Taken from the Eclectic Gardener @ http://www.teachinggarden.org/
Written by Alan Hickman

With the recent bankruptcy and closure of White Rose and the takeover of Building Box by Rona, we have lost two major retailers of spring-flowering bulbs. From a consumer's perspective, this loss of competition is not good thing, especially considering that, over the past few years, the price of bulbs has risen faster than the price of other plant material.
Bulbs are fundamental to the look of flower beds in early spring, so gardeners need to put some thought in to how they can get the most effect for the money they spend on bulbs. As my usual cheapskate policy of waiting for the end-of-season sell-offs may not work this year, an alternative strategy is to purchase bulbs which will reliably multiply under Brampton conditions.
When they hear the word bulb, most people think tulip and narcissus; but, even with this narrow definition, there are thousands of different species and cultivars, each more or less adapted to life in southern Ontario. Over the years I have grown dozens, perhaps hundreds, of different sorts of tulip and although most have slowly died out, others are still very much alive.
Among the common tall tulips which have been prolific breeders for me are those named for the Dutch city of Apeldoorn: 'Apeldoorn', 'Golden Apeldoorn', 'Beauty of Apeldoorn'and 'Apeldoorn's Elite'. Tulipa 'Dillenburg'has a tall orangey flower which has been a spectacular performer at Peel Teaching Garden. When we dug the bulbs last month, the crop came to over 400 bulbs of blooming size - for transplanting to display beds - plus over 800 seed bulbs which were replanted in the nursery to grow on for a couple of years.
Tulipa 'Queen of Night', known as the black tulip, came onto the market 60 years ago and it seems to thrive in our local conditions. The classic mate for 'Queen of Night'is the white and pink cultivar 'Shirley'. Although 'Shirley'has not been long-lived for me, the colour combination is so spectacular that it is worth the cost of replacing 'Shirley'now and then.
The low-growing Tulipa greigii 'Red Riding Hood'has proven to be a survivor and so has the species tulip Tulipa acuminata.
From the genus Narcissus, the cultivar 'Carlton'has proven to be totally reliable and has multiplied steadily. Although the original old cultivar 'King Alfred'may not exist anymore, any of the generic yellow-petaled, yellow-cupped, narcissus packaged as 'King Alfred'will likely prove to be iron hardy and will multiply reliably.
Because all the above bulbs are very hardy, multiply rapidly and are easy to grow, they are usually among the cheapest bulbs available. In fact, so far as bulbs are concerned, price can be a fair indicator. From any given grower, the least expensive bulbs are usually the ones which took the least effort to grow.
Although there are many different sorts of muscari, the most common is Muscari armeniacum which produces blue flowers like small beaded lollipops. Of the so-called 'minor'bulbs, muscari might be the easiest to get established and multiplying. I probably started out with no more that a few dozen bulbs in the early 1990's and I've moved their offspring from garden to garden. One set of offspring was planted at the Teaching Garden and when we dug them up recently, there were something like 4,000 bulbs and bulblets.
Another minor bulb which does well locally is scilla, the common species being Scilla sibirica. Scillas are easily grown and increase rapidly in almost any soil but do particularly well in a rich soil amended with plenty of sand. Scilla siberica will thrive under evergreen trees, where little else will survive, and under spring-flowering deciduous trees and shrubs.
Unlike crocus; muscari and scilla don't seem to be attractive as a menu item for squirrels. Last year, in a new section of garden, I planted every bulb I could get cheap - anemone to uva-vulpis - and the only thing that suffered predation was crocus. I had the pleasure of watching a particularly fat-bellied squirrel sitting in a tree eating my equally fat crocus bulbs. To be fair he was a gourmet squirrel - he only dug up the clutches of yellow crocuses, the blue and the white bulbs clearly didn't meet his epicurean taste.