Water Lily Colchicum

Just when your garden starts winding down, ‘Waterlily’ steals the show. This hybrid cross of Colchicum autumnale ‘Alboplenum’ and Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ produces large, fully double, lilac-pink blooms that unfurl like tiny water lilies floating above bare ground, no leaves in sight, just pure late-summer-to-early-fall color on naked stems reaching about 6″ tall. Each corm is a powerhouse, sending up 1 to 6 flowers per bulb, so a modest planting delivers an outsized show.

Colchicums plant like magic: tuck the oversized corms into the ground in late summer, and within weeks you’ll see them poking through, blooming right when everything else has called it quits for the season. They’re just as happy naturalized in a garden bed as they are potted up on a patio, adding jewel-toned drama exactly when you need it most. Plant them right away after they arrive, since these bulbs are eager to get growing, and let ‘Waterlily’ close out your garden year with a flourish.