Home thoughts from abroad....

I just got an email from Spaldings asking me to imagine planting a patio pot with bulbs and to say what I would plant for a Spring display.

This set me to imagine my garden back home and what it would need to cheer me up if I was there in early Spring.  From my kitchen window (and in my minds-eye from here) I can clearly see  a half barrel at the bottom of the garden beside my summerhouse/shed.  It has a tiny peony plant lost in the middle of it which is crying out for some added interest throughout the year.  That particular space is about thirty odd feet from the house and on the North-facing (dark) strip.  It needs white.

Every year (except this one) I always have at least one pot planted with the traditional three layers of bulbs.  A large pot, a layer of broken crocks or similar for drainage, a layer of compost, then some narcissi, a layer of compost and then some tulips, a layer of compost and some small bulb such as muscari, irises, crocus and finally covered with a layer of compost.

For this particular pot I would plant Narcissi 'Sinopel'.  Please click on the link and take a look it is just lovely.  Fragrant white narcissi with a gold edged green cup.  The next layer would be Tulip 'Exotic Emperor'. Again, take a look; it is certainly exotic.  By now you will have caught on that the theme is green and white.  Normally I spend ages choosing colours that will look stunning together, this time I just want more and more of the same (but different).  To keep that going my choice of small bulbs would be Double Flowered Snowdrops.  Yet again, well worth a click.

It would be wonderful to see those first snowdrops smiling through in miserable old February.  Their companions are both listed as flowering in March/April but I have never yet planted my usual trios, always with matching flowering dates and had all three or even two varieties of bulbs in flower together.  Generally this is annoying as that is what I am trying to achieve.  This time because I want a staggered show of white (with a hint of green) popping up in my dark corner I bet they would flower together.  Anyone want to try it and let me know?

If you are still planting your spring bulbs here's a couple of bulb planting tips - they may not be my ideas but I wouldn't pass them on if I hadn't tried them and found they work......

If squirrels dig up your bulbs.... I had one home where they did this and the annoying little what-nots took one bite, slung the bulb and tried the next one.  One pot next to the front door was re- planted every evening when I got back from work until the bulbs were too nibbled to bother.  I then read about chicken wire.  Plant your bulbs cover with a thin layer of compost and cover with chicken wire then top up with compost.  You can't see the wire, the flowers grow through it and squirrels don't like it.  I don't have any proof that gravel works in the same way but I have had three homes since then and have always topped up with gravel and have never had a squirrel problem, so...?

The other tip is that most tulips don't do that well in our Northern gardens year on year.  I find I get a great first year - all that stored bulb energy, then a middling second year and pretty much nothing by year three.  Yes, I do feed them.  They are fussy about cold and drainage.  I have planted them on sand but with no better results.   It is best to dig them up when they finish flowering.  If your garden is like mine that's not all that easy.  First find them when they are ready to dig up then do it without damage to all and sundry.  I know you plant them in a clump but don't they seem to wander a little?  The answer is any kind of well perforated basket you can get hold off.  I just used dollar shop storage baskets of various sorts.  Pond plant baskets are also used by some folk.  Spaldings have these Handy Planting Baskets.