A small packet of promise: that is what a bulb is. Spring bulbs are a gift to grey days and a welcome to warmer ones, but they have to start off life now. Tiny packages to bury deep in warm, wet autumn soils, to take root when everything else is dying back, and ready to push forth when you most need some cheer.
The best bulbs go fast. If you haven’t already ordered yours, run to the garden centre now, but don’t let desperation stop you being picky: you want fat, healthy bulbs with no sign of mould or withering. Cheap bulbs may come out very different from the photos on their packets – I’ve planted what I was led to believe was pink only to find orange come spring. If this risks spoiling a carefully crafted colour scheme, pick bulbs for the house, where their sins will be seen in a different light. Buy as many as you can afford and plant densely; the best displays are always packed.
Get them in quickly – and that means do it now, because by the time you read this, you’re already late to the game. If you have to wait, tulips are the most forgiving and can go all the way up to the end of November, though, as a general rule of thumb, if you plant late, you get smaller flowers. But any flower is better than no flower.
If your garden is in the middle of a revamp, or you’re unsure of where you want your bulbs, one solution is to plant them in pots. Five-litre black ones work well, because you can nestle these between spring foliage when the flower buds appear, so they seem to have miraculously burst forth in just the right place. Or invest in fancy terracotta (I like Whichford Pottery’s kitchen garden pot, from £13.25).
Pack your bulbs cheek by jowl into pots – you can get four tulip bulbs (five, at a push) in a five-litre pot; the same for large daffodils and a few more for small varieties. For window-ledge displays and windy balconies, go for small bulbs that will take a battering: snowdrops, crocus, grape hyacinths, Muscari species and dwarf daffodils. The added bonus is you won’t have to bend down on wet soil to enjoy their delicate ways.
If you want them permanently in the ground (or pots), go for bulbs that are reliable returnees: daffodils that are known to bulk up and naturalise, such as the native Tenby daffodil (Narcissus obvallaris), or any pheasant eye types (N. poeticus var recurvus), crocus and Muscari species are just a few. There are several reliable tulip cultivars that will return each year, ‘Purissima’ and ‘Spring Green’ being two of the more easy ones to find.
Also, plant your bulbs a little deeper than the old “three times their depth” rule, because you don’t want to disturb them when digging a hole for a new plant later on. Lay them out first before planting, so you can get the distribution right, and use your sharpest hand trowel for planting, because many bulbs equal tired wrists (or, if you’ve really got lots to plant, splash out on Crocus’s drill-powered bulb planting auger).
