As gardeners, we live a lot of our time in the moment, enjoying the seasons and caring for the plants in our gardens now. But we also spend a lot of time planning for and preparing for future seasons. It may be late summer but one of the things to start thinking about now is spring! It’s time to think about ordering spring flowering bulbs for your garden, ready for planting from September to November. Here we have put together a list of some of our favourite bulbs and combinations of bulbs. However small your garden, there is always room for bulbs, whether in a pot or woven through your planting beds.
Amongst the first autumn planting bulbs to flower are crocus. Usually flowering at the end of winter or early spring, they are a really important early source of nectar for pollinating insects including early emerging bees. They look beautiful planted at the front of borders, en-masse in lawns and under trees. We like a mixture of purple, yellow and white and you can often buy good value mixtures from suppliers.
Flowering between March and May, Fritillaria meleagris, otherwise known as snake’s head fritillary, are a beautiful addition to the fronts of borders or meadow lawns. Coming in purple and white, their nodding heads are something a little bit different and we absolutely love them!
Commonly known as daffodils, there are thousands of varieties of narcissus to choose from ranging in colour from bright yellow to white to peach. They are a real sign of spring and can bring joy for several months. Many have a beautiful fragrance too and some naturalise really well, meaning you will get more and more flowers as the years go by.
We advise planting several different varieties for successional colour and spring joy. Some websites allow you to search by month of flowering as well as colour/height, which is a great tool to help you plan for daffs from February to April (and even May). We recommend Peter Nyssen for this, not only for the easy to use site but also because they don’t treat any of their bulbs with neonicotinoids and package bulbs in a biodegradable plastic replacement.
Some of our favourite daffs to include in borders, meadows and pots include Sailboat, Jetfire, Geranium and the beautiful pure white Thalia.
Tulips are so much more than the small headed wraps you can buy in supermarkets. They respond to the sun, opening and closing their petals as the day goes by, and are available in a huge range of colour, size and shape. While they are not all reliably perennial, so may not come back every year, they are a brilliant addition of colour to the garden and in our minds it is well worth the effort of adding more each year. Any that do return are a welcome bonus!
Some of our favourite combinations are:
Tulip orange marmalade and tulip spring green – we love these planted alongside Narcissus geranium as the orange centres of the daffodils pair really well with the vibrant orange tulips:
Tulip akebono and tulip spring green – we love these planted alongside and amongst forget-me-not – the combination of yellow, white and blue is always a calming spring winner. Most tulips look gorgeous flowering above forget-me-not, so whatever colour you have, adding some forget-me-not as well is a great idea!
Tulip ballerina and tulip antraciet:
Tulip Virichic, tulip Greenland and tulip Formosa:
We love alliums, as do bees and other pollinators. They take over from the tulips and add colour at a different height. We like to weave alliums through borders, so that they pop up amongst perennials, rather than have them crowded in groups.
Some varieties are perennial and will naturalise while others are not that reliable so it’s a good idea to opt for good value ones in the expectation of adding more each year.
Purple sensation is a very popular choice, and for good reason. It’s beautiful, a classic allium shade of purple, is one of the first of the alliums to flower and it dries brilliantly for use indoors in vases.
Other varieties that we like include aflatunense which has a slightly softer purple colour than purple sensation, atropurpureum which has a deep burgundy colour and allium nigrum which is white and a more domed shape that naturalises well.
For a later flowering choice (usually in July), we like allium sphaerocephalon otherwise known as drumstick allium. It turns from green to burgundy over the summer and is a very good choice as it is reliably perennial, very reasonably priced and naturalises well.
Allium Sphaerocephalon is loved by bees and is one of the best value bulbs
We also love to use shorter varieties of allium that look great at the front of borders. Our favourites are Alliums Cowanii (a delicate white), Roseum (a soft lilac/pink) and Moly Jeannine (a vibrant yellow which works beautifully with purple geraniums).
If you are planting up planters or pots, a bulb lasagne is a great idea. This entails layers of bulbs being planted that will flower successively. When planting bulbs in containers we recommend using a large plastic plant pot inside your decorative pot, so that when the bulbs have gone over, you can remove the pot containing them and move out of sight so that they can die back but not take up a prime position on your patio whilst doing so.
With a bulb lasagne, we suggest planting a layer of tulips first, then narcissus and then crocuses. This will provide a beautiful display from late winter/early spring to the end of spring. You can plant the top with something like winter flowering cyclamen or violas if the pot is in view over the winter.
We hope this has given some great ideas to add more colour to your garden for next spring. If you don’t fancy choosing and planting bulbs yourself why not get in touch to discuss whether this is something we could help you with!
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