The bulb planting season is nigh upon us and you should be planning your preparation?
Bulbs love rich organic loaded soil that is neither too compacted nor with too much trapped air, otherwise the bulb will either use to much energy and struggle to emerge or the chances are that water will infiltrate large open soil spaces at rot the bulb underground - a pre planting fertiliser is advisable too, mix generously with your manure/leaf mould and soil before any backfilling.
Both clay or sandy soils need body in the form of well rotted manure or leaf mould or perhaps some worm compost if you keep a wormery, and if you have a heavy clay soil then it is worth considering improving the soil with addition of horticultural sharp sand.
Getting the depth of your bulbs right is also key to success. Bulbs that are planted too low will again use a great deal of energy to make it through the surface by which time there is nothing left in the bulbs reserves to put on a flowery show for you - often there will be leaves but the bulb will be blind i.e. no flower stem.
There is a tolerance and most planting advice resources will state the depths as a guide and you can also consider raising the depth in very heavy clay soils - however, I am an advocate of good preparation rather than height variation for this purpose.
Height variation can be attempted if you want to delay or slightly advance flowering times. Deeper bulbs will flower slightly later and shallow bulbs earlier. However, it is a chance that this method will fail if you make the test too difficult.
My advice, especially if you have a generous budget and a big garden is to experiment and record your findings. Have a small planting hole or pit that a handful or bulbs are planted at one depth uniformly, another with all bulbs deeper, and then shallower and finally with a pit that has bulbs planted at varying heights - just monitor and record the results.
Neil Bromhall has produced a simple illustration for bulbs that are commonly grown in the UK they are - Narcissus, Hyacinth, Grape hyacinth and Crocus and there is a more comprehensive depth guide on the Dummies site - Planting bulbs.
Gardening Data has there depth planting advice in a form and helpfully lists the bulbs with the right times of the year for planting.
Just a little note on backfilling - once you have planted your bulbs with the root pointing down and the pointed end up (where the shoot will emerge) , start lightly backfilling and gently press the soil mixture around the bulbs. This ensures that the immediate area adjacent to the flesh of the bulb has been relived of any air.
Add a little organic fertiliser to either the layer below the final covering (about 10cm down) or as a dusting on top of the soil organic rose food is good for this because of the high levels of Potassium which stimulate strong root growth.
Planting under turf
Planting under turf is not as daunting as it might seem. First of all, remove the grass over the area you are going to plant leaving about 75mm or soil and grass root zone attached. You may wish to lay down a plastic sheet to avoid small stones getting into the grass and causing a potential problem the next time you mow.
Alternatively, turn the turf upside down so that grass is against grass - lay them in the same patter that they were lifted. Prepare you soil the same way by mixing all of the components in a wheel barrow.
You will be left with surplus medium so it is advisable to put your root zone mixture around the bulbs and backfill with clean soil and then the turf (of course, depth are dependant on what you are planting - some of the small bulbs will barely have room for the different layers to you may just have to leave the turf off and bring the levels up with soil and add some grass seed.
Some bulbs such as Daffodils can be directly planted into a lawn using a metal bulb hole cutter. This methods is particularly clean and quick where you do not want to do mass planting or disturb the lawn too much.
For tips on what bulbs to plant for flowering next spring - Elspeth Thompson in the Telegraph - The 20 best spring bulbs
Recent Comments