Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
EP242- Spring Flowering Bulbs, Top Tips & How To Plant For A Floral Boost Next Spring!!
Can you imagine a garden that grows more breathtaking each year with minimal effort? This week on Master My Garden, discover how autumn planting of spring-flowering bulbs like snowdrops, Fritillaria, Muscari, and Camassias can transform your garden into a vibrant spring haven. We revisit key insights from previous episodes, including our insightful chat with Dave and Jules from Esker Farm Daffodils, who share their expertise on unique and rare bulb varieties.
We answer a listener question from a listener in Canada on the art of forcing bulbs following their less than successful attempt at forced tulips last year. Learn why tulips might not be the ideal choice and how proper drainage, potting grit, and natural cold periods are crucial for success. Our discussion is rooted in Irish gardening experiences but provides universal tips that can help gardeners worldwide achieve stunning early blooms with patience and the right techniques.
Lastly, we focus on sustainable gardening practices for spring flowering bulbs. Discover why long-lasting, naturalizing species like alliums, anemones, narcissi, and crocuses are more beneficial than mass-planted tulips. Get practical advice on layering techniques such as lasagna planting and staging for continuous blooms from December to early May. These strategies ensure a vibrant and sustainable spring garden with minimal effort. Plus, stay tuned for hints about exciting upcoming episodes featuring intriguing guest interviews!
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 242 of Master my Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode, we're looking at the topic of autumn planting, spring flowering bulbs, and it's a topic that we've covered several times. But, as always on the podcast, the episode tries to be. You know, each episode is aimed to be sort of topical to what you can do at this time of the year and then, obviously, afterwards you'll maybe get some inspiration and take action within your own garden.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, this is the time of year when we plant bulbs, and I suppose I've said it before on the podcast, but there's very few things you know in in gardening that give you such a reward for such little effort. Um, they really are. They're superb. So anyone that doesn't grow bulbs essentially spring flowering ones you plant at this time of the year and then in the springtime, in a lot of cases, you actually forget they're there, you forget that you've done anything with them, you just get them now, you plant them, and then there's months go by where there's nothing to see, nothing to view, and then the springtime to start to peep up and then all of a sudden you have this, this flush of flower that typically comes at a time of the year when everything else is looking quite drab and dreary and it really does cheer you up. But in most cases it's such little effort, you know. You just plant the bulbs and then they do their thing over the winter time and then they pop up and stick their head up in the springtime and then they flower and, as I say, they give that flower at the time of the year when there's not much else going on in terms of color.
Speaker 1:So in terms of buying for your book, there's very, very few things that will give as big a boost as spring flowering bulbs will. The fact that a lot of them will naturalize and multiply is another huge advantage. So you plant your snowdrops, for example, in your lawn. You plant in little clusters of four or five bulbs and over time they will increase and increase. So your five becomes 10, your 10 becomes 15 and over time you're going to separate them and move them to other parts of the garden. So again they're, you know they're increasing all the time and naturalizing and multiplying and you're getting more and more joy and more and more benefit from it. So it's, you know it really is a huge, it's a. It's, you know it really is a huge. It's a hugely beneficial job at this time of the year or way of adding color to your spring garden with little or no work, as I said, this time of the year. And you knowitillaria muscari's camassias that I mentioned last week, that I'm going to be putting into into my wildflower meadow and and so many more. So it's those type of bulbs and they're going to come in springtime with, as I said, this, this flower that you're that you're going to be thrilled to see at that time of the year and got to cover it from a slightly different angle.
Speaker 1:So previously I've covered, you know, on the podcast I've covered bulbs and you know we've looked at them in terms of creating winter displays with bulbs and winter planters with bulbs, you know, and that was one aspect of it. So previous episodes where I've covered it are episode 146, episode 193, particularly there are two that were specifically on bulbs and then last year a little bit late, but one that I think you should get back onto now is episode 199. It was with Dave and Jules from Esker Farm, daffodils, and they're specialist growers of bulbs in Ireland and they have many kind of unusual and rare specialized varieties. So if you're interested in having sort of not the norm in your garden or you want to build up, you know know, a collection of different daffodils or whatever it may be, then that's the place to go to. And that episode was 199. It was a really super episode. But it actually landed, or went live, I think, towards the end of october last year and it was slightly late. I think their order book was was closed at the time and, yes, so it. Probably people didn't, maybe didn't get the advantage of that. But if you listen back to that it's a great episode and then get in contact as soon as possible I know they're quite busy and again, their order book could be getting near full but if you check back with those with that episode and then get in contact with Dave and Jules, you might be able to start your collection or get some bulbs for this autumn period.
