Mediterranean Garden Society
Mediterranean Garden Society
What Lies Beneath: Sparoza Bulbs
by Lucinda Willan
photos by Lucinda Willan
Photographs to illustrate the article published in The Mediterranean Garden No. 119, January 2025
The photo at the top of this page shows Narcissus papyraceus in December at Sparoza (photo Lucinda Willan)
Lucinda Willan, Head Gardener at Sparoza writes: The autumn bulbs are flowering again at Sparoza and I am feeling nostalgic. My first experience of Greece and its flora was on a trip to see the autumn-flowering bulbs of the Peloponnese in 2018. It was a spectacular year for flowers, one that Sally Razelou called the annus mirabilis, due to the large amounts of rain. Sternbergia lutea carpeted the olive groves outside Areopoli (see the photo at the top of the Contents page), the coastal roads were pink and white with Cyclamen graecum and an ever-changing army of crocuses. We were met with the most incredible displays everywhere we went and I was blissfully unaware of what a special year it was. I was hooked and travelled back in January 2019 to Evia (Euboea). then to Evia and Delos in May of the same year. Then I was granted funds from the Merlin Trust to walk the length of the Peloponnese on the Peloponnesian Way in March 2020 to observe the spring flowers. Everything was opening up – I had a fire inside me as far as looking for plants in the wild went and I had been approached about two fantastic jobs. Then suddenly everything stopped. The pandemic hit and all the opportunities disappeared until a friend suggested that I go to Sparoza to help Sally.
Crocus cartwrightianus in December at Sparoza
I have come to realise that I mark the changing of the seasons at Sparoza and indeed their beauty by the displays of native bulbs. Oddly enough, I think this is something that Sally did too. I know that she would always mark the date when she saw the first Anemone coronaria or Crocus cartwrightianus. This is something that I too can’t help doing. There is something miraculous about the emerging of these subterranean friends. There is a feeling that we are waiting for their arrival, a sense like nostos, a homecoming. They are ephemeral, fleeting, inconsistent and enchanting. The shrubs and trees provide the structure and architecture of the garden but there is no doubt that the magic comes from the mass displays of geophytes and annuals. These generous and fleeting species are what the garden of Sparoza is all about for me, and how they vary and morph each year according to climate conditions. Since I have been at Sparoza the displays have ranged from spectacular to almost non-existent with the vagaries of the weather, but they persist. Their inconsistency somehow makes them all the more precious.
Carpets of Cyclamen graecum in October
In the past three years we have had very little rain and very hot summers in Attica. The particular severity of summer 2024, when we had relentless daytime and nighttime temperatures for weeks on end, has meant that we have seen death and die-back in lots of the trees and shrubs at Sparoza. The woody plants have been hit harder than anything else, including some of the toughest Mediterranean plants such as Lomelosia cretica, Phlomis fruticosa, Cistus creticus, Cistus monspeliensis, Thymbra capitata and Sarcopoterium spinosum. This has occurred almost exclusively in the unwatered parts of the garden although there have also been some losses in the irrigated heart of the garden.
Haemanthus coccineus in September at Sparoza
As I write this article in mid-November, the garden has started to green up, but at the end of October it was only the bulbs (and cacti) that were giving any sense of hope among the wreckage of the tortured and scorched limbs of the woody plant collection. They haven’t flowered in abundance this autumn, though their generosity when they have appeared has been enough to carry me through; because they are not flowering en masse they give the impression of jewels emerging from the wrinkled red earth, with the heat sending them back to where they came from after just a few days. I cried out with joy when I saw that the Haemanthus coccineus were flowering. I had been knocked back by a virus in September and retreated to bed for a few days, only to find when I walked out on to the East Terrace a swathe of such saturated red that it made me blink. The same delightful surprise was true of the Crocus goulimyi: I was out of the garden for a whole day teaching rose pruning and when I came back there they were, a river of the most delicate, luminous lilac-coloured crocuses, a truly fairy-like plant.
Narcissus papyraceus in January at Sparoza
At Sparoza we are incredibly lucky to have a wealth of native geophytes that illuminate the garden with their successive waves of glory. They come to the fore, embellishing and lighting up the flowerbeds, paths and anywhere else they want to go with their beauty, then go quiet, allowing a neighbouring species to take up the mantle – as I write it is the time of Crocus cartwrightianus and Colchicum cupanii. These displays have been encouraged by allowing the plants to set seed and grow where they choose (within reason) and by the fact that no chemicals are used. Sally was convinced that part of the reason there are so many Crocus cartwrightianus on the track and hillside was that years of dog-walking feet carried their seeds to form particular densities of the plant. It is one of the most important gardening lessons Sparoza has to offer on how to garden in harmony with nature and on celebrating what occurs naturally.
