Naturalizing Bulbs

Bulb plants, most often relegated to special beds or the landscape's outer fringes, gain heady license here to integrate the garden beneath small trees, around shrubs, amid perennials and annuals and--perhaps most liberating and blithesome--into the lawn. ""Naturalizing"" means situating bulbs with companion plants for ""mutual benefit and beauty"" where they'll require minimal care. Proctor (Country Flowers; The Outdoor Potted Bulb) first lays groundwork in the ""Growing Concerns"" of soil (the biggest determinant of bulb success), water (""more plants die from drowning than drought""), planting (spring can be better than autumn) and predators--slugs in particular. In easy-reading prose (a collection of irises is compared to a rack of ""colorful party dresses"" whose ""potential isn't realized until they are seen at the dance"") enlivened by humor and piquant digressions, Proctor debunks the daunting myths that bulbs require frequent dividing, fertilizing, mulching or cultivating. Recommendations of seasonal species both common (big-cup daffodils, autumn crocus) and uncommon (hairy toad lily), are supplied with an intriguing geography of bulb heritage. Profiles of 400-plus bulbs, tubers, corms and rhizomes for nine areas of the U.S. are joined by 90 color photos, not seen by PW. (Aug.)