Speaker 1:But this week's episode I'm going to chat about the bulbs generally, but I'm going to center it on a message that I got from a listener and, as I mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago, don't always know who's listening, don't always know where you're listening and don't know your name, don't know much about you, and I asked and requested that people get in touch and I've had so many messages from various people pretty much around the world. There's somebody from Australia messaged last week. They're a constant listener to the podcast, which I was surprised that. I know that some people listen there, but somebody who's been listening for a long time from Australia and the UK, a couple of listeners in the UK, in the US, and this week's question, I guess, came from a listener in Canada and not certain on the name because it's not signed off within the message. I think the name is Eden Borden and if I have that wrong, apologies for that, but it's a great question and it goes. I've been listening.
Speaker 1:I've recently got back into gardening following retirement. I get a lot of info from gardening podcasts, including yours. I prefer the uk ones and I'm not sure if you prefer the uk ones to my one, which is an irish one, or you prefer the uk ones or this ones from this side of the world to the ones that you would typically hear in in your part of the world, in canada. Um, but yeah, I know a lot, of a lot of listeners in the us and in canada and they do, like you know, the that uk style gardening podcast. So but mine is is definitely irish based and uh, yeah, I'm glad you're getting, you're getting good info and you're happy, happy with what you're hearing.
Speaker 1:But the question leads into then. I almost had total failure last year with forced bulbs and I had one bloom out of nine full pots of tulips. Any tips on forcing bulbs? And this comes from the area prince edward island in canada, prince Edward Island in Canada, zone 5B, now zone 5B just here. I know which zone Ireland is in. Typically it's 8A up to 10. But we don't sort of use that zone system huge amount here. But I understand the way it works and I understand that 5b would be a lot colder, colder than anything we would have here. So I'll try and make it relatable.
Speaker 1:But really, where you're growing it, I won't say it's irrelevant, it is totally relevant. But the in order to be successful with forced bulbs, there is a sort of set of principles or a set of ideas that need to be followed in order for it to be successful. And just to go back to your specific one, one bloom out of nine full pots, like that is not success anyway, as you've said, and it's a pity when something like that happens. Having said that, I haven't really. Now. Maybe things are different, you know, in in your zone and maybe that is something that works locally, but I haven't never really seen tulips being successful in terms of forcing. So I'm not saying it can't happen because, again, as I say, I don't know your area extremely well but I've never seen tulips as a successful forcing one.
Speaker 1:So so the idea of forcing and for anyone that's listening that doesn't understand what forcing is or doesn't know what forcing is, essentially what you're doing is all the bulbs that you've planted this time of the year, you plant them in the ground or you plant them in pots and obviously, once they go into the ground, rid the pots. They enter darkness because there's no light on them anymore from being planted. And that's one element of it. The next element of it is that they need a period of cold now in nature, whether that's in ireland or canada or uk or us or wherever you're listening, that will happen, naturally, and the reason I find forcing bulbs a little bit finicky is that in nature you plant your bulbs and you know the weather cycles are different year to year the periods of cold, the intensity of that cold, the increase in temperatures as you move through the winter can vary, and does vary almost every year, and month to month can be very, very different, and that means that the forcing of bulbs is you're trying to replicate that and you're trying to get timing right. Typically, people are trying to get, you know, these bulbs flowering for christmas and it can be very successful with some of them.
