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Now, doesn't that sound like something you want?  Read on to find out how to accomplish creating a naturalized garden.

Every garden could and should have an area that is naturalized.  While in a formal setting, people tend to be more 'caring' than in the 'wild', naturalized areas are both good for the bulbs and they will flourish with very little maintenance.  Before you get started, review this checklist:

	Ensure good drainage for the area.
	Provide a shady/loamy soil amended with compost...if it has a lot of clay, try to slope the area.
	Research which bulbs / plants do well in your area...check hardiness zone maps.
	Check whether the plants require sun or shade to determine which type of naturalized area works best.  (See our listing of Fall and Spring Planted Naturalizing Bulbs)

The most common types of naturalized areas are woods, meadows, hills and rock gardens.

Woodland gardens can be created either in a large wooded area or just with a few trees to provide the shade of a woodland.  Bulbs that thrive in this type of surrounding include chionodoxa, galanthus, daffodils and muscari for spring-flowering types and alliums and some lilies for summer-flowering types.  

A meadow is an area that is left unmowed until midsummer when you can expect crocus, anemones, daffodils or iris reticulatas to bloom.

What better way to display a wide variety of bulbs than by having a hill as a naturalized area...you can plant some daffodils in between the creeping junipers or vinca.  Also, some darwin hybrid tulips, dutch iris and ipheon will color the hill at various times of the year.

Finally, a somewhat more formal area that would still require little maintenance is the rock garden.  You can include some boulders as well as create a stone wall which could be from several inches to several feet high.  and would have a wealth of nooks and crannies for plant material.  Quite a few of the less expensive miscellaneous bulbs such as the small alliums, specie tulips and, in warmer climates, ixias will now have an opportunity to show off their beauty.

Caring for your new naturalized garden requires only the basics... naturalized bulbs multiply rapidly and will not need to be divided except for every so many years.  You only need to feed bulbs that have a visual deficiency...no fertilizer makes them lean and mean.  Keep an eye on the amount of sun / shade...surroundings do change.  A sunny naturalized area today could become a woodland area 10 years from now.  No Problem...just dig them up and transplant them to a new area after they have bloomed.  You don't need to wait until they are dormant; now is the time you can still see them giving a new dimension to the word 'wild'.  Also, in a formal garden setting, half dormant plants are displeasing to the landscape.  In a naturalized area, you can let them die down and think nothing of it...you do need to deadhead some of the bulbs like tulips and lilies to save the nutrients for the bulbs.

If you are interested in a particular variety and want to know if it is suitable for naturalizing, email us and we'll find out for you!  We can probably even locate it for you if we don't carry it in our catalog...it's part of our service!  Try it, be amazed by it and enjoy it!

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