Even if you can add only one bulb to the garden this season, please make it Camassia quamash. This superb native plant offers multitudes of wide-open pure blue blooms on plants that naturalize beautifully over time. Very easy and eager to grow in full sun to light shade, This late-spring bloomer is a treasure not to be overlooked.
Known as camas lily or Indian hyacinth, C. quamash is a North American plant cultivated for hundreds of years by Native Americans, who ate the bulbs as great delicacies. We prefer the sight of its blooms, widely-spaced petals held in a slightly cupped daisy shape with long, slender cream anthers against the azure. The blooms top tall, slender dark green stems held well above the sword-shaped foliage, and tend to open in late spring, just as the roses and peonies are coming into flower.
Content in most any soil (including heavy, wet, or acidic varieties), C. quamash reaches just 2 to 3 feet tall (in bloom) and 6 to 9 inches wide. Over time it will form great colonies, however, in sites where it feels at home. Give it no more than ¼ day of shade, make sure the drainage is good, and it will do the rest!
A good companion to other native bulbs, this plant appreciates a good winter mulch in the northern areas of its hardiness range. But as a native, it is quite resistant to most pests and diseases, offering great vigor and a long life. Please find a place for it in your garden this season. Zones 4-7.
