With the crisp fall temperatures, spiced lattes, cider doughnuts and, of course, apple-picking and sweaters, you can add something else to your autumn list — bulb-planting time.
This is one of the easiest things you can do now to create color in the spring. It’s almost foolproof unless some animal digs up the bulbs. So let’s at least start there. I like to give my bulbs a good meal to start the fall, one that can continue into early spring. Here’s where fertilizing comes in. You might see something with bone meal as a fertilizer for your bulbs. Don’t use it, because it can attract all sorts of critters that might dig up the bulbs that you plant. So stick with an organic granular fertilizer specifically for bulbs. I like Bulb-tone, that’s my go-to.
The other tip that I’ll share for planting most bulbs? Do not dig an individual hole, put a bulb in, and then cover it up. It is way too time-consuming. Instead, I do trench planting, where I plant the bulb at the correct depth inside of a rectangular area and then just cover it up. It’s almost like you’re placing drops of chocolate chip cookie dough on a pan. But be sure to stagger them so it doesn’t look like rows.
The rule of thumb is to plant the bulb two to three times its height deep. So a bulb that’s 2 to 3 inches tall, would go down as little as 4 inches or as much as 8 or 9 inches. Bulbs that say they’re going to naturalize, I tend to plant at the three-times rate.
The obvious bulbs, like crocuses and daffodils, are common and most people plant them, but there are some other bulbs that I really like — and some that I don’t recommend at all. Darwin tulips, the really colorful ones, I tend to put in containers. I place them in the garage and then move them out very early in the spring. If you want to put them in the ground, that’s fine, but they might last a few years, though the flowering tends to decline, and you’ll eventually end up with mostly leaves.
Some of my favorites
If you want tulips that stick around, I recommend species tulips, varieties like Tulipa clusiana (lady tulip), Tulipa tarda, and Tulipa kaufmanniana (water lily tulip), which tend to naturalize and come back year after year, and multiply if they’re happy where you put them. They’re smaller flowered than the Darwin types, only a few inches tall, so don’t expect the same bold color, but what you lose in size you gain in longevity.
There’s also glory-of-the-snow and Puschkinia, which flower around the same time as crocuses. They’re low, early bulbs in soft blues and whites that naturalize nicely over the years. Winter aconite is one of my favorite very low-growing bulbs, flowering sometimes before any crocuses. All three of these go in shallow, just 2 to 3 inches down, given how small the bulbs are.
For real presence...
If you want something with real presence instead of something low and early, look at Fritillaria imperialis, crown imperial, especially the giant orange varieties. They send up a tall stem, sometimes 2 feet or more, topped with a ring of nodding orange-red bells. One thing to know: plant the bulb on its side rather than pointy end up, since the bulb has a hollow center that can collect water and rot if it’s planted upright. They also have a distinctly skunky smell that some gardeners actually use to their advantage, planting them among other bulbs to help keep deer and rodents away.
If you want something low and early that still has a little more presence than glory-of-the-snow, Anemone blanda is worth a look too. These small, daisy-like flowers come in blue, white, or pink that spread into a nice early carpet, planted shallow like the other small bulbs.
Remember that the earlier flowering bulbs, which need sun, could end up going in an area that looks shady now, because you won’t have leaves on the trees when they’re flowering. Even by the time they’re done flowering, those earliest bulbs will have absorbed enough sunlight for next year.
Late flowering bulbs, though, need to be planted in areas that will have sunshine once the leaves come out.
What about vegetables?
If you’re a vegetable gardener, or you want to try something for next year, how about growing some garlic? It’s a little early to plant it, I generally wait until after Halloween to put mine in, but one clove of garlic will yield one bulb, and you can plant them 4 to 6 inches apart, just below the surface, about 2 inches deep. They’ll actually sprout before the ground freezes. You can even just get some organic garlic and use that to plant, but don’t use anything that is treated, because it won’t sprout.
A few hours of work in October can lead to weeks, even months, of beauty starting as early as March, and for the bulbs that naturalize, an annual visual bonanza for years to come.
Happy gardening!
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