Asphodelus aestivus in March at Sparoza
From the start of the new gardening year in autumn, the garden of Sparoza is carpeted with a seemingly never-ending massed display of bulbs, starting with Narcissus papyraceus, Anemone coronaria and Himantoglossum robertianum, moving on to Muscari commutatum, Iris tuberosa and Anemone pavonina (syn. A. hortensis), and then to the stately spires of Asphodelus aestivus and the miniature masterpieces of the various Ophrys species.
Fritillaria graeca in March at Sparoza
This doesn’t mean that the bulb layer hasn’t been constantly added to throughout the garden’s existence, first by Jacky Tyrwhitt, then by Sally and most recently by me. I think of this process of adding bulbs as embroidery. It also has the ability to tell stories and create surprises. There are jewels tucked in all over the garden at Sparoza, just waiting to emerge and reveal their glory. A very unassuming section of the terraces between the Phillyrea and Myrtus communiis houses a wonderful collection of fritillaries, Fritillaria rhodocanakis, a rare endemic from Hydra, F. davisii, an endemic from the Peloponnese, F. elwesii, and my personal favourite, the sultry, dark F. obliqua – another Red List species, endemic to Attica, which was one of the earliest fritillaries to be cultivated in Europe as it was once common around Athens. Tucked under the pomegranates is a cluster of the citric-yellow F. conica, endemic to the Peloponnese; close neighbours are the wonderfully weird starfish iris, Ferraria crispa, and another favourite, Dipcadi serotinum, which looks like an English bluebell carved out of chocolate.
Muscari commutatum in February at Sparoza
In the area of the ‘desert’ and ‘threshing floor’ we have a wonderful selection of muscari, allowing one to observe the nuances and differences of the different species. Muscari commutatum is the most common species and appears all over the garden in late winter and spring. In this particular area of the garden we also have M. parviflorum which usually flowers in October (though not this year), the December-flowering M. pulchellum and M. neglectum, and Leopoldia comosa (formerly Muscari comosum) all of which are native to Attica, along with a selection of M. armeniacum. In addition, you can enjoy the massed displays such as that of Muscari commutatum in the phrygana, which bring their own excitement as it is in these displays that you notice mutations in the population and changes in colouring. At Sparoza we have a wide selection of differently-coloured Muscari commutatum, from pink in ‘Derek’s garden’ to pure white and bicoloured forms, presenting the wealth of a botanic garden displayed in a very subtle domestic or natural wild setting.
Iris tuberosa ‘Sally’ in February at Sparoza
These natural variations in the bulbs have given me hundreds of hours of pleasure seeking out special forms across the garden and the wider landscape, in particular in Iris tuberosa, Ophrys species and to a certain extent the carpet of anemones. The Iris tuberosa ranges from black and chestnut to a shimmering pale blue and purple in the garden and I have introduced a pure yellow form which I call ‘Sally’. Across the range of anemones there are some exquisite semi-double forms.
Tulipa raddii in March at Sparoza
The exploration of variation and mutation has led me to experiment with the different Tulipa clusiana forms and cultivars on the market. T. clusiana grows wild on the island of Chios alongside T. raddii, which we grow very successfully in several places in the garden, thus I thought it likely that the former would be happy in our conditions. I have been growing the different forms in pots in order to observe how they perform and whether the colours of the cultivars would be harmonious in the garden. I have loved watching them flower and they maintain their height and elegance in a way that Tulipa australis, T. orphanidea and T. hageri never seem to. However, I found myself struggling to place them in the terraces for the candy colours of cultivars – named after a roster of ladies, ‘Sheila’, ‘Annika’ et al. – feel wrong somehow amongst the straight species. But the varieties Tulipa clusiana var. stellata and T. clusiana var. chrysantha will be welcome additions in the ground while the ladies will remain in their pots.
Drimia maritima in September at Sparoza
Gardening at Sparoza and adding exciting new plants to the collection has given me so much pleasure but there is no doubt that the bulbs have a special resonance and significance for me. I am often surprised by how overlooked the bulb layer is in many gardens. If you are planning a new garden, or developing your existing garden, I hope you will give bulbs the place that they deserve as they add so much in terms of depth, interest and resilience. They are the shooting stars of the plant world, often fleeting but completely magical.
For a calendar of bulbs throughout the year at Sparoza please go here.
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