Planting Bulb Planters

8 comments

I have just planted up some tubs for the coming Winter and Spring, using the following method:

Choose bulbs to cover as wide a flowering period as possible, keeping in mind, colour, height and fragrance.

In this instance, I have chosen:
White Snowdrops 4" (Feb);
Blue Irises 6" (Feb/March);
Yellow Daffodils 16" (March);
White, multi-headed Narcissi 14" (March/April)
Pink Tulips 14" (April/May).

This ensures that the summer bedding plants are ready to go in, just as the last spring flowers are dying back (that’s the theory, anyway!).

All bulbs should be planted to twice their depth. If shallower, they come up ‘blind’, which means that they produce leaves but no flowers.

Largest bulbs are planted first, smallest bulbs, last.

First step is to size up the bulbs

Then fill the planter with soil or, as I have done here, bulb fibre, to just below the point where the largest bulb will be twice its depth

Daffodils first.

Space them fairly wide apart and cover halfway.

Pop in the next size up, in this case, the Narcissi…

…which, again, are half covered…

…and followed by the tulips.

Next, this year’s daffodil bulbs, (which had been removed and replaced, in May, with summer bedding plants)…

…then, my favourites – Iris Reticulata.

The winter flowering plants are also added at this stage. Here, Wallflowers…

…and frost-resistant Winter Pansies.

Add the soil to the final, required level and firm in.

Last, but not least, the Snowdrops.

I push these right in…

…and smooth over with soil

Don’t forget to settle them down with a nice, cool drink!

That’s it, folks….easy peasy!

• 15 Sep, 2009
• 6 likes

More blog posts by the_white_horse