Every Garden Deserves A Imperial Crownl

Every garden deserves a dashing crown imperial

, Fritillaria imperialis. From the moment it comes up in the spring until the time it goes dormant, you can't possibly ignore it; it keeps shouting "Look at me!"

Does it wait until everything else is ready to come up before sticking out its nose? No, indeed; it pops up, big and determined, while the weather's still cold. And it grows as rapidly and merrily as though it were summer already. If there's a frost you may have to rush out with a bushel basket to clap over its precocious head.

By the time the early tulips are in bloom, the crown imperial has reached a magnificent height of 3 feet and is in full flower. It's the biggest thing in the early spring with whorls of lush foliage, fairly towering over nearby narcissus. You can truthfully say it has an "air" about it, although that "air" smells faintly like skunk! Nothing daunted, it stands aristocratically erect, flashing its jaunty crown of vivid flowers. After the flowery outburst, the plant concentrates on ripening its foliage, then goes dormant.

Fritillaria imperialis is an old-fashioned flower well beloved by our grandmothers long before the advent on landscape lighting. My grandmother Fischer grew it out at the old farm home near Shenandoah, Iowa, where hundreds of them now bloom every spring. I asked my aunt Ida Fischer for advice on their culture, and here are her recommendations:

The ground should be rich and mellow, not too moist nor too dry. Do not use fresh manure. Plant the large bulbs (3 or 4 inches in diameter) about 12 inches deep. They can be planted only 6 inches deep if you want to dig them often to increase your stock. The large-size bulbs should be spaced from 6 to 12 inches apart, depending upon how often you want to dig them for transplanting. Deep, far-apart planting makes it possible to leave them alone for from five to ten years.

Tiny bulbs, 1/2 inch or less in diameter, need not be planted more than an inch deep, but you will have to see that they are sufficiently mulched.

Transplant when the bulbs are dormant. This depends upon the earliness or lateness of the season and on the latitude. Don't wait too long after the foliage has died down to dig the bulbs. Plant them where they do not get the hot afternoon sun. They should not be crowded by other plants, shrubs or trees, either above or below ground. Mulch with dry leaves or grass when the plants die down:

Bulbs can be multiplied quite rapidly if transplanted every year or two. I have seen seeds of crown imperial only a few times and have never known any of them to germinate.

by: Thomas Fryd

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