Add 3+ months of gorgeous spring flowers to your existing landscape in just two steps? Yes!
This week, we'll show you how.
Step 1: Time It Right
By planting a mixture of early, mid and late spring bulbs, you can get flowers from late March to early June.
If figuring out which bulb blooms when sounds like a lot of work, don't worry- we already did the hard part for you!
Early Spring Bloomers
As a general rule, the smallest bulbs are the first to pop up in late March/early April.
Grape Hyacinth play well with others, complimenting daffodils, and blending beautifully with blooming groundcovers like Carpet Bugle for extra spring flower power. You can see this effect at left.
Mixed Crocus are welcome splashes of color as the earth warms, and wonderfully rewarding in mass plantings. They're featured above in our header.
Scilla 'Spring Beauty' (pictured right in our pollinator garden,) is a bulb that deserves more widespread planting. It vanishes beneath the large perennials that emerge later, and spreads over time to create a blanket of blue.
Mid Spring Bloomers
In April the bulb bed becomes a riot of color, alive with bright Daffodils and bold Tulips.
For Tulips that will come back for years instead of petering out, seek out the 'Impression' or 'Darwin' Tulips.
Other offbeat options for April include our native Camas 'Blue Melody,' and Checkerboard Flower- Fritillaria meleagris- which will spread and naturalize over time.
Late Spring and Early Summer Bloomers
The fancy Tulips take their time, closing out the spring season in May. These include Parrot and Peony types.
Taking up the slack in between the spring and summer season are the impressive Crown Imperials and the irrepressible bulb Alliums, best known for giant purple types such as 'Globemaster.' These typically bloom well into June, while the summer perennials are still gathering strength.
For a change of pace from big flashy late season bulbs, try the 'Mountain Bells' Allium mix, a colorful and diminuative blend that can brighten the front of the garden bed after the smallest early spring bulbs have faded.
Image courtesy of Breck's
2. Get Planting!
If you've never planted bulbs before, you'll find that they're a bit different than seeds or potted plants, for several reasons:
-It's totally okay to put in bulbs well into November.
-It's also okay to plant them in tree-shaded areas that are normally too dark for flowers. The bulbs will gather the energy to bloom before deciduous trees leaf out and shade them. So go ahead and jazz up that hosta bed!
-You don't have to worry about crowding your existing perennials. In fact, bulbs and perennials make great companions! The bulbs provide early color in the perennial bed, and the perennials cover over the bulb's fading foliage as they leaf out and take over.
Tool Time
If you're slipping bulbs in around existing landscape plants, trying to make as little impact as possible so that you don't harm their roots, you want to make holes just large enough to slip the bulbs into the ground. You can use a bulb planting tool, (pictured left,) but a plain old crowbar does the job as well.
Throw & Grow
For big swathes of bulbs, prepare the ground and then toss them out by handfuls. Turn the pointy end up, and slip the bulbs beneath the soil wherever they land. This gives your plantings a more casual look than you'd get with deliberately placed patches.
Once your bulbs are in the ground, all you have to do is walk away- you don't even need to water them! They'll return year after year when little else is in bloom.
Every patch of bulbs that you plant is a surprise gift to your future self, and to everyone else who gets to enjoy them next spring.
Current Sales While Supplies Last!
Houseplants - 30% off or prices as marked
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*Excluding fresh grown items such as pumpkins, mums, autumn annuals and strawbales
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