Plant Now - Enjoy Later!

My traditional approach to planting spring-flowering bulbs is to push as many bulbs into the ground in fall as possible, with no plan in mind. This is a very effective way to guarantee a great splash of colour in spring, and then marvel at how lovely they look and what a good job you did of planting them..

If you are smart and pay attention to blooming times, you could end up with a great sequence of colour from early March through to the end of May.  Bulb-planting can also be a lot of fun, especially if you like to think outside the box and experiment with a little novelty planting.

For me though, I don't use a design, and I don't think outside the box. I just shove them into any part of the ground that I can actually dig into and not find rock.  This year, I planted about 50 English bluebells - the real ones this time.  Last year I bought the wrong bluebell bulbs and ended up very disappointed.  My neighbor-friend Bonnie also gave me 4 bags of bulbs she got through her garden club -  a variety of daffodils and narcissus. Wow!  It felt like Christmas for a moment.  Then reality set in and I had to plant them.

That's where the work came in.  I managed to plant a few down the driveway, but the soil is poor for digging so we shall see how many pop up in spring.  The rest I tucked into garden beds and a few patio pots and wherever I could find good soil.  Can't wait for spring now.  I have forgotten where they are, so it will be a surprise as each one pops up to flower.