Why it’s time to talk about planting corms in your garden

Today I will explore the wonderful world of corms.

Along with bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes, corms constitute the quartet of underground storage structures that send up their silky blooms once a year — or more, in the case of remontant (repeat-blooming) irises and daylilies. None of these plants needs any attention other than to divide them when their clumps become overly dense. All of them are outstanding candidates for vase arrangements.

Not all species of the quartet — lumped together often enough as bulbs or “bulbs and their associates” — come up reliably year after year in our climate, since we lack the winter cold that ensures perennial growth for some species. What are commonly promoted as Dutch bulbs, for instance, especially those classic tulips and hyacinths, will only bloom this