Spring Flowering Bulbs

Lin Good, a consultant, was Associate Librarian at Queen’s University.

Rosemary Owen, the author of this delightful small book, is clearly an experienced practical gardener. She and her husband for years operated a nursery on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and achieved the distinction of being elected as Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society for their contributions to the art, and science, of gardening.

Much of the material contained in this volume was published in the Pacific Bulb Gardener (Sidney, B.C.: Gray’s, 1971.) The change indicated by the new title is reflected in the contents, which are useful to people living throughout Canada, not only in the gardener’s paradise, the Pacific Northwest. Obviously, people who live in harsher climates will have to adapt the information to their own environment, but that should not be difficult since clear instructions about types of soils, preferred locations, and best growing conditions for the different varieties are given.

Indeed, there is a wealth of detail, ranging from how to plant the bulbs, and move them after they have matured, to notes on the history of some of the species, and the earlier gardeners, from Pliny the Elder, to Sir Joseph Banks, of England’s Kew Gardens, from whose work we have all benefitted.

The photographs illustrating this book have been supplied by the author’s husband, Gwyn Owen.

He has captured the beauty that inspires gardeners the world over to work in the cold earth every fall, anticipating the loveliness, some blazing and glorious, some fragile but still breathtaking, which may follow. With this book as a guide, the expectation has a much better chance of becoming reality.