As summer takes her final bow, I start to think about digging around in the dirt to make room for new beginnings. Autumn is, of course, the time for bulb planting, and the very best organic ones go quickly, so it is prudent to put in an order as quickly as possible. Bulbs will be dispatched this month, and it’s wise to get them into the ground by mid-October.
Almost all that needs to be said about tulips has already been written, but I will add this: you don’t need to buy tulip bulbs every year to ensure big blooms – not if you plant them deep enough.
If you sink them to the depth that everyone tells you to (famously three times that of the bulb – around 8cm-10cm) you will find that your bulbs split into many smaller ones. This is the plant’s way of propagating itself and the tulip wants to do this in shallow, warmer soil. The result is smaller bulbs and smaller flowers.
There are different ways of seeing this: small bulbs make dainty tulips, and clumps of them might not wow in a vase compared with their beefed-up, newly planted siblings, but they can look very charming in the garden – more akin to wild species.
I love the way they look coming up in my spring garden: less of a display and more like a flowery meadow among the spring lettuces and emerging herbs.
But if you want the thrill of fat tulips and a heady display for the vase, just plant them a lot deeper (say, six times the depth of the bulb – 20cm-25cm) into the cooler soil.
This cool environment will also help them stay more moist, allowing the bulbs to remain plump over the summer. When planted at this depth, many varieties are more likely to perennialise naturally and come back with impressive displays year after year. You will also be less likely to disturb the bulbs when planting other things.
Design studio Urquhart & Hunt, whose rewilding, beaver-friendly garden won this year’s best in show at the Chelsea flower show, has a very good side hustle at Organic Bulbs, with an ever-increasing list of organically grown tulips (among other flowers). Their eye for design means it’s a very stylish list, too.
In my last garden I was all about white, green-tinged and palest pink flowers, but I’m over being so restrained. My new plot is going to be full of burnt oranges and fiery reds. I’m going for Tulipa ‘Abu Hassan’, T. ‘Icoon’ – a late double in coppery tones – and T. ‘Ad Rem’, a brilliant Darwin type with huge red blooms edged in gold. And I will be sure to plant them deep, so I can pick their impressive flowers to bring indoors.
