Bulbs that don't need feeding

I'm the kind of gardener with the philosophy that if a plant needs a lot of attention then it doesn't belong in my yard :)

I'd love to start trying bulbs, but I'm concerned when I read about how much fertilizer they need. Are there some bulbs that don't need that fertilizer every year? Maybe the naturalizers (keeping fingers crossed).

Thanks!

You need to go to Michaels.......they have LOTS of flowers that do not need any fertilizer.

I have an antique looking bicycle in the garden and they have place for some planters. Too little to keep enough water in them and without any, it looks "naked", so as the seasons go, I change them out and they look beautifull all the time. Do not have tulips in them in August....that gives it all away.

Happy Gardening.

There is a thread here on cover cropping your beds the season before you plant the bulbs. That would help build the soil. You could add compost. Would you put your children out in the field (on a hot day) and not water or feed them?

Sort of essential to all living things. Other wise the living things will be dead things!

Or, follow bleek's suggestion: Lots of nice flowers at Michaels.

If a bulb is adapted to you region it should not need any fertilizer.

Checking with you local avid gardeners to see which types they have the best luck with that will help to limit you losses. Also just looking around town at the folks who practice low maintenance gardening (you know - the folks that have nice flowers and a few weeds) will give you ideas.

Don't take this the wrong way, but, little old ladies (or men) know lots of easy bulbs. I am one of those little old men, too bad you don't live in the deep south....

Holland has great displays, this is a wild onion, non native>

I realize that plants need some fertilizer, but I don't believe in pumping lots of fertilizer into my beds (I read somewhere to fertilize your bulbs 3 times a year?! that's just crazy to me).

There are plenty of flowers and shrubs that can do just fine with little. And so I was hoping there might be *some* bulbs that are the same way. You give me hope that there are, Dale!

Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of bulb use in my immediate neighborhood. But I have Gardener's Supply at my disposal, so I'll hop on over there and see what they say.

evie- beevie. If you have good soil and you use a bulb fertilizer when you plant - like maybe a handful of bone meal, your bulbs should be fine.

if you plant your bulbs in clay with bad drainage, or you never water them they will not do well.

if you choose bulbs that are hardy for your area, they should do just fine.

Also, never use regular fertilizer on your bulbs. You need a low nitrogen fertilizer especially formulated for bulbs. Otherwise you might get a lot of leafy growth but no flowers. But I wouldn't worry about fertilizer until the plants are well established. Most bulbs planted in good soil never need any additional fertilizer.

If they look distressed, get a soil test and see what they need.

evie, something else to consider. Fertilize only when you are willing/able to do and try diff. bulbs, as recommended by the lol or lom in your area, ha ha. I felt like you at first, not too willing to baby the plants. But I find that as time goes by and as plants treat me to more and more beauty, I am less resistant to give more TLC. It doesn't all have to happen overnight, in fact, it rarely does.

it's just a give and take. Give what you can and go from there.

I have read that some people believe the species bulbs are less demanding. Since I have never grown most bulbs I would not know. I know Muscari are easy and multiply freely, even reseeding themselves.

I wonder if species tulips would do well in VT? With the short summers they might think they are still at home in the mountains of the Middle East.

evie-beevie.

Your post concerns me. I wonder what you mean by "fertilizer"?

And applying "it" 3 times a year. If you mean a package with the word
"fertilizer" on it - I don't think most people on Dave's would use that at all.

Hi all. Thanks for all the feedback.

I have a sandy based soil, so drainage isn't a problem. I've been making my latest beds by either turning over the sod or laying newspaper over the grass. So the top part of the soil is pretty decent right now. I realize that won't last w/o additives, but at this point in my early gardening life I'm not at that point yet. And I try to only buy plants that are on the easy/tough side, and don't need a lot one way or the other. (disease resistant, drought resistant, average to poor soil needs, etc)

All that said, April and early May in NW Vermont is, well, ugly. So I've been trying to add winter interest, and would love to have some bulbs for these dreary weeks/months.

But what I read about bulbs is that you need to fertilize when you plant and at least once during the year. Somewhere I read it would ideally be more than that (can't find it now, perhaps a bad source). So I figure I should avoid this because that's not what I'm willing to do right now (that may change as I mature as a gardener, but as a newbie I'm not ready for high maintenance).

