If you don’t have an expert head gardener or landscape architect living next door to help you with your bulb-planting choices this fall, here are three expert recommendations we’ve gathered for you. (No need to thank us!)
Galanthus elwesii – Writing in the February 2019 issue of Gardens Illustrated, British head gardener Tom Brown calls Elwes snowdrop “a superb form of this winter favorite,” adding “I particularly enjoy growing this species, not only for the large, white flowers – which can often be twice the size of our much-loved common snowdrop – but also because of the opulent, glaucous foliage.”
The Royal Horticultural Society is also a big fan of Elwes snowdrop, having given it their prestigious Award of Garden Merit.
‘Thalia’ – In his list of “100 Most Beautiful and Useful Plants,” in that same issue of Gardens Illustrated, the renowned Swedish landscape architect Ulf Nordfjell includes this popular old daffodil.
Nordfjell describes it as “a late-flowering cultivar that produces many pure white flowers,” and says it “provides a delicate counterpoint to early shoots of perennials such as astilbes and epimediums.”
‘Duchesse de Nemours’ – This grand old Victorian peony is another of Nordfjell’s “100 Most Beautiful and Useful Plants.”
It’s “an old-fashioned, scented, double, creamy-white flowering peony, and a real beauty,” he writes, and “my favorite, especially among carpets of violets.” (And even though it’s over 150 years old, the ‘Duchesse’ is an RHS Award of Garden Merit winner, too.)
