GROWING FROM BULBS
Planting bulbs is an easy way to bring beautiful bursts of colour to your garden from spring to autumn
Whether you’re redesigning your garden’s borders or planting up containers to decorate your balcony, bulbs can be grown almost anywhere.
Wordsworth was spot-on when he wrote of his delight at seeing “a host of golden daffodils” – spring flowers really do look best en masse. Bringing joy to public areas and gardens alike, they are hugely popular and beneficial for the pollinators, laying dormant through the winter months and waking up to surprise us with swaths of colour. After the grey gloom of January we look forward to brighter and warmer days ahead, the beginning of spring and the instant lift a flourishing garden gives. Yet bulbs are not just for spring; they can be planted year-round, with many flowering in the autumn as well.
The main benefit of planting bulbs is that they don’t require a lot of room.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a garden or courtyard you can of course adorn your lawn with plants or dot bulbs between other plants, but no matter where you are, there is always room for some pots on a windowsill or balcony.
Bulbs are the plant’s underground food-storage organs. As such, they are self-sufficient, being able to store their energy from one season to the next, which gives them a huge advantage over other plants. Bulbs are also bountiful, especially when they are naturalised. Naturalising means leaving your bulbs where you have planted them in the garden to allow them to propagate naturally. Crocuses and daffodils, for example, do well in grass, and planting them is a great way to brighten up wildflower areas, lawns, verges and under trees to form a drift. You will be rewarded year on year with beautiful clusters of colour without any extra effort.
When to plant
Deciding when to plant your bulbs is the first step, and part of this choice comes down to working out when they will likely flower. Generally, unless forced indoors, autumn- and winter-flowering bulbs are planted late in the springtime to early summer; spring-flowering bulbs need to be planted in the autumn; and bulbs for summer flowering should be in the ground by the end of spring. Many of our spring favourites, such as tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, will have been planted in the autumn for spring flow
