Forcing Bulbs for Outdoor Containers

Hi Shirley!

I've 'heard' the same thing, but I'll bet if you treat them just like the bulbs you have in the ground (keep the pot moist after you take it out of the planter, let the bulb foliage die back naturally and then lift them to store over the summer), they'll be OK.

I hate to admit I've always been a 'dig and toss' gardener, but I have salvaged the tete'a'tete narcissus and other daffodils I've forced, so I don't know why it would not work with tulips. You can try and if it fails, at least you'll know!

Leawood,
I will sure try then. My daughter got me potted Tulips for Easter so I will try them too. Thanks for all your help.
Shirley

Great thread - thanks. Leawood!

My fears about the parrot tulips are unfounded. They did just fine and wind has not damaged them in the least.

They look great in the morning light, before the overhead sun gets too intense.

The parrot tulips are still hanging in there after several days of heat.

Leawood, such a pretty picture with the beautiful background too.

Your spring must be lovely in KS.

We've had a fairly nice spring, but I think all the moisture during the winter helped make this spring's flowering trees and bulbs more productive. Many years the saucer magnolia and other flowering trees and bushes get frosted, but this year they were perfect.

shleigh asked if potted tulips can be saved for next year and I have to admit, I've never tried it so when I pulled up the "Monte Carlo" tulips from this pot and a couple others, I decided to give it a try.

Here's what they look like, 'chilling' in my basement. In a few days they will dry out and I'll remove the leaves and roots and wash the bulbs for storage this summer. In September I'll find a place for them in the border and I'll report back next spring.

Great pics and lovely 'bench garden'.

I'll want to know how your tulip trial goes.

Leawood, I was just reading in my English gardening magazine about tulips in containers and the gardener there plants hers in 3 layers in the container for thicker blooms. Do you ever do that?

I have planted layers in containers, but I've always used different bulbs in each layer~~tulips, muscaris, and maybe some daffs that have the same bloom time. (Worked out OK but haven't mastered the concept yet)

I've forced bulbs for my containers for more years than I care to count. Over the years, I've discovered that if I get too many bulbs in the pot where I force them, they choke each other out and the result is a poor display.

I've always been a 'more is better' person, so it takes some restraint when I am potting them up. I once thought if 15 bulbs in a pot look great, imagine how 20 (or 25) might look - the result was a disappointment. Now I try to allow at least an inch of dirt between each bulb.

Thanks, leawoodG, for your observations.

What a clever idea! Thanks for the tuitorial you created to show us how you do it. That is very helpful. Did I miss something; did you have some type of plant marker so you'll know where those bulbs were planted in that mass grave or what bulbs was in what hole? I might just try this if I remember it come Fall. How did you manage to keep the squirrels and chipmunks from digging up the bulbs?

My MEMORY is not quite what it should be, so I definitely need labels. When I sink the pots in October, I usually put a wooden tongue depressor in each pot (with the variety name in pencil) - by spring, most are still legible - lol. Generally I can tell which pots go in which urn by the size. Since I do the same variety in urns that are pairs, but don't do the same variety in all urns, it's essential to have the ID so I get the right pot in the right urn.

I've never had a problem with the squirrels or chipmunks disturbing the pots when they are in the ground. One year I filled all the pots with potting soil and bulbs, but didn't bury them immediately because the bed I put them in still had annuals in full bloom. I left them on the patio and discovered a squirrel had dug in one of the pots (I guess to bury a walnut) and threw out a couple of the bulbs in the process. I just dumped out all of the soil and re-potted the bulbs - no harm done.

I don't have that problem these days because I adopted two cats last year and they keep the rodents and rabbits at bay. They have been the best addition to my garden in years!

Am I understanding the beginning of your wonderful tuitorial that you planted those tulip bulbs about the 3rd. week of Oct. 2009? Do you have any more gardening tuitorials you have posted? Maybe you should start up a business on making tuitorials and putting them to a DVD or CD(whatever it is called!) and trying to market them. Thanks for sharing this with all of us. It really looks simple the way you showed it. Now I have a question and I hope I didn't miss something in translation. When you sink the plastic bowl of bulbs into your concrete urn or planter, do you put any of that cypress mulch at the bottom of the urn or surround the bowl in the urn with more mulch to stablize it? It looks like you have laid out those bulbs that have finished blooming on the concrete floor in your basement to dry. Is that what you meant by "chilling?" That floor would be cold enough. Doesn't the dirt left on the bulbs stain the concrete floor?

I've done a couple more 'lessons' - including one on starting topiary brugmansias, but I doubt there would be enough interest to start a 'business' - LOL.

When I put the plastic pots in the concrete or cast iron container, I put enough mulch in the bottom to have the top of the plastic pot just below the rim of the container; that way, the mulch on top will make it look like the bulbs are planted directly in the container. I fill in around the plastic pot with dirt or mulch.

I laid the bulbs on the floor of my unfinished basement to dry out so I could separate the bulb from the stem and roots. In a couple weeks they were dry enough to pull off the bulb to store4 through the summer. It didn't stain the concrete in my basement, but if that's a concern, you could lay out several thicknesses of newspaper to lay the bulbs upon.

This is the first year I've tried keeping bulbs I'd forced - I'll report on my success/failure.

I store them in plastic basket-type crates so air circulates around them and they don 't mold our rot.