At the same time, I find it hard to believe that ALL bulbs would require this much fertilizer. Esp for the naturalizers. So that's why I posted. I hate killing plants, and wasting money, so I won't plant bulbs if it won't work for my style (I get that style is limited, and I accept that). But if there was a bulb or two that would work, then awesome, I'll try it.

And as a newbie, I assume that these "instructions" I see are talking about packaged fert. And as a newbie, I don't know any better about bulb fert vs other fert vs plain compost.

Basically, I don't know anything about bulbs :)

Evie Beevie
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/Planting-Bulbs.id-508.html

Here is a basic article on bulbs.

I add compost and manure to the soil in my beds every fall cuz I have clayey soil that I'm trying to amend. Other than a shot of bone meal after they flower that's all I do to my bulbs. My garden is about 20% bulbs and they are great bloomers and are naturalizing.

I have lots of bulbs but I dont plant any that wont naturalize. Which basically means I dont have hybrid tulips or the large alliums which dont seem to do well here and bulbs that are not hardy and have to be dug up and stored and replanted every spring.. But I do have lots and lots of species tulips and small and medium alliums and muscari and other early spring little ones. I never fertilize. Like Dahlianut ( same city) the soil is full of clay.

I can't even imagine living in the frigid north where you do, but tall bearded/german iris, daylilies, and Oriental Lilies are all cold-tolerant and do not require lots of maintenance. Like you, evie, I'm not the most experienced gardener out there and I grow lots of different bulbs and tropicals here, but don't use chemical fertilizers, only organics. I don't think you can really overdo feeding with compost, bone meal at least 1x a year keeps the blooms really coming and isn't too time consuming .....

....but I know I have iris, daylilies (not sure if they qualify as bulbs) and those durn orientals that have bloomed with out so much as even a drink of freshwater, much less fert! so don't give up on bulbs, they're sooo easy ans rewarding

Frigid north? I dont think so - it is 30C today! LOL!

Fancy Van,

I am willing to bet that you will get your first frost before the first of Sept.....

Here is a winter photo>

shame shame dale_a_gardener :O you said the 'f' word :O

I dont think there is any month when we have not had snow and frost except maybe July but I still wouldnt call it frigid!

Sept 23,. 2006.

I'll let you know about the first frost!

This message was edited Aug 14, 2008 3:03 PM

I grew up in Minnesota, the northern part of the state always got a light fr*st at the end of Aug. Zone 4a is frid-gid and is 3-400 miles south of your location.

Alliums do beautifully with little or no fertilization. Allium caeruleum is a beautiful blue, allium christophii a stunning amethyst, allium atropurpureum is pink, allium ramosum is white. I have them all. None of these need fertilizer. Better yet, they bloom in different seasons. My allium ramosum is just starting to bloom. Some like caeruleum, have spectacular seedheads. If you don't deadhead them, a lot more will be produced, particularly after 2-3 years.

Here is what allium ramosum looks like.

Donna

Fancyvan,
What is the name of the Japanese Maple in your front yard? By the way, everything looks beautiful.
Lynda

I dont have a Japanese Maple in my yard ( would love one but not hardy here)

The reddish tree on the left is an ornamental crab and the dark purple on the right is
a Shubert Chokecherry.

Is one of those the one you are thinking about?

I do have two tulips that are bulletproof. I dig them up after they get quite a bit of moisture, and they actually multiply. One is the species tulip Turkestanica (I put in 10 and dug up 23!) and the Greigii Pinnochio. They provide earlier blloom than the double lates, lily-flowering, and triumphs that I also grow.

http://www.johnscheepers.com/catview.cgi?_fn=Item&_recordnum=5824&_category=Tulips:Species

http://www.johnscheepers.com/catview.cgi?_fn=Item&_recordnum=5650&_category=Tulips:Greigii

I understand that species and near species tulips do much better and perrenialization. And they're cheap (Turkestanica is $10 for $5.00). I got them both from Scheepers.

Donna

Donna that is the kind of tulip I plant too. There are a number of different species types and they are all early bloomers and will naturalize and as you say much cheaper then hybrid tulips.

Hi Dahlia!

