(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Saturday Morning Garden Blog Vol. 19.43 - Spring Forward! It's Bulb Season [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-28 By now there are big bags of spring bulbs in every nursery and big box hardware store across the country, with those beautiful photos on the front promising a colorful spring. It’s also time to get a bag of vermiculite to store the summer bulbs for the winter. Might as well do it all at once! I love planting bulbs in the fall and then forgetting where I put them, until they surprise me in the spring when they pop up unexpectedly in different spots in the garden. Some are so early you could miss them if the garden had a lot of bracken, as I tend to do, or if it’s been snowing and you don’t trek out there for a few days. There are the midsummer bulbs, such as lilies, that are so prolific that if you miss one tiny bulb when digging them up, you are overrun with them in two years. So pretty! One of my favorite flowers. So let’s plant some bulbs! Bear with me, I’ve got a lot. I know you are all familiar with them but some may be new, or you may not be able to grow them. Being able to recognize them in the fall is key to putting them in the right spot and at the right depth. Google says, In general, plant bulbs 3-4 times as deep as the height of the bulb with the tip facing up and the root zone facing down. I assure you, the bulb will manage to right itself eventually if it accidentally gets upside down. However, it's helpful to make sure you put them in the ground properly. I usually pick my spot, dig a large shallow hole that will be deep enough accomodate the largest bulb I’m planting at the right depth, and then scatter them in the hole. Then I right them, put a little dirt in, and maybe put some smaller bulbs interspersed. Grape hyacinth and narcissus usually bloom at the same time and look very nice together. I’ve been busy this last week, digging up the garden in back. I wasn’t able to do much last year and this year I worked on other yard projects. Fall is a good time to dig up perennials and bulbs and replant them so that is what I am doing. I have to wait until next week to start on the hardscape since we’re expecting rain tomorrow and cold and snow on Sunday. Good! We need it. Meanwhile I have a big bucket of bulbs in my sunroom waiting to be put back in the ground. Grape hyacinth sprouts leaves in the fall as well as the spring and the deer love to eat the leaves down to the ground. They leave the flowers alone. Last year was the first year I planted some that were lavender, not purple. I loved them. Daffodils and grape hyacinth in the middle of the photo. Top purple is traditional gh, below is the lavender version. Bulbs for the grape hyacinths are a multitude. They make bulblets like crazy, as well as popping seeds out of seed pods. Easy to naturalize! Here’s a mess of them: Grape Hyacinth The garden I am in right now has most of the daffodils. This year was a great year for reproducing. They all have little bulblets or double bulbs. Some are scented, and I have a huge variety. Just a few of the many daff bulbs Next is a favorite early bloomer, the crocus. I have mostly purple and yellow, and I wouldn’t mind having more of these. Maybe some white ones. Crocus The bulbs are fairly small, and they naturalize well if you leave them for a few years. The purple ones came up first in this garden and the striped leaves are a yellow variety that bloom first. Here’s the bulb… Crocus bulbs and their babies Another bulb I’ve got in this patch are the iris reticulata. They are the first of all iris to bloom, and at my house it’s April. They are only about 2” high and also naturalize well. I haven’t gotten to the big batch of them in this garden yet but I’ve found a few so far. I have mostly purple colors and some yellow so I may get more of those as well. Iris retuculata with a few crocus The bulb is a little tougher to spot as it has an outer husk that doesn’t look like a lot of other bulbs. Iris retuculata bulbs Ok, last but not least, the tulips. I hesitate to have any in this garden because it's darn tempting for deer. Somehow by accident, I have a few. The bulbs look more like daffodil bulbs but they have a brown papery husk and don't sprout in the fall like the daffies do. These tulips are in a different garden, closer to the house to hopefully discourage the deer. Tulip bulbs Once the flower has bloomed, I cut off the spent stalk and let the leaves die back naturally so the bulb can store enough energy for next year. I will give a brown stalk a gentle tug, and if it comes out of the ground easily it’s done. It’s recommended to not trim or even braid them. If you want to disguise them while they’re fading, plant some bushy annuals around them. Summer is coming, I promise! And with it, lilies! I have a large collection of them scattered here and yon. They do well in pots and sometimes overtake them. This year I had some beautiful orange lilies in a big white pot right by the step. I’m going to dig those out and put them in the garden with the ones I’ve found there. Lilies The bulbs grow up the stem like underground brussels sprouts. Like I said before, if you miss one, you are going to get a mess of them again. I thought I had dug up most of the lilies in this garden. They were still hanging out. Lots of them. Big mama bulb in the middle Finally, there’s the gladiolas. They bloom for us later in the summer, in July. I posted a picture in a previous diary of the hummingbird enjoying the peach glad. I loved the red one. Such a deep, velvety color! Stunning! Here’s a shot of the hummer with the peach glad. Wow. Just... wow. I am new to gladiolus bulbs, so I had them in a pot and this is their second year. I dug them up once the leaves started turning brown. I believe I should let them dry a bit, then put them in a paper bag with a little vermiculite in a cool dark place, which is what I did last year with good success. If any of you have more good advice, I’m all ears. They are gorgeous and I want to keep them alive this winter again. I can’t leave the bulbs without talking about the Christmas bulb, amaryllis. I have also been growing them for years but this is the first year I have kept them outside. One bloomed! So now I have a question for GUG. Is it ok to just cut the tops off even though they are very green and robust? I stopped watering them. Do you think the summer bloomer will rebloom? Somehow I manage to get at least one of them to bloom so hopefully this year all of them will. My practice has been to take them out of the dirt, trim the leaves and roots and put them in a paper bag also in a cool dark spot, then replant them in about a month. Seems to work! We’re getting some weather tomorrow and Sunday, and then the temperature will drop to the teens for a few days so I’ll wait until after it warms up a bit to put everything back. I can probably work the ground through most of November but it gets pretty cold after that and the ground starts to freeze. I hope to be done with it all in the next few weeks and everything will have had a chance to snuggle in for the winter. That’s what’s going on in my garden. How about you? As an afterthought and also because I’m finally feeling like I have some tie dye items and a few other things to offer, here’s the link to my etsy shop, Aspen GEM, LLC. Give it a looksee. If you see something you want and it’s the wrong size or have a request for color combos, let me know! I’m going to try to get more items done this weekend. Tie dye is a long process but so much fun! The garden has been taking precedence lately but I’m planning on working on new items like doggie shirts and aprons while the weather is bad and I’m not able to dig. Have a great week, all! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/28/2202115/-Saturday-Morning-Garden-Blog-Vol-19-43-Spring-Forward-It-s-Bulb-Season?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/