My tulip bonanza!
Derrick Turbitt
Grows a huge variety of spring bulbs in his Northern Ireland garden.
On cold days I keep warm by doing a bit of winter digging. Last year’s leaves were stored in plastic fertiliser bags and are fairly well rotted down. I spread them on the vacant plots (where the dahlias and sweet peas grew) and dig them in to enrich the organic content for next year.
I lifted the dahlia tubers last week. I like to leave them until late November as long as they’re still growing. The tubers show a large variation in size as the larger ones were grown from divided tubers and the smaller ones were grown from pot tubers. They’re all stored in the frost-proof garage until early spring next year when they’ll be started into growth again.
My lilies have been in the same large pots for two years. I emptied the containers and replanted them in fresh compost. They’ve multiplied well and made large bulbs, as well as smaller bulbs that I’ll grow on.
I got 100 tulip bulbs in 10 varieties from Holland. They've been planted in large pots and stored outside at the bottom of the garden. They’ll be moved to a more favourable spot next May when they’re about to flower. My seven apple seedlings grown from pips sown last autumn have now lost their leaves. I’ll transplant them in groups of two or three into larger pots with a view to growing them as bonsai.
I've several autumn crocuses that appeared and flowered in the garden. I lifted them and planted the corms in a 10cm (4in) pot using a gritty compost. Cyclamen coum growing outside in pots are now in leaf and showing the first sign of flower buds.
The polyanthus and primroses, moved into the tunnel a few weeks ago, are producing some welcome out-of-season flowers.
A friend gave me a rooted cutting of Persicaria runcinata ‘Purple Fantasy’ late last summer. This plant, grown for its foliage, has triangular leaves, which are bright green with brown-purple markings. It looks like it will be deciduous here but should leaf up again next spring. Inside, Christmas cacti are just coming into flower and geraniums and fuchsias are managing a few blooms.