When Are You Planting Bulbs This Year?

Thanks Emily. Very interesting.

Well today was Veterans day so I figured bulbs away! No poppies, but lots of red tulips planted. I sheepishly counted the bulb loot to be planted and today's effort of getting four areas planted out of 30 was a mere drop in the bucket (or bulb in a hole). We managed on planting 500 out of the 3000 plus that are going in this fall. Last year was a little less, but we had not planted bulbs in years so I am just catching up. Next year's I will not need very many. I have no idea of what will come back from the tulips I planted last year. We will do a big plant tomorrow as I was not organized this morning to get going very early. But now I am ready to plant an army of bulbs with DH and his trusty electric auger so I figure we have 2 more days. I do have a order coming from Bleek's great sale at eflower, but it will go in my new stream area, so that is an easy plant. Patti

I don't know where you get all your vim and vigor, Patti! 3,000!

That's a lot of bulbs!

Can't even conceive of that many. I would only do that if there were huge dug up areas - not individual holes. Do Tulips return reliably for you, Patti? Mine did not and that, coupled with the deer, is why I gave up on them.

My goodness!! Such determination! And I thought planting 200 tulips was a stretch.
My hat's off to you.

Nope individual holes. I am thinking next year of using a pogo stick and just bouncing about the garden and yard for that natural look. I planted lots of deer resistant bulbs too, but we did put up a deer fence about 5 years ago around a big chunk of the garden. That is where the tulips go. The rabbits are the bane of my existence as they eat through the fence to attack the tulips and lilies.

I did my tulip mania planting only last year so who knows what will return. I am only slightly hopeful. I planted many of the ones we loved from last year again this year near where the ones planted before were so I can see what returns. I have a very complete record in my journal of the numbers planted and a picture record that I will be able to compare and see what is successful. I did plant lots of species tulips which should come back.

But the narcissus which is my big extravagance will return forever. Longer than I will be around. Back to the holes. I can blame lots of this on 4paws as she is always running great coops.

Here is a collage of one area that show it on May 10th and then again in on July 11th, So I just left the tulips in the ground. You can see I have lots of unplanted areas to do this year. Does anyone lift them to save, if so how? Patti

3000 individual holes! I'm speechless!

Gophers everywhere are feeling inferior.

Edited to say I was tempted to invoke the name of Wilt Chamberlain, but resisted.

This message was edited Nov 12, 2007 12:05 PM

Just realized we have have never heard again from Karen, who started this thread. Come back, Karen! Sorry if we meandered, etc. Have you planted your bulbs? Which ones??

We got 735 more planted, but DH had to spend a big chunk of the day on doing a job on the waterfront getting a boat off the beach, so we got a very late start. I worked on making plant tags and raking the yard until my driller got home. I hate raking leaves.

It does look like a mad gopher has been at work. It goes really quickly with him drilling and me putting the bulbs in the hole. After we finish drilling a bed and putting the bulbs in the holes, we go back and rake the bed to fill all the holes with dirt and then pack in down with our feet. It is a snap when there are no rocks, roots, or clay.

So I thought we are close to half way except I remembered that I have 1000 more coming this week from Bleek(all 4paws fault) and I forgot to add in a box that has another 300. So my final bulb foolishness will be more like 4300. Next year will be very small as I am running out of room and I don't want to push my luck with my DH.

DH always rolls his eyes at my projects, but almost always is very supportive. He is out every morning year round long before me taking in the garden. He was dubious at best about the stream, but he loves it. This morning we had so many birds bathing that it looked like a roman bath. There was a huge flock of robins that were having a grand old time plus cardinals, blue jays, a lots of little twitter birds. He has moved a pair a binoculars to the dining room window so we can just sit and watch the show.

I hope I can post some pictures of sensational blooms next spring and maybe some good bird pictures too. It took me a few minutes to figure out how Wilt the Stilt could be connected. Too funny. Patti

Patti, How much land do you have?

Victor, That would even take Wilt a few years/

Dave47, we have a little of 2 1/2 acres. An acre is still wild and will most likely stay that way unless we build a guest house at some point. DH and I would most likely move into that and give this house to our son. I would love to design a small house for us with a bigger GH and library, but with only one bedroom and bath and open kitchen and living space all on a first floor and an open studio space on the second floor. Pipe dreams.

