This past week I’ve been in a few garden centres and everyone has masses of spring flowering bulbs at reduced prices.
I don’t know if garden centres bought in too many in the Autumn or if customers were just not buying them but whatever the reason there are lots about… and they’re cheap, really cheap… at least half price in every garden centre I was in.
Now you might walk down your path and see your existing daffodils popping through the soil, indeed cruise down the Port Road in Letterkenny and you’ll see some early flowering varieties actually in flower, and you’re right to question the success of planting Daffodil bulbs now when they’re already so far advanced in the garden.
But what will happen is that these late planted bulbs will flower later this year but then fall back into sync with the rest of your garden next year.
The thing you need to be doing is giving the bulbs in the packs a squeeze, a little softness is grand (this will happen as they start to shoot in the bags) but bulbs which are very soft may be completely rotten in the packs so obviously best to avoid these as your chance of success is nil.
In contrast to Daffodils, Tulips and Hyacinths which are still fine to plant, don’t chance the Snowdrops. Snowdrops must be planted fresh and don’t like any period of drying so although the Snowdrop bulbs may be rock hard – the chance they’ll bloom is probably nil.
Now when it comes to planting bulbs into your garden the secret is to bulk them out, don’t plant them in singles or lines plant them in drifts of clumps, such as 9 Tulip bulbs planted 6” apart makes a good show, Daffodils planted in clumps of 9’s look well too, Crocus bulbs work best when planted in dozens – and work especially well planted through a lawn to naturalise.
When your planting the golden rule is to dig a hole twice as deep as the bulb is tall, so a 3” bulb should be planted 6” deep, and at the bottom of the planting hole put a sprinkling of multi-purpose compost as this is easy for the bulbs to root into.
The best time to seed the bulbs is with a liquid fertiliser just as they go out of flower, so just as the flowers are fading off your daffodils go out with some Tomato food then.
In addition a sprinkling of Fish, Blood & Bone Meal just as the bulbs are poking out the ground (ie Now!) will help to bulk the bulbs up.
I adore bulbs as they are low maintenance additions to the garden, you plant them and they flower, every few years you dig them up, split the clumps and replant them in different parts of the garden.
So this week try to get into the garden centres are pick up some of the many half price bulbs about and start adding some more spring colour to all areas of your garden!
Job of the week:
If you’re not sourcing these great value bulbs then a job to get on with now is sowing some Sweet pea seeds. Pick up a pack of seeds, open and soak the seeds in some water for a few hours then sown into small pots – maybe 5 seeds per pot, or sow one seed into old toilet roll tubes filled with multi-purpose compost.
Water and sit somewhere nice and warm to germinate. Once germinated harden off and then sit outside for them to grow away until you’re ready to plant them in the garden.
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