work. I believe we can garden beautifully and still enjoy the wildlife that lives around us. As with anything, it is the planting choices that we make that can minimize damage. Although I was saddened the other day to see the Downey woodpecker clean out my Mason Bee/Bug hotel, it is the way of nature that has to find its food where and when it can and I respect that.

One last note… if you want to expand your spring garden choices, try these for a few other critter resistant options consider Alliums, Chionodoxa, hardy Cyclamen coum, daffodils, fritillaria, and Galanthus snowdrops.

 

Allium triquetrum

Cheers!

 In bloom in my garden today: Heath, Eupatorium, Rose, Weigela, Nepeta, Cuphea, Aster, Canna, Fuchsia, Alstroemeria, Coreopsis, Primrose, Epilobium