Speaking of which- mine are looking beautiful right now! I might just have to indulge in some bulb TLC this fall and dig 'em and keep 'em!
And speaking of frost- I am in Zone 3 and NOT GONNA HAPPEN here before September!
I just finished putting in 75 Muscari and around 25 daffs, and 60 odd crocus today, so we shall see how they do in our severe winter. I had to go cheap this year, just to find out what will work, then if things look good in the spring I will splurge next fall.
Question for all of you tulip growers- I am planting a bunch of the hybrids- just to see how they do here. They were cheap from HD- $13 for 60 bulbs. Did I just waste $ not going with species tulips? (My neighbor has some that have kept coming up for the last 3 years at least, with absolutely no extra care whatsoever)
And does anyone know if horses eat tulips? (Do deer like them- because if deer like them, so will my horses) They keep 'trying' my daylilies, then spitting out the leaves. They did decide they liked the spiderwort, thank goodness it has already bloomed.

Kathy

Kathy I have been planting species tulips for years and I think they are great. Idont bother with hybrids. I like the early blooms, the foliage disappears fairly quickly when the perennials come up because it is low anyway and dies off more quickly than the hybrids. Also they naturalize more easily.

Thanks so much- I will go ahead and do the hybrids since I have them- but I will go after some of the species tulips too- I have tons of rock garden areas where they would look really great.
I have been living and gardening in the Phoenix area for the last 24 years, and last summer we moved to Colorado, so I can finally do bulbs! SO excited I can actually grow a tulip of any type! I tried one time to do it in AZ and what a ton of work: buy the bulbs, then store in the fridge for 10 weeks or so, then plant and basically throw away. I put in 10 bulbs and got ONE flower.
My mom (who lives in Wyoming) always had gorgeous naturalized narcissus, crocus and tulips all over her backyard. Some of them we helped her plant back in 1976, and I think they are still coming up.

Kathy

Plant them deep - as in 12" KathyCo. I have hybrids that return once I started planting them deep. Not all do though. I'll post some pics next spring of the ones that I have that do.

Wow! That deep huh? Well, I haven't started yet on the tulips, so that is where I will head to. Ick- it's rocky out there.

Well Dahlia! I sure hope planting deep works- because it is a BEAR!! It basically took me almost all day to put in 25 darwins (Purissima) and 25 Narcissus (Salome), since I put all of them at between 10 and 12" down. This was in a bed too. It is a small one so I had not tilled it or turned it yet. It is now though. But, after I did those, it only took about 30 minutes to put in 75 crocus (Jeanne D'Arc) over the top, since I had loosened, turned and amended the soil for the bigger bulbs, and removed all the rocks. Should be quite the show in the spring- all white.

Kathy

I hear you KC. I dug up a bunch to move them to a new bed and it's hard on the back to dig that deep in wet soil. Ouch!! I dug up 'Shirley Single', 'Happy Generation Triumph', 'Blushing Girl' and another striped that I'll have to look up. These were all new last fall and have multiplied.

KC I hope you didnt dig a single hole for each bulb? Depends on the location in the bed of course but I usually just dig a large area the appropriate depth and group the bulbs in.

bulbs that do just fine down here and bloom every year with no fertilizers or often not even supplemental water include:
1. daffodils (the right varieties for our area--early blooming)
2. crinums
3. ipheions
4. most Lycoris--L radiata being tempermental in blooming some years
5. Habranthus
6. Zephyranthes
7. glads--both species and "funeral parlor" glads
8. definitely oxalis--fertilize them and they often won't bloom, just produce leaves--esp. Cape and South American species
9. Leucojum aestivum
10. freesia's--a least the species Freesia's--I don't grow the hybrids
11. Freesia laxa's
12. rhodophiala bifida--red and pink
13. Hippeastrums--hybrids and species
14. Bletilla's
15. eucomis
16. scadoxus
17. a lot, but not all of the kniphofia's
18. Bessera elegans
19. crocosmia's--downright invasive around here, one of the few bulbs banned from my property--lol

I know there are a few others, they are just not coming to mind right now. This info is for those in the deep south.
Debbie

editted to add one's I forgot the first time around



This message was edited Sep 3, 2008 5:40 PM