Speaker 1:But it's not an exact science and it can be a little bit, you know. It can be a little bit uh, tricky. You know, even the most experienced and I I've never done this, I don't don't do it I find things like that a little bit too finicky for for my, uh, for my liking. I'm, I'm a bit, uh, I have less patience, let's say so. I like to stick it in the ground and then wait for it to come, but I'm not watching it or you know anything like that. I just stick them in and I know they're going to come at some point in time.
Speaker 1:So when you're forcing you're you're looking for a specific outcome on a more or less at a specific time, and that can be where it gets tricky, and each individual type of bulb that can be successful with forcing can need different periods of cold. It can vary slightly, you know. It can even have hyacinths, for example. You might have a certain size of bulb, a really big one or a really small one, and again they could need sort of different lengths of of cold. And this is where it can get. It can get tricky. So if you're not, if you're not really hung up on when you need that flowering, or you know, if you're happy that it's going to flower at some point, then typically they will be successful. In terms of the tulips, as I say, I've never seen those to be very successful.
Speaker 1:So let's look at the principles of what you need to force bulbs. So bulbs in general, whether we're forcing or not, they do not like being sitting in water. So what you're looking for is you're looking for drainage all the time. So even if you're planting out into the open ground, we're not time. So even if you're planting out into the open ground, we're not talking about forcing. But if you're planting out into the open ground, make sure you're not planting bulbs into waterlogged soil. They will not survive. They'll rot over the winter and then you'll wonder why they haven't come up. So always into ground that is relatively free draining.
Speaker 1:If you're going into pots. Again, you're mixing potting grit with it because, again, they don't like sitting in water. So the more, the more drainage that you have in your growing media, the better. So, specifically in relation to into, in relation to forcing, we're looking to mix potting grit, you know, or some sort of coarse sand, through your, your growing media and make sure that that compost is really, or that growing media is really, free draining. That's point number one.
Speaker 1:Point number two is you plant them and then you try and replicate the, the cold that they would experience in a typical winter. Now what you're looking for and, as I say, it varies slightly depending on bulb size, it varies slightly depending on the type of bulb that we're talking about. So, a general rule of thumb and I understand you're in Canada, I talk in Celsius, so you'll have to do your little conversions but you're looking for a period of cold which is 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and you're looking for that anything from cold which is two to eight degrees Celsius, and you're looking for that anything from sort of eight weeks to 10 weeks, and that's kind of the time frames. So, in terms of winters, I do know that at zone 5B in Canada your temperatures are going to drop a lot, lot lower than that naturally outside. So that's not ideal naturally outside. So that's not ideal. So it can be replicated in, you know, your fridge if, if somebody doesn't mind pushing, pushing across the the, the cheese or the, the vegetables for the week and leaving this in here for a little bit of time, if someone doesn't mind that, and it will be consistent in that way. So sometimes you know forcing, if you get that consistency of temperature, then it's a lot easier to get your forcing right.
Speaker 1:It's when you get these variances that the forcing especially if you're looking for forcing with a specific outcome in terms of flowering date then that can get tricky. So at that point you need to get them somewhere cold. The temperature needs to be, as I said, two to eight degrees and for a period of about eight to ten weeks. At that stage. Then so you'll have potted them into your, into your little pots. Then that needs to be made cold into that period two to eight degrees for eight to ten weeks and then at that stage you take it out and you get warmed into it, which is replicating what you would typically start to feel and see in the springtime, and then you get your tips bursting up quite quickly and then your flower following on after that.
Speaker 1:And, as I said, tulips, to the best of my knowledge, are not usually successful for forcing. As I said, tulips, to the best of my knowledge, are not hugely successful for forcing. As I said, maybe you guys in different parts of the world are able to be very successful with it, but I haven't seen that here. The main ones are hyacinths, crocuses, snowdrops and muscari. There are others that you can try. Essentially, if you're able to replicate what they would experience in in nature, then in theory you should be able to to force most bulbs. But the most successful ones, the most consistently used ones, are hyacinths, crocuses, snowdrops and muscaries, and hyacinths particularly are probably the ones that's used most and they seem to give the most consistent results a lot of the time.
