Tuesday 27 November 2012

Time to plant some bulbs

Hours spent gardening: 6
Bulbs planted: another 264
Plants purchased: 0
Sycamore leaves collected: 6243
Worms accidentally guillotined: 200 or so

I've been anguished over bulbs after having seen the tulips by Bloms Bulbs at Chelsea this year and vowing I would have them for myself.  It was only after 6 months of drooling over their catalogue that I noticed the price tag of £7.50 for a pack of ten tulips.  This stopped me right in my tracks.  The upwardly mobile side of me (some might say shallow) was attracted by the statement on the website that said that Blom's are suppliers to Europe's finest stately homes.  At last, a touch of class for Clapton, I said.  Unfortunately, after endless nights agonising over Tulipa Jan Reus and wondering how I could justify it all in a recession, I allowed myself to purchase just thirty bulbs.

There is something about bulb planting time.  The nights draw in and this is our last chance to be outdoors.  Planting bulbs feels like a final fling of connection between the cycle of life and decay; handling bare earth lays down the foundations of the new shoots of next year.  Bulbs signify the signs of life at winter's end: the gold of the first crocus that promises the passing of harder times and the first sign of thaw.  Here, autumn's damp has long since sent the reggae blasters indoors.  In November, I am the only one still outside, the sharpness of the cold on my hands, the song of the robin in the tree, a thin golden sunset framed by the trees.

These primaeval instincts to plant, sow and divide were not going to be satisfied by thirty bulbs.  I then went on a kind of bulb binge, buying job lots of cheap ones from DIY stores.  Colour scheme went out of the window.  I chose the tulips from Bloms after hours of deliberation, settling for succession planting of pink, soft white and the darkest red verging on black.  At B&Q, I loaded the trolley with bargain bags of more tulips, fritillaria and an iris mixed that included yellow (normally banned around here, daffodils and crocus being the exception).  Everything was stuffed into the ground in a frenzy.  The other thing about the act of planting was forgetting where all the other bulbs were from last year and splicing through them with the bulb planter.  In this way, you can ensure I always have gaps to fill and thus feel justified in buying more plants.  I also managed to decapitate a couple of hundred worms.  I think I mentioned not being a very good organic gardener before.

The final mix is a combination of Bloms, JP Parkers, Spaldings (free for joining their blogger club and sticking the logo on here), Homebase and B&Q.  It's a kind of sliding scale of the social ladder of bulbs..  I'm waiting to see if the Bloms ones really perform better in the spring or whether we can all rest easily knowing that spending £9.99 on a pack of 100 will do the job just as well.


Chelsea Flower Show, 2012


18 comments:

  1. I will wait and learn from you!!! Have had the same blom catalogue but not actually ordered any bulbs and no time to plant them now, so I'l learn for next year!!!

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    1. Hi Fifi, I was just about to reply that it's not too late to plant them but we are suddenly into a very cold snap here so perhaps the moment has gone.

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  2. I'm sure your garden will be gorgeous in spring when all the tulips and other bulbs aren blooming.

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    1. Thanks Sadun, hoping they all come out. Some of the JP Parker bulbs didn't come out last year which is why I've gone for a few different brands.

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  3. Claire - try gee tee bulbs - VERY good value xx

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    1. I had a look at those and am definitely tempted for next year. I have fo say they have seriously photoshopped their website to give pics of flowers in psychedlic colours! I got the Sarah Raven catalogue this week which is similarly dazzling to the eye.

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  4. Ah yes, bulb frenzy, know it well. There is something about the short, dark, damp days that gets me throwing the colour schemes and careful planning out of the window and chucking bulbs in the ground as if my life depended on it! Will be interested to see if posh tulips are "better" than B&Q bargain basement ones...

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  5. Hi Janet, yes I did plan to review the performance of each brand but you reminded me I had completely forgotten fo make a note of where I'd planted each variety. Think I've got it on paper now but there are still a few mystery pots where I'll just have to see what sprouts (or not).

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  6. I love the idea of a social ladder of bulbs! Very funny. Bulb snobbery.

    When I read that you had spent 75p on one bulb, I thought you were on the verge of joining the ranks of those who spend hundreds on one... then came B+Q. Phew.

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  7. Do people spend hundreds of pounds on one bulb? Don't answer that question because I will probably go out and order the catalogue. I will probably curse myself for the B and Q bulbs because every plant I have bought from there has come with a complimentary disease. In fact some of the allium bulbs were mouldy. Let's see if you get what you pay for!

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  8. Hi Claire, from my experience there is no point in spending money on ordinary bulbs that will only flower one year, they can perform just as well from a cheap company as from an expensive. But if you for example buy lily bulbs and want them to perform well the first year, you have to spend a bit of money on them too – or be buy cheap, be patient and wait a few seasons for the full flush of flowers.

    I can also recommend Gee Tee, if you visit their Photo Gallery you will find 10 of my photos there :-)

    Oh, and I wouldn’t worry too much about the worms, they are really good at taking care of themselves! If you accidentally cut off a part of a worm it will most likely regenerate its tail pretty quickly. If you cut a worm in two equal pieces it might still survive, regenerating a tail from one part whilst the other part will die. You don’t get two worms from a chopped worm, despite what the myth says, but most worms survive an accidental chop from our spades – thank goodness for that!
    Take care, stay warm – it’s going to get cold this night too!

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  9. Hi Helen, you have a good point about spending on things that only come up once. Last year some of the JP Parker tulips either didn t come out or were disappointing. I got rather transfixed by the Bloms display and another lady in the crowd said that she had bought from them the year before and they had come out just like on the display. Perhaps she was planted in the crowd!

    Thanks for the tip about the lilies, I have some from JP Parker and they did really well in the first year, can t remember how much they were though.

    Am on a French keyboard today and cannot find the apostrophe key by the way, hence a slight lack of syntax!

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  10. Those are beautiful bulbs but like you I tend to not spend too much as the deer and voles consume so many...so this year I spent on these they do not like instead...I too forget where others are planted and I frequently dig them up too...

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  11. What bulbs do voles not like then? Our squirrels are not very discerning and go for everything, although a newly sprouted crocus can drive them particularly wild.

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  12. Each fall I say (to myself) that I'll get organized on the bulb issue and do something UNUSUAL. Then I end up with the last bags (or does one say sacks when one is addressing you) of whatever at the hardware store. In truth, I wouldn't recognize anything unusual if I tripped over it and am perfectly happy with whatever comes up as long as the flowers are some shade of red or pink or purple or (if very small) blue. My friends are even less knowledgeable than I, and are mowed over that I grow anything at all, so it all works out fine in the end (and if it isn't fine, it isn't the end).

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  13. Now you've got me thinking: what unusual bulbs are out there for planting? As far as I'm concerned, a spring without tulips IS the end, although I'm a grown up and could well get over it.

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  14. I also rate Geetee Bulbs and have bought from them before (lilies and rhizomes etc). Timing is quite critical since you need to hold off buying for long enough so that the prices drop towards the end but get in there before all the stock has run out. You've also then got to plant the lot that you've bought. I always start off new borders and cleared areas with an under-layer of bulbs, then the plants go on top. It's a really good way of cramming everything in and bulbs can be very economical (25p per Allium!)

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  15. Another vote for Geetee bulbs! Perhaps in spring we can all have a look at the Geetee bulbs and do a comparison. We could have Geetee bulbs day, a bit like the Wordless Wednesday phenomenon and ask them to sponsor us. I like the idea of starting a bed with bulbs, why are these things not in all those gardening magazines I buy??? Seriously, there is a lot to learn from garden bloggers.

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