By Victoria Torley

Don’t you love it when something you planted makes new plants without any help on your part? My favorite was always daffodils. Plant one and a year later you have five. What a way to fill up a garden.

Which reminds me of a neighbor I had in upstate New York. She complained one day that she had had beautiful daffodils for about three years but that now she only got leaves and no flowers. The answer was simple. The bulbs had been planted in a rock garden.

Every year they made new baby bulbs until there was no space left and no nutrients for flower production. When we dug up this 8x10 inch space, we remove almost 200 tiny bulbs! They were properly transplanted to both our yards and bloomed like crazy in sort of a “happily ever after” sort of way.

No daffodils here near the lake, but we have plenty of other bulbs and happy runners to keep us happy (and lazy) as they fill up space in our gardens.

Take the butterfly white ginger for example. Not a bulb, but a vigorous runner, this plant will take over an entire field if you don’t cut it back. Right now mine are blooming and, as I write this, the scent is filling the room


Another vigorous runner is the bird of paradise heliconia. The colors are lovely and they are fast growers but won’t take over a field as fast as the butterfly ginger. Their height – about 2 feet – is perfect for the rear of a flowerbed. Sadly, they are unscented.

Lilies can have incredible bulbs that can weigh five kilos or more. When I say “or more” I am reminded of a bulb with leaves that weighed more than 20 kilos and took two people to move.

It has been in the ground for over a year and now we have baby bulbs to detach and move. A crowded lily – like a crowded daffodil - is a lily that can have trouble blooming.

Then there are all the colors of the amaryllis and the canna lilies. Plant them in bunches if you can or put some in the center of a bed and surround them with smaller plants.

For a smaller plant, there is the rain lily Zephyranthes which come in white, yellow and pink. Some varieties are short, about 3 inches, and others reach 18 inches. Not quite as prolific as daffodils, but they try.

Let’s see, I haven’t even mentioned the Costa Rican iris, so I will save that for another time.

If I missed your favorite bulb or runner, just send a note.

Plant of the week. I just love saplings? This one produces something that was once considered to be so rare and perfect that it could only be used by royalty or for an offering to the gods. Give up? This is cinnamon tree was a gift from a friend (thanks, Loren, and no, I am not royalty).

Grow your cinnamon in full sun, use a balanced fertilizer, and water twice a week in the dry season. Left to follow its own rules, it can grow to 50 feet. On plantations, it is usually cut back to about 20 feet, so you can prune to size without problems.

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Find more interesting stories about gardening in Costa Rica on the AM Costa Rica Garden Magazine. Questions on this article, Ms. Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached by emailing victoriatorley1@gmail.com
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