I hope this helps!

Hi Leawood, I am so glad that you are testing the "saving of your bulbs" after you once use them. I will be watching to see what your results are. I do love your posts on bulbs and have learned so much. Thank you, Shleigh

Hi Leawood--Just to add to your wonderful and helpful posts, I've been 'saving' hyacinths for several years now and have quite a crazy collection of colors and sizes--but they are such a welcome addition to the garden in the spring. good luck all you savers.

The double yellow "Monte Carlo" tulips that were in the pot by the bench in 2010 went into the border garden, next to my muscari. Here's how they looked this spring (2011).

Okay, Gary, this method of yours looks simple enough I think I could follow it. I'm measuring my urns, and pots this morning, so I'll know what size pot/bowl to buy so it will fit into my urns/pots come Spring time when they start showing signs of busting through the ground. I love muscari but you sometimes find them in places you didn't plant them in the first place. I may just have to plant some of them, even though I hadn't planned to. " I've got so much to do and so little time to do it in." Wished I had my own gardener! Hey, it doesn't hurt to dream does it?

Can you post a picture of the type of basket/ plastic crate that you use to store your bulbs in during the summer? I saw something that I've been thinking about ordering from LeeValley Tools. Will a ladies hosiery bag do the same thing, it could be hung up and air will get to it? That's what I stored my daffs that I dug up after they bloomed.

I like those little mini daffs..I've seen them in the garden section of my local grocery store and they are so cute. I could just picture them planted around the edge of another container.

Maybe a trip to Big Lots or Lowe's is in order today to see if I can find the type of containers you have used. Now Kansas is much colder than Maryland so I wouldn't have to plant them this early. As long as I have them in ground by Nov. 1st. will be okay. Starts getting too cold to work outside after that for me.

It doesn't take anything special to store bulbs - I use whatever I have on hand that allows for air circulation. One year I used an old clothes basket. Last year I got a couple of these plastic crates, which are sturdy and easy to wash out after I plant the bulbs.

As soon as I dig the bulbs, I lay them out on a large piece of cardboard in the basement to let them dry a bit. After a couple weeks, I take off the last of the dirt and roots and store them for the summer in these crates.

I've got those plastic trays.......they're $ 1.00 each and you can pick them up here.

Hi LG: This is just the info I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to post all the pictures and explanation. I watched a short little film of P. Allen Smith doing about the same thing, only he digs the pots into the ground and buries them with soil. In the spring, he took them indoors. This is the method he used to force bulbs.
I hope I can find pots like you showed in the Oct 22, 2009 pictures. They aren't the regular deep pots you find with planted perennials.

Yeah, the pots I use are the shallower, flatter type. They fit better in my outdoor planters. The large ones are designed for hanging plants (I just cut off the wire hangers). In the smaller sizes (5" - 10") they are called Azalea Pots. You can find them at nursery stores or do what I do - save them from plants you buy or are given.

I have several of those plastic hanging baskets. I didn't know that is what you were using. I need to double check the dimensions of the pots vs. the urns.
I have two bales of wheat straw left from this summer. Would the staw work for mulch?? I am thinking not.

I cannot imagine why the straw would not work. Some people put dirt around the pots in the ground. I prefer to use mulch so, in the event some roots come out through the bottom of the pot, the roots are not damaged when I lift the pots.

Okay, thanks.

Here's an update on a thread started long ago!

It's a nice warm day, so I decided to take an afternoon to work in the garden, picking up limbs from a recent snowstorm and observing the early development of the garden. I saw the bulbs I was forcing for the urns on my patio peeking out of the mulch, so I decided to pull them up and put them in the urns.

I put potting soil between the plastic pot and the urn, and top them with ground pine bark mulch to hold moisture and give a finished look.

Recently, a friend gave me some bulbs that her brother (a landscaper) had left over from a job last fall. Since it's so late (she gave them to me March 8), it's a pure gamble to see if they will bloom. If they do bloom, they will surely be later than the bulbs I started last fall, so I may use them to replace these bulbs after they are spent. Read about them here http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1301564/

It's been a month since I lifted the pots and placed them in my planters around the yard. We've had snow, rain and cool, sunny days since I planted them. Here's how they look today, April 13.

Those are going to be gorgeous LWG.

Another cool day, but the tulips are starting to open.

Here's how my urns look today, filled with the pots of 'Princess Irene' tulips I forced.

While I'm happy with the results, I've discovered there may be an easier way to have spring bulbs in your above-ground urns and pots. In early March, a friend contacted me to say her brother, a landscaper, had some tulips left from one his his projects last fall. You can read about it here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1301564/

As you can see, I was skeptical, but planted the bulbs directly in pots on March 8th. Photos 3-5 show how these bulbs look today, a mere 7 weeks from the day I planted them. In the future, I think I may just hold my tulips for the urns and pots in my garage over the winter and plant them mid-March directly into the planters where I want them. That way I won't have to worry about finding a pot that exactly fits into the planter, I won't have to worry about the squirrels raiding my pots of bulbs in the ground (it's happened in the past - this year I put chicken wire over the bed to keep them from digging in the pots) and I won't have the problem of using multiple pots in my large limestone urn. I'm going to test this plan next spring. Stay tuned for results.

My outside pots with bubs"

Beautiful! What great displays! Congratulations.