September was a traumatic month for all of us. It was gardening kept me going. There was solace to be found in such mundane tasks as weeding and planting. You know where you are with weeding: pulling anise/mint fragrant perilla going to seed, touch-me-not, and Japanese stilt grass, big baskets of debris that was dumped in the compost heap to become useful organic matter returned to the garden. Writing a journal entry was just more than I could manage. I needed more practical, grounding tasks. Planting bulbs was something that carried my thoughts away from the enervating sadness of the events of September 11th to the cycle of seasons and the flowers these new bulbs will provide next spring. As Minnie Aumonier wrote, "When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden."

I have that damp-to-wet area towards the road where I planted star magnolias and moisture-loving shrubs in March and April. Now, at the other end of summer I wanted to plant bulbs there. Most bulbs prefer better drainage, especially while they are dormant in winter. Fortunately there are a few that can accept the conditions of light shade and moist soil that this site has to offer.

The first I chose to plant was the little Guinea hen flower, Fritillaria meleagris. Blooming in late April or early May, each bulb has one or two plump nodding bell-like flowers, most commonly in a finely checkered pattern of soft purple and white. A few bulbs will have white flowers checkered with green. If I want to group them by color, these white-flowered individuals can easily be dug and replanted while in flower next spring. The 8- or 9-inch tall plants have a few thin gray-green leaves. Since Guinea hen flower grows from a small, crocus-size bulb that never has a papery tunic or covering, it is important to plant them early in fall. This avoids any chance of their drying out. I planting 500 bulbs, scattering good-sized groups in among ferns, brunnera, and other perennials with early interest that will also disguise the bulbs dormancy in summer.

Next were camassia. Native to wet meadows of the Pacific Northwest, their late spring or early summer flowers are a pleasing addition to any garden. Camassia leichtlinni grows as much as 3 feet tall, with starry, lavender blue flowers up and down the sturdy stem. I chose the cultivar 'Blauwe Donau' (offered for sale in the United States as 'Blue Danube'). This camassia has big bulbs, about the size of a fat tulip. Strap-like leaves, an inch or so wide and about 2 feet long, cluster around the flower stem as do a daffodil's leaves. C. leichtlinni will grow in sun or light shade, thrives in clay, and accepts average soils as happily as moist sites. Even better, deer seem not to like it. There are a few other camassias, and I chose two more. At 6- to 10-inches high C. quamash is much smaller growing, and, as you would expect, has smaller bulbs that are only 6+ cm. in diameter. Flower color varies from blue to violet, or even creamy white. The third camassia, C. quamash 'Melody' was planted elsewhere, and I'll mention it later.

The third bulb I planted in this damp area was summer snowflake, Leucojum aestivum (aestivum comes from the Latin aestivale, or summer.) Like starched petticoats, fat white flowers tipped with a dot of green on each petal dangle from a gently arching stem. I chose 'Gravetye Giant', a robust cultivar with somewhat larger flowers. Free flowering, each stem also displays a few more flowers than the usual 3 to 5 of the species.

Like other bulbs such as daffodils and tulips that flower in the spring, all of these bulbs will go dormant after they bloom. I combine bulbs with perennials to distract attention from their aging foliage and provide interest later in the year. Sensitive fern, Onoclea sensibilis, is native in much of the northeast and elsewhere in the country. This was my choice to pair up with the summer snowflake. The fern has somewhat coarse (I prefer "bold" as a descriptive term) fronds on a running rootstock. New fronds appear as long as there is sufficient moisture durring the growing season. In autumn, fronds turn straw-gold with the first frost. Elegant spore cases, like rich brown beads thickly clustered on a stiffly upright stem remain through the winter. Camassia quamash, the smaller camassia, has columbines with golden leaves and white flowers as a partner in my garden. I had raises Aquilegia 'Woodside' from seed last spring. It is easy to tell which of the seedlings will be yellow-leafed and which will be green right from the start. And Camassia 'Blauwe Donau' is interplanted with Hosta plantaginea. The blue camassia flowers should display nicely with the glossy apple-green hosta foliage. In August this hosta has fragrant white flowers. I had bought one overcrowded pot of hosta in September, and made 9 divisions. They should settle in very nicely this fall, make somewhat of a display next spring, and continue to improve in the following year. Of course, since I garden in deer country, regular applications of Milorganite, dried blood, and other repellants will be necessary. As I mentioned, the little Guinea hen flower has been tucked in by handfuls with a variety of other perennials for spring interest: Siberian bugloss, Brunnera macrophylla, with its coarse heart-shaped green leaves and forget-me-not like flowers, Astilbe chinensis 'Pumila', a low growing astilbe with small spikes of crushed raspberry-pink flowers in summer, and low-growing Phlox stolonifera which makes nice ground covering mats of evergreen leaves accompanied by soft blue flowers in early May.

Right now the garden is covered with a scurf of fallen leaves. These plants and their flowers are months away from happening. But we all know that gardening is first a matter of dreaming, and then hard work. I'm pleased to have planned, and planted, and have something to look forward to when spring returns after winter.