It’s hard to think about the spring but if you want a gorgeous display of bulbs in your garden next year, this is the time to plan ahead.
I’m doing you a favour really. If you get into the garden centre in the next few days you’ll avoid the Xmas carols that are going to play for weeks now. You can buy your spring bulbs and wallflowers without a nodding reindeer trying to gore you at the nursery entrance.
All the bulbs are in the nurseries now taking up valuable Xmas wrapping paper space. It’s good to buy them whilst they’re all fresh and you can get the varieties you want. Also, wallflowers will start to come into the nurseries soon. Do persevere with wallflowers. I know they look deadly boring.
Get them from an old fashioned nursery or a greengrocer and buy the ones wrapped up in newspaper with the muddy roots pulled up out of the ground.
Wallflowers grown in trays won’t grow into big bushy plants as their tap root hasn’t been severed and this is the key to good wallflower plants. You can buy great pastel colours and they look wonderful growing with tulips. They smell lovely too – not at all like cabbages, the family they’re from.
Tulips should be planted in groups of fifteen or more and try planting three different colours throughout the garden, keeping the colours grouped together. It’s quite an effort to plant lots of bulbs and you’ll get really fed up. There seems nothing to show for it, but just wait until the spring!
Make the effort to plant up some big pots too. These are much easier to plant as you can fill them up with new compost and push the bulbs straight into the soft earth. Put the bulbs in layers in the pots and be prepared to plant lots! I planted 1500 tulips in my garden two years ago. What an effort! It took ages, but they looked so stunning the next spring and even better the following year. I’ve just bought 500 crocus to plant in the lawn under our apple tree this weekend and 250 white muscari hyacinth for pots in the courtyard.
I love the peony flowered tulips with their blowsy flowers and the tall, stately Queen of the Night is velvety and almost black. I planted these with pale pink and white varieties but all combinations are good. There are gorgeous apricot ones around this year. Spend some money on bulbs, have a rotten weekend planting them but enjoy the wonderful display next spring. Simple!
<- Back to News list
We'd love to design your garden this year. Why not find out what's really possible. Just look out of your window and imagine what you could see"