Plan Your Bulb Garden for Spring Color

With the tawny yellow, ginger and crimson hues of fall all around us, it’s hard to imagine we’ll be starving for color come winter’s end. Don’t miss the chance to plan a colorful feast for the eyes, because it’s time to get your spring bulb display cooking.

“Bulbs provide us with so much color right when spring begins and we are desperate for color in the landscape,” said Karla Lynch, manager of horticulture education at The Morton Arboretum.

Get a continuous display of color from the earliest lime-edged, white snowdrops in February through the lavender alliums of late spring. In between, cheery yellow daffodils and tulips in any color imaginable take the stage. Lynch suggests planting for a sequence of color that lasts all spring.

1. Think about where you want your focal point or what Lynch calls “high visual energy.” It should be someplace you walk by or look at often, like your front door or outside the kitchen sink window.

2.  Think about budget. “The trick to getting an interesting display is to plant many bulbs in one location. For a 5-foot by 5-foot space, you might want to dig three or four 15-inch wide holes and drop 10-15 bulbs into each one,” said Lynch. The smaller the bulbs, the more you should plant. If you can only afford 12 bulbs, plant them in the same hole.

3. Pick bulbs with different bloom times – while keeping in mind the sunlight conditions of your planting location. Generally, the bulb blooming season starts with snowdrops around Valentine’s Day. By late March, look for crocuses and scilla to arrive. Daffodils usually open in early April. Grape hyacinth typically bloom late April to early May, and tulips from late April to late May. Alliums bloom in late May or early June.

To make things even more interesting, the showiest bulbs, daffodils and tulips, have early-, mid- and late-season varieties. Review these  recommended bulb varieties. You’ll find details on bloom time, plant height, colors and more.

4. Choose your colors. Lynch recommends sticking to one color family. Cool colors, such as pinks, blues and purples, look great together. Or do the bed in warm colors, like orange, salmon and yellow.

5. “Make a bulb sandwich,” said Lynch. The soil is the bread and the bulbs are the filling. Put the largest bulbs at the bottom of one big hole and work your way toward the top with progressively smaller bulbs, regardless of bloom times. The hole can be about 15-18-inch wide. Calculate planting depth based on three times the height of the bulb.

Here’s an example: Plant 3-inch daffodil bulbs about 10 inches deep. Cover with soil. Next, plant 2-inch high tulip bulbs on top of the daffodils, about 6 inches from the surface. Cover with soil. Then add 1-inch grape hyacinth bulbs three inches from the surface and cover those. You’ll have a mouth-watering display come spring, when you are really hungry for it.

Glad You Asked

Q.  I planted tulip bulbs last fall, but they came up really late this spring. Were they damaged by winter weather?
A. Don’t panic. “Typically, first season bulbs tend to come up a little later than in an established planting,” said Lynch. They will adjust and get on track next season.

Q. How do I plant bulbs in containers on my deck?
A. Unlike bulbs in the ground that are insulated from winter’s freezing temperature, bulbs in a pot on a balcony or deck likely will freeze solid and die. Store potted bulbs in your refrigerator or a root cellar over winter. Or buy “pre-cooled” bulbs for forcing indoors during the winter.

The Arboretum’s bulb sale continues in The Arboretum Store throughout the month of October – or until varieties are gone. Don’t miss it!

This post was adapted from an article written by The Morton Arboretum for the Chicago Sun Times.

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