Here is an example of our holy work... The part of the bed under the apple tree was planted today with 50 Galanthus ikariae, 10 Narcissus Jenny, 6 Narcissus Misty Glen,
5 Narcissus Replete, 20 Tulip Green Wave, 20 Tulip New Design, 100 Muscari Christmas Pearl.

The next section of that bed was planted with 24 Hyacinthus orientalis var. albulus,
5 Poeticus Daffodil, 5 Narcissus Bell Song, 5 Narcissus Calgary, 10 Narcissus Easter Bonnet, 6 Narcissus Frag. Rose, 3 Double Daffodil Irene Copeland, 6 Narcissus Rosy cloud, 10 Narcissus Sagitta, 5 Narcissus Spring Pride, 15 Narcissus Tete-a-tete, 10 tuliup Hot Pants, 20 Tulipa Lambada

I hope they like their holes. This is mostly a hosta bed in the summer so all the yellowing leaves will not be seen (hopefully) Patti

Wow! Soil looks nice and loose.

victorgardener, I enlarged this bed last summer, but didn't do much except dig it very deep and pull out years of bad grass, weeds and wild roses and sorrel. I actually think that all those roots help make the soil better. After I pulled them all out it was nice and loose. I should have dug in some good stuff, but I didn't. I will top dress it in the spring. The Auger really breaks things up. We hit a lot of tree roots while doing this bed, but if it is a big root we just stop the drill and move on. We have some big veins of clay on the property, but not many where I garden. Lucky me. Patti

Patti:

I am laughing so hard! Does anyone else see Meerkats?

Candyce, Perhaps Meerkats or Prairie Dogs or am I just a misplaced Old Gal from Oklahoma who has visions of finding black gold to support my bad bulb habit?

It is raining now, so maybe no bulb planting today. Anyway, DH is off to play a pick up game of La-Dee-DA Hockey which is a slower, and a more gentle co-ed game that is played by people who have the luxury of playing hockey at 9:00 on a work day. He does play in a regular league at night. He has to keep in shape for all his bulb drilling. If it stops raining perhaps we can get some done later in the day, but I won't be inspired if it is cool and damp.

I want to have all this bulb foolishness done Thurs as we are taking the noon steamship and going to Vt to put our house back together. The repair work is finally done from the car a that drove into our living room there last Winter. We have some serious cleaning to do, then we need to move all the furniture back into the living room that is now piled in the guest room and kitchen. I am going to rearrange things a bit. We will have a huge amount to do in the garden too, including putting in a FEW bulbs if they are on 1/2 price sale at Agway or the Newfane GH. But I will get to hear my beloved stream and pick out a few special rocks from it to bring down to Nantucket for my mini stream. And maybe I can get in a visit to see Boojum's orchids and garden. Every gardener on this forum needs to see her garden in Shelburne someday (just west of Greenfield Ma off RT 2) It is truly a delight. Patti

Patti:

I didn't realize you had a place that was near (sort of) where I live. We'll have to try to get together sometime.

Candyce, I go to the Agway in Keene (no taxes for some of my garden supplies) and they usually have good bulbs for sale in Nov. That isn't too far from you. I also love going to Wilton NH to that garden place, 'House be the side of the road' I am always up for a garden adventure. Patti

Ohhhhh, Patti!!!!

We shall plan a day sometime in the Spring. What do you think? You, me, Louise, maybe Sherrie if she can make it?

That would be great. I will let Boojum know too, she is always up for a garden adventure especially if it involves iris, particularly Siberian and Japanese, day lilies, and orchids. I am up for anything but Box stores. Patti

Same with me, and yes! Invite Boojum as well!!!
Speaking of Siberian Iris, I bet you could have a few from our gardens.

Lowe's in New London has a small assortment of bulbs at 50% off. Mostly tulips (some nice species which are sold out elsewhere). Some daffies, a low growing large ball white allium and a few hyacinth. Picked up Anna Marie, Delft Blue, City of Haarlem and Gypsy Queen hyacinth for 56 cents each, tax included. This makes over 4,300 bulbs this fall. Yeah, I'm sick. Never planted any bulbs before unless I helped my parents put in bulbs 35 or 40 ago. Probably I did but I don't remember. I'll remember this year.

any maureen tulips?

