Spring-flowering tulips and daffodils are lovely, but winter flowers expand the garden season by one or two months. The humble flowers that meant so much last winter and spring would go unnoticed if they bloomed in summer amongst the competitors in that season’s garden, and in fall it is easy to forget the minor bulbs when scarlet-orange sugar maples set the hillsides of southern New England ablaze. But fall is when these bulbs must be planted. Unfortunately, I can barely remember the plants I saw six months ago and thought I could not live without. So last February I began keeping a flower-bulb journal to note the earliest-blossoming plants, to help me when the catalogues arrived. When I visited public and private gardens, I copied the names off labels, or asked my hosts for the names of the most comely flowers.