I’ve long had a love affair with spring blooming bulbs. They’re the reason to hang on in our gloomy long winters and hope for that candy come spring. Spring flowers tell us Northwesterners the seasons are changing and glory be, soon our toes will see the light of day again. And for gardens heavy with perennials, bulbs come out and shine when the rest of the garden is still slumbering.

If you’re toying with the idea of planting spring bulbs, hop to it: Now’s the time to get some into the ground. If you’re reeling from failures or successes of gardening this past season, it’s the perfect way to put a new foot forward and ensure you’ll have a good kickoff to gardening in 2009.

Most spring bulbs will continue to come back year after year. Planting them once means you’ll enjoy them for many seasons. This isn’t always the case, though, especially with fickle tulips, which often succumb after a year or two and need to be continually planted.

Some classic spring bulbs include the sweet daffodils, seductive crocus, deliciously scented hyacinths and ever-popular tulip.

Tulips have a fascinating history. Did you know trading for them in the 1700s was so fierce and frenzied that their value rivaled precious metals? While you don’t have to pay that kind of money today, new and unusual strains of bulbs are fun to watch for. I’ve long loved the Queen of Night tulip, named for its deep magenta/black hue. Rembrandt-like tulips look as if they have been streaked with a paintbrush. The feathery-petaled tulips are called parrot tulips. Mixing all of these types of tulips in your garden is fun and dramatic.

Reaching toward the height of freak factor capability come alliums. Looking as if they’d be perfectly at home in the garden of Dr. Seuss, these big purple bouncing balls on a stick dance across gardens come mid-spring, and I’m determined to tango with a few this coming year. Christophii and Globemaster, I’ve got my eye on you.

Unfortunately, squirrels dug up each of the bulbs my neighbor carefully planted last fall and, knowing these critters, probably replaced each with a walnut. Frustrating. However, research tells me rodents don’t like the taste of all bulbs, including daffodils, muscari, alliums and fritillaria. I foresee more of these next door.

Bulbs can be planted up until a hard frost. I’ve planted in my Portland garden as late as Thanksgiving, but a word to the wise: Don’t wait too long. Bulbs can easily get picked over in the stores, so at least purchase them now and over the coming month plan to get them into the ground.

Newbie? No worries. Planting directions, including depth of planting, will accompany your bulb purchases. But what they might not tell you is which side is up. When I first planted a tulip, I couldn’t figure it out. Here’s some help. The tapered end of the bulb faces up, and the end with little hairs (these are roots) face downward. Add a little organic fertilizer to the holes you dig and you’ll be fine. If you have established beds with bulbs, a nice layer of rotted manure applied in early spring before bulbs break dormancy will give them an extra boost and increase their longevity.

When it comes to planting, forego perfectly aligned rows. I think a more interesting look comes by random scattering. Just pick your area and toss your bulbs by handfuls onto the beds. Wherever they drop? That’s where you dig the holes.

And if you’re really feeling wild and carefree, try burying crocus scattered into your lawn. The bulbs are small and easy to singularly pop them into little holes. Come late winter/early spring, you’ll discover crocus blooming among your green growing grass. And you can enjoy them until you finally mow for the first time into the new year. It’s like finding secret gifts hidden among your lawn, and through time, they’ll multiply and increase. There’s a lawn in my old North Portland neighborhood filled every March with purple and white crocus, and every year, I tell myself I need to do that. This year, maybe I will.

LeAnn Locher is an avid North Portland gardener who can be reached at sassygardener@gmail.com. Her Web site is www.sassygardener.com.