How to plant these ...............

in a 3 foot diameter raised flower bed at the begging of my driveway. 75 Tulips, 10 Hyacinths, 6 Alliums, 50 Crocus, 35 Murcaris, 40 Daffodils, and a Mum that fills up a pot that is 1 foot diameter. For instances, how deep, which ones to the front and then which ones and can I plant the Mum in the middle.

This message was edited Sep 24, 2010 7:48 PM

Which one of these bulbs will first, then second, third, and so on.

My goal is to have these flowers blooming from early spring (March) on until I can plant Annuals. I want to have flowers blooming from early Spring to late Fall.

With the exception of the alliums and the mum, those are all spring bloomers so you're going to want to fill in with annuals or other non-bulb plants if you want equal amounts of interest in summer/fall as you have in the spring. As far as how deep to plant the bulbs, here's a site with a rough rule of thumb http://www.theplantexpert.com/springbulbs/HowDeep.html , but if you google the individual bulbs you can find more specific instructions (if you purchased the bulbs from somewhere, they would likely have instructions on the package too) You'll want to look at spacing as well--a 3 ft diameter bed isn't very big so that sounds like an awful lot of bulbs for such a small area.

Here's a depth and spacing chart for ya
http://www.johnscheepers.com/plantingchart.html

I wasn't planing on planting all of them in this bed. What about the Mum? Do you think it should be moved to another bed? How can I plant these bulbs so they don't I bloom at the same time? How and when would I plant Annuals in that bed so I would have flower blooming until late fall?

By the way which one of these bulbs will be the tallest? As i would want to put them to the back.

This message was edited Sep 25, 2010 9:39 PM

If you're planting your bulbs in a garden bed it's going to be hard to control when things bloom. The very first year you might be able to control bloom time somewhat by when you plant them, but in subsequent years you'll be stuck with their natural bloom time. During the spring you'll probably have some things blooming earlier/later than others, but everything will be done blooming by the time summer comes around (except the alliums and the mums). Many bulbs can be forced to bloom at a time that they wouldn't ordinarily bloom, but in order to do that it would be best to keep them in pots so that you can more carefully control their conditions (and it would be a lot of effort--so your best bet is enjoy them in the spring and then plant other types of plants to give you blooms the rest of the year).

Crocus & Muscari will be the shortest so I'd put them in the front, hyacinths & tulips are a little taller, and daffodils are a bit taller than that. For the alliums it will depend on which ones they are, but I'd guess most of them would be taller than your other bulbs (but since the other bulbs will be finishing up or done blooming by the time they're blooming then it doesn't matter as much if you put them in the back or not). Mums tend to be a little shorter so I'd keep them in the middle/front, but they'll bloom in fall so your bulbs will be out of the way by the time they bloom, so I'd plan their spot in the bed to make sure they're at the right height relative to whatever annuals you plant.

Many summer annuals will bloom throughout much of the season--I think you'll be set with spring flowers with your bulbs, so if I were you I'd go to a garden center in late spring and pick up some annuals. If you deadhead them (cut off spent flowers) before they have a chance to go to seed, you can probably keep them blooming for the whole summer and into fall.

It also depends on what kind of tulips and daffs you have, some are the smaller ones they have daffs that are under 12" and tulips range from under 12" to over 24".
And there are also early blooming tulips and later blooming, all depends on the variety you have.