I don’t know about you, but I’m crazy about clematis and bulbs. I could have entire garden planted with them. So since it’s autumn I planted my favourite spring time bulbs – daffodils and tulips.

Little bit about bulbs

There are different bulbs, and based on their flowering time there are spring, summer and autumn bulbs. They all have in common the look of their root, or better said underground part. They have roots that shoot out of bubble like lower part that consists of “short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf bases” according to wikipedia. These lover parts hold nurishment that plant needs in time of dormancy and each bulb has different dormancy times. Also each one of them has different flowering triggers. In this post we’ll talk about spring time flowering bulbs and their triggers.

Spring bulbs and their needs

Now when it comes to spring bulbs, they hold special place in my heart because they are the first flowers in the year. They all have one thing in common – they need to overwinter in order to produce flowers. The change between cold weather and warm weather is their trigger to wake up. So NOW is the perfect time to plant them, just make sure to plan them top side up. There are some where it’s not apparent but thankfully daffodils and tulips are pretty straight-forward to “read”.

Planting

First step in planting them is to space them around, so you can see what will grow where (I alternated yellow daffodils and yellow-purple tulips).
After spacing them I used my showel (you can use that bulb planting tool) to make a dent in the ground and I planted them in the dent, making sure that their tops are pointing upwards.

When planting, make sure not to plant your bulbs too deep, otherwise they won’t have the strenght to break the soil. Planting depth depends on the bulb size, i.e. small crocus bulbs should be planted at most 5cm in the ground. So pay attention to their size. I planted mine about 10cm deep since these are fairly big bulbs and I don’t want to take them out every year. A good rule of thumb is to plant them 2 times their diameter.

Replanting and fertilizing

It’s advisable to take them out every couple of years and move them a bit so that they don’t deplete the soil. That being said, I don’t know if my Mum ever replanted her daffodils and they were always beautiful. Hopefully these will be as well, but I’ll still replant them every couple of years, or at least give them some good fertilizer. I also planted some purple dutch tulips in a container that I left outside to get a good freeze.

Now all that is left is to await for the spring and first flowers to bloom. I hope you’ll enjoy your bulbs as well.

Cheers 🙂