Mid June is here. With the pace at the greenhouse slowing I visited my gardens seeking enjoyment from the hundreds of daffodil bulbs I have planted over the last several years.

As anyone who has ever gotten more than two fingers dirty in the garden knows, I found more dying leaves than enjoyment. Our spring flowering bulbs are now making their slow decline into dormancy. A bit of bulb fertilizer would still be in order.

Hopefully, your garden includes enough companion plants that what is left of the spring bulbs is hardly visible. If not, and your eyes make you trim the dying foliage, go ahead but the plant would prefer to disappear on its own.

Spring bulbs are just part of the list of plants called ephemerals. They bloom in the spring and then disappear until next year.

The large flowering bleeding heart, Dicentra spectabilus is another popular ephemeral. I have this one growing in full sun and another trying to outrun a rapidly growing rhododendron. Both are quite happy but the one in the shade seems to bloom longer and go dormant later.

The small flowered native dicentras will stay vibrant and bloom all season unless stressed by drought.

A long list of woodland plants are also summer dormant. They include Virginia bluebells, trillium and jack in the pulpit.

I guess that they have found their niche. They perform before the trees have leafed out in the spring when they get plenty of sun and then fade into summer rest as the shade deepens. This is also the reason that daffodils can be grown successfully in the shade.

The woodland plants are becoming more readily available in the industry as the trade masters their growing requirements. Unlike a few years ago, today you will find commercially proprogated plants and not ones plundered from the wild. These plants remain fairly expensive and are not a place for the beginning gardener to start.

Another favorite ephemeral is a little fine leafed one called pulsatilla. They put up mostly flowers early and then follow with a bit of fine lacy grayish-green foliage. The flower resembles a small tulip. I have had this one in both sun and part shade and it follows the pattern of the dicentra above.

Most of you will be surprised that the common oriental poppy is also usually summer dormant. It comes up in the spring, blooms, fades away and re-emerges in the fall with a flush of growth to build up strength for the next blooming season.

The dilemma that prompted this whole article is the fact that you can walk into a nursery and buy a fine looking Oriental poppy, take it home, plant it and immediately watch it go into decline. The incorrect conclusion is that it croaked when, really, it is following its normal growth habits.