Speaker 1:The hyacinths that you can buy and you know if you see them in the gift pack where you get the, the hyacinth bulb and the little glass vase and they're what's called a prepared bulb. So in other words, when they land into the shop they've already gone through that period of cold exposure, so they've been put into a fridge and most likely in holland they've been put into a fridge and then they've been put into this package, they're ready to go, they've got their cold period and now all they need is the opportunity to grow. So you fill your little vase with water, you sit your hyacinth bulb up on top the. The roots get down into the water, so now it's getting its water, but the bulb, remember, is not sitting in the water, it's just the roots are able to drink from there, and then that pushes up the, the leaf growth initially, and then the flower growth and that's. You know, that's um forcing with a prepared bulb, and you don't need the same time time period for that.
Speaker 1:If you want to replicate that at home yourself, you can of course, just get the hyacinth bulb, for example, get the biggest ones that you can possibly get, put them into your fridge they don't need to be potted initially and then you can do that with your glass vase again. So that's one way of doing it. But the ones that are consistently good are hyacinth, crocus, snow dropping muscari. So let's say you are potting them on and you are going to replicate this period of cold yourself. You're not buying prepared bulbs. So what you do is you get your, your well-drained potting mixture, you pot your bulbs in, you give them a light water and then you put them through the period of cold. You take them out of the cold and then you bring them into that feeling of warmth which you'll typically get in your house. What can happen at this stage is that in your house you have the warmth which is replicated in spring, but you're not getting the light levels. So make sure you're putting them in a place where they are getting as much natural light as possible. If not, you can use, you know, grow lights. If, if that's you know, if you're very restricted on the, on the light, you'll have to use something like a grow light, because they will need light as they start to grow. Because, as I said, what you're trying to do is replicate nature. So you're doing that with the cold, initially in your fridge possibly, and then you're looking to increase the temperatures which you'll have in your house. But the light levels that you will typically start to find that in springtime, you need to replicate those as well, and that's how you will be successful.
Speaker 1:The big key is drainage and with with tulips, particularly if they have had, you know, a long period where they're sitting in in sort of waterlogged or really heavy damp growing media, then chances are that could be the reason why why your nine pots last year only produced one bloom. You know that's that's likely to be the case. Tulips are finicky anyway, as we know. We mentioned on previous episodes that you know tulips typically now are coming with diseases on them and you'll see a lot of them. They're not. They're only lasting one year and then they're kind of being discarded again.
Speaker 1:I personally don't think you know we should be planting massive amounts of tulips just for one year of colour. There's too much energy, too much hours, too much travel and going into it to produce a one-year flower. So what you should be looking for is, you know, things like the species tulips which will come back year on year. Try and buy ones that are going to, you know are going to naturalize, are going to spread, and then you won't be needing to replace or needing to do a complete new color scheme every year. I think that's really important. You know there is to do a complete new color scheme every year. I think that's really important. You know there is any amount of tulips. You know we've all seen the fairs and the big tulip festivals and they're fantastic to look at, but it is, you know, from a gardener's perspective.
Speaker 1:If you're, you know, planting mass amounts of tulips in your garden for a window of color next spring, it looks fantastic, no doubt. But just think of the, I suppose, the longevity of it or the sustainability of that. It's not very sustainable where they're being grown, predominantly in holland, going through a whole packaging process, a drying process, transport to your garden, then for a window of color, that's, you know, typically four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks max, you know. So you're not getting that real longevity in them and it seems a huge amount of of energy for a short window. So that's what that's. What you should be looking for is sort of species or ones that will have longevity Apple dorm ones they tend to come back and come back quite well and then lots of the species ones as well.
Speaker 1:So just to sort of, just to have a look at the rest of the spring flowering bulbs I hope that answered the question on the forcing. Try and replicate what would happen naturally in in nature, in zone 5b, as I say, your temperatures from what I believe can get right down again in celsius to minus 20 celsius, which we would never see. So in celsius terms, you're looking for something two to eight for a period of eight weeks, ten weeks thereabouts, and that should, that should help you get. You know, get be successful with them. This year. I would try hyacinths they're typically the ones that are most successful crocuses, snowdrops, muscari as well other good ones. Then on top of that, for the rest of us, you know, at this time of the year we're looking at planting alliums. They're fantastic, great big purple heads and white heads on them next spring. They will last a lot of the time, so you'll get more than one year out of them. And things like anemones really good, multiply, naturalize quite well.
