Autumn is bulb purchasing and planting season here in the West! Garden designer and author Jacqueline van der Kloet’s newest book, Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden, inspires us to combine bulbs with perennials and grasses in a loose, nonchalant style, and she’s sharing her top tips on how to get started now to maximize spring blooms.
Planting Prep
Flower catalogs make our eyes go wide with possibility, but it’s important to understand your available planting real estate before purchasing. Like perennials, certain bulbs require different conditions—while some enjoy full sun, others only thrive in dappled or deep shade. Be sure to map out a game plan of your site and sun conditions before adding any bulbs to your shopping cart.
For sunny spots, consider crocus, Muscari (grape hyacinths), hyacinths, tulips, and ornamental onions. They all need lots of light to perform well. All these species also prefer a rather dry soil. Not too dry, but certainly not a patch with a large amount of moisture. In shadier locations, add snowdrops, winter aconites (Eranthis), Scilla siberica (squill), early flowering daffodils, trout lilies (Erythronium), and Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides), which all prefer a moist soil.
Timing is key. Keep in mind that early blooming bulbs like snowdrops, crocuses, and early flowering daffodils should be planted early in fall, starting by the second half of September. Tulips and ornamental onions should be planted late in fall, just before a possible frost, while all other species are best planted in the mid-fall season. Keep in mind that all spring flowering bulbs need a cold period to be able to develop a flower in the next spring. The Mediterranean and desert climates of the West are not suitable for spring-flowering bulbs, unless they have been artificially pre-cooled, which many bulb companies offer. Check individual suppliers before ordering to ensure bloom success. Be sure to plant bulbs as soon as they have been bought or delivered—they should not get a chance to dry out.
When most think of spring bulbs, they imagine a landscape with tulips and daffodils. There is actually a much wider range of blooms that will naturalize and give color to your spring garden year after year. Here, Jacqueline shares her favorite “beginner combo,” which adds a pop of color to your garden while being a good starting point when interplanting within an existing landscape.
No garden, no problem. Planting bulbs in containers is an easy way to welcome the spring season with a splash of color on a patio or entryway. Jacqueline adds that a pot of bulbs will be most striking when planted in different layers, which will flower in succession. When planting your container, keep in mind that the earliest-flowering bulbs need to be planted at the top of the container, with the last ones to flower right at the bottom. When layering, practice the “lasagna” or “sandwich” system by adding at least 2 inches of soil between bulbs. Look for varieties with striking flowers and not much foliage, which will maximize the number you can plant in a small space. Jacqueline loves to add botanical or “wild” tulips, grape hyacinths, crocuses, and delicate and small flowers such as daffodils and Anemones (Anemone blanda).