Not that I recall. I was looking for early tulips and there seemed to be more of those and mid spring tulips than late. I guess Maureen and other late tulips sold out. The New London store only had one cart of bulbs so I don't know if its worth a trip. Have you checked the Lowes in Foxon right off I-95?

yes - and the one on the post road 2 weeks ago.
also not available at: Cheshire, Perotti's (even before the sales), Natureworks, or Bell.
i can get them online, but i have to pay as much for shipping as for the bulbs and i have already spent about twice what i should have on bulbs. (And i don't think in quantities like y'all do. i'm looking for 5 - 15 of them.)

Amethystsm, I will be in NH and VT and checking out the Bulb sales. I will look for Maureen as I would like some too if I find it on sale. I will let you know.

We have planted another huge pile of bulbs over the last two days. We will do the last big planting early next week. I need to be done by turkey day so I can see what Brent and Becky put on sale for one last splurge.

David_Paul I am happy to see that you are just as bad as me. I can't wait to see yours and every ones else's bulb planting efforts come spring. I forgot to get enough big white Alliums and I intended to get many more Tulip Antoinette which was a great favorite last year as was another that I failed to order, Omnyacc-a. I don't think either of these come back. B&B still have some of each, but I will wait for their sale and hope that I can get some. Patti

thanks!

bbrookrd...those white alliums are nice. I wanted to mix them with globemaster, ambassador and smaller alliums but never got around to ordering either.

Patti, Your plot looks great! How many bulbs would you guess you had before this bunch?
David, I can't believe you outdid Patti! And this is your first? I guess when you decided to give bulbs a try, you really took the plunge.

I usually plant about 200 on my acre, but this year I did less than 100. Or, what you guys would call, "starting to warm up".

David_Paul, I had some tall white ones that I loved last year and I did get a few more, but not enough to plant where I intended to. Always next year!

Dave47, Oh dear, we planted around 3000 last year and we already had a lot of big stands of daffodils that we planted in the early 80's plus scilla, muscari and a few fritillarias. We decided to try some tulips and a few other bulbs in the fall of 2005 as we had been pretty successful with lilies as we now some of the garden enclosed with a deer fence. But last year was the big effort until this year.

This years planting includes 1100 tulips or which more than half are Darwin's or species , but the rest are annual ones. We have now finished planting tulips, unless I do some buying from Brent and Becky's in their after thanksgiving sale. I was thrilled that we only drilled maybe 10 previously planted bulbs.

I did a recount after finding I had not included a bed in the tally and to date we have planted 2352 but still have 2182 to go but many of these are little guys (muscari, scilla, crocus, chionodoxa, and galanthus) or being planted in easy spots. I am off to Vt today so I will be bringing back many bags of cow manure to top dress a lot of these bulbs. I can't dig in bone meal or the dogs will destroy our effort. Off to the dump to get rid of all the boxes and paper mess from the bulbs. I would rather be planting! Patti

Oh my goodness! I feel like such an under-achiever!!

Capecodgardener. I am going to read some more as this is new to me and I may pop into Country Gardens in Hyannis as there are knowledgeable and nice people there. But I expect that I will scratch it in with a light raking. I will buy bags of VT moodoo or what ever is cheapest. I have often done a light sprinkle of a 5-10-10 bulb fertilizer in the fall on my daffodils , but I think all the beds would love the cow manure. If someones know something that won't please advise. Thanks, Patti.

Bulb Boost or Bone Meal are great for bulbs. I put it in the hole at planting time and, if I remember, throw some more down when the foliage starts. As I and others have said previously, they will most likely still do perfectly fine without fertilizer, unless your soil is really infertile. Mother Nature has always done well without our intercession. I am not big on fertilizers in general.

Thanks, bbrookrd, for the response. I go to Country Gardens in Hyannis, too! They have some staff there who are very knowledgeable in organic gardening practices.

Victor, I hear you--you're right. of course. I know that if I were willing to work for several years for my sandy soil to be improved organically before growing "needy" plants, I wouldn't use fertilizers at all. Or if I were willing to concentrate on the natives and plants that do well in Cape Cod soil, and stay away from others that need some help in our big sand box here.

I'm wondering if the act of gardening is always to be improving--never really satisfied. Getting philosophical here.

I'd have to agree. I'm never satisfied with the garden. Always needs changing / improving.

Things need moving ...
new color combinations to try ...
and, of course, there's the myriad of new plant hybrids every year

And only so much garden space. Boo!

There's always the lawn to dig into!!