Speaker 1:Snowdrops there's so many varieties of snowdrops, so many good ones out there. There's huge. They're all naturalizing, so they're all going to multiply. There's thousands upon thousands of them. There's snowdrop festivals every spring and we see every year that a snowdrop bulb sells for some phenomenal amount of money somewhere in the world and there is, you know, huge collectors of them.
Speaker 1:Now, personally, I just love them in lawns planted en masse, naturalizing. Not so interested personally in, you know, the collecting of them. Individual varieties are beautiful, but that's just not me personally. But it is a you know there's, there's a huge amount of varieties out there, a huge amount of really nice varieties out there. And narcissi, again, you know your, your daffodils, one of the main flowers of the spring, really good, planted en masse.
Speaker 1:But again, if you're looking for something a bit special, something with a different flower, the likes of escarole farms, just have a look at their brochure or catalog and you'll see unusual ones there and ones that are, you know, a bit special. Other ones then Fritillarias, muscaries, as I mentioned, crocuses, camassias, and all of those can be planted at this time of the year to give you that huge benefit next spring. And something that you know, it's something that, um, there's no doubt. At that time of the year there's a need for color and we can get it through some. You know different plants, you know the likes of heli, bores and so on, but there really isn't anything that gives the impact that bulbs give at that time of the year and there's definitely nothing that gives it for as little an effort. You just stick the bulbs in the ground, make sure they're not waterlogged and, hey presto, next spring.
Speaker 1:Here we go, all the flower, and with careful timings. You know a lot of them now. You can have flower from December, late December, right through to the end of April and into early May, and that's a phenomenal period and it gets you through that. You know, those dreary days of the early part of the year january, february, march, april can be a mass with with color from bulbs that you planted this time of the year. In very simple terms, as we mentioned last year, you know, putting them into into little containers and slipping those containers in and out of an outer pot. You know. So staging, so you might, might, start off with your, your crocuses and your snowdrops, then you're, you're moving into your, your narcissi, and then finally into your tulips, and you know everything else in between. And you can get, you know, two, you know, up to three months, three months of flower from just a variety of bulbs.
Speaker 1:We talked before about the lasagna planting which again can be done, means you're planting several layers of different bulbs, different flowering periods, within the same container and then that container can, you know, sit on your patio, at your front door, and continue to give color over a long period of time. So lasagna planting is a great way to do it. Staging, I find a little bit, a little bit nicer in that you'll pop in your, your daffodils, you'll give them their, their period, then you'll take out the pot, you'll pop in your tulips next and they're already ready to flower and it's just the kind of way of staging it and it gives you, you know, gives you that huge color and that changing color over the periods at the start of the year. So I hope that question you know, around the forcing, I hope I helped there.
Speaker 1:It's, uh, it is a tricky one, it's a finicky one, it's definitely something that's you know. You'll see people with you know the likes of narcissi, paper whites, particularly really good, nice scent off them. It's easy to force them. Hyacinths great color, look really good and and you can get them around the christmas time as well, which looks great, and there's loads of them that are really successful.
Speaker 1:As I said, it's not something that I've done a lot of.
Speaker 1:I've done it all actually because I'm not that patient of a person, but they are.
Speaker 1:You know. I can understand why people would would love to have those and force them for earlier flower and and it is. So I hope I answered the question for you anyway, and if you're not interested in forcing but you just want to make sure you have spring color, then get out now, get your bulbs and get them planted, because they'll reward you not just in the coming spring but for many, many springs to come, and they'll give you lots of cheer when you're I won't say least expecting it, because you will expect it, because you've planted them, but they'll give you cheer and colour at a time where there's very little else flowering. So I hope that helps and lots of interesting episodes, as I said, coming up, a couple of good guest interviews in the bag. They'll be coming out over the next couple of weeks, but that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and over the next couple of weeks. But that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.