POTTY ABOUT BULBS

There’s nothing Monty Don loves more than filling a pot with bulbs for next spring. Here he explains how it’s done...

One of my favourite autumnal jobs is planting spring bulbs in pots. Give me a rainy day, a potting shed piled with empty pots, a supply of peat-free compost and grit, a box of newly delivered assorted bulbs and a mug of tea and I will be happy for the rest of the day.

Let’s start with the pots. I strongly suggest treating yourself to a few nice containers every year to set off the very nice bulbs. They do not have to be big – in fact, I would suggest that smaller pots look much better, especially with smaller bulbs such as irises, chionodoxas, miniature daffodils, crocuses, scillas, fritillaries and muscari. Wherever possible I like to use bulb pans, which are much shallower than normal flower pots and mean you can have a wider surface area with masses of colour.

With the exception of snowdrops, snake’s head fritillaries and camassias, the vast majority of spring bulbs do best in well-drained soil, so I recommend mixing equal quantities of horticultural grit and potting compost. It will seem very gritty, but that is as it should be. Use a piece of crock to cover the main drainage hole so compost does not fall out – choose a curved piece so it will still allow water to drain without blocking the hole.

Put in a layer of the gritty mixture – the depth will vary according to the size of the bulbs, but even with a large tulip or daffodil bulb you do not need more than an inch of compost over the top of it – and cram in as many as you want, as long as they do not touch. I start by making a ring of bulbs around the outside of the container, then fill inwards to end up with a single bulb in the centre. Cover the bulbs with more compost and then sprinkle a layer of grit over the top of that right to the top of the pot. This serves to both set the flowering bulbs off well and to protect the fragile petals from being splashed by water bounding up from the compost and staining them. Water them and then store your potted bulbs in a sunny, dry but cool place. Outside is fine – a hard frost or layer of snow will do them no harm, but don’t let them get too wet.

When you start to see buds appear next spring you can bring some indoors or into a greenhouse to hasten their flowering, and your display can begin.

You can also plant bulbs in a larger pot in layers as a bulb ‘lasagne’. Choose three or four sets of bulbs – at least a dozen of each – that will flower consecutively although overlap. So you might have, in order of flowering, crocuses, daffodils and tulips all in the same pot. The ones that flower last – in this case the tulips – go in first to create the bottom layer at least two-thirds of the way down the pot. Cover these with an inch or two of the gritty compost mix and put in the next layer – daffodils – on this. Do not worry about covering or blocking the layer below – the stems will find their way to the surface between any obstacles above them. Cover this second layer over and put the final set of bulbs – the crocuses – on top and cover them, capping the whole thing with grit. If you have a large enough pot you can add a dressing of winter-flowering pansies or wallflowers above the bulbs to add to the display, and you have a border in a pot. n

Monty midway through planting his iris bulbs