Get the best from bulbs

Planting bulbs is a quick and easy way to make your garden come to life come spring

Why we love 'em    
Bulbs let you plan ahead without having to wait too long, and they're cheap, too. So for a satisfying display of colour in double-quick time, settle down, choose your favourites, then splash out!

What to consider    
To create bold bulb displays, think about where they'll perform best, their colour, and try to create as long a season of interest as possible. Here's how...

When it's spring again...
It's hard to pick a favourite from the multitude of tulips available. Choose from fresh Tulipa ‘Spring Green', ‘Apricot Beauty' or ‘China Town' for evening glow (pastel shades show up better in evening light, which is the time when most of us can stop to enjoy them). However, if you can't resist the sheer exuberance of vibrant tulip-red blooms, then Tulipa ‘Queen of Sheba' is long-flowering, while ‘Red Shine', ‘Oxford' and ‘Beauty of Apeldoorn' pack a punch. For something a little different, try Tulipa ‘Queen of Night', ‘Negrita' or ‘Black Parrot', all with dark, deep, fashionable tones.

Bulbs for open spaces
In open borders, bulbs deliver wonderfully well, particularly when lots of your plants haven't even broken ground, let alone started to flower.

Try this!
Alliums have long been the gardener's favourite. Allium ‘Purple Sensation' is a reliable stunner, with its tall, slim stem holding show-stopping pompoms of flower 90cm above ground level. Alliums take up very little ground space but have huge border impact, and A. ‘Purple Sensation' will tolerate some shade, too.

• It's easy: A river of bloom at the front of your border, or even in your lawn, creates a dramatic effect. A carpet of Muscari armeniacum will be easy to grow, needs little maintenance, and packs a punch on the fragrance front, too. Crocuses are an alternative for the lawn's edges, and both muscari and crocuses will have died back before you haul the mower out to give the lawn its first cut.

• Try these: Other bulbs that blend with thick grass include snowdrops, chionodoxa, daffodils, scilla and anemones, so add some fizz to your lawn early next year with these colonising fireworks of early bloom.

Bulbs for pots
Hyacinths look (and smell) amazing when potted up as table centrepieces. In fact, most bulbs look great in pots, but I think containers are best used to highlight the most unusual (and usually expensive) bulbs, where they can be easily maintained and readily enjoyed.

Top tips for best results

• Don't mix your colours - bulbs have more impact if they are colour themed. If you must, then mix them with complementary or contrasting annuals.

• Buy as many bulbs as you can of one variety - bulbs always look best when planted en masse.

• Get them grounded while the soil is still warm, enabling your bulbs to form roots before winter sets in.

• As a rule of thumb, plant your bulbs at two to three times their own depth.

• Peg chicken wire over your bulbs, disguised with a mulch, to prevent squirrels from digging them up.

• Check before you buy - your bulbs should be plump and firm without signs of decay.

• Snowdrops, cyclamen and aconites establish better if bought in pots in leaf or flower then planted into the ground.

• Let the leaves of bulbs wilt naturally - the bulbs feed off these to produce blooms next year.

• Cut off spent flower heads so the bulbs can concentrate on replenishing its food store rather than producing seed.

• Prepare the ground in the same way as planting perennials, trees and shrubs.

• Experiment! There are thousands of bulbs just waiting to be planted.

•  If you choose to plant between existing groups of perennials, then plant your bulbs in triangles with the point to the front to create the illusion of more plants. Favourite daffodils for these spots are ‘February Gold', ‘Tête-à-Tête' and ‘Rapture'.

• Create a natural lawn effect by throwing handfuls of bulbs into the air and plant them where they randomly fall.

• Heighten the impact of spring-flowering trees (magnolias and spring-flowering cherries) by clustering bulbs beneath them - choose from a single ground-covering wash of small, early bulbs such as Eranthis hyemalis, Scilla siberica or Chionodoxa luciliae for a stunning result.

Fail-safe favourites
The stalwarts of the spring display have to be daffodils, closely followed by tulips. Get maximum impact with a minimum of bulbs by planting densely, close to areas where they'll be seen (lawns and terraces are the obvious choices), scattering groups further back in these borders to add depth to the scene.

Bulbs for shady spots
Only the most vigorous bulbs will tolerate areas beneath large canopies of leaf, particularly if it is evergreen. However, the native bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), Allium ursinum and Scilla bithynica will all colonise large areas of heavy, dry shade.

• Try these: Areas beneath deciduous shrubs allow for experimentation - there are a host of bulbs that would enjoy these conditions, the difficulty will be in plumping for just one! Anemone blanda, snowdrops (Galanthus ‘S. Arnott' or G. ‘Magnet' are my personal favourites), leucojums, daffodils and fritillaries would all be ideal.

Try these bulb suppliers...
www.jacquesamand.com / 020 8420 7110
www.bressinghamgardens.com / 01379 686900
www.rvroger.co.uk / 01751 472226
www.floralfireworks.co.uk / 01460 249060
www.blomsbulbs.com / 01234 709099

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