Easy way to bring light and colour
IF you plant spring-flowering bulbs you will always get out more than you put in.
The rewards are truly amazing – mood-enhancing colour and fragrance at a time of year when the world is cold, damp and looking very grey.
Bulbs are the easiest plants to grow. You simply dig a hole that is twice the depth of the bulb, pop it in and wait patiently for it to spring its surprise and colour the garden.
The first bulbs to show their faces are exquisite snowdrops in early February, followed by crocus and miniature narcissus.
These can be naturalised, along with fritillaries, in a small wildflower area or a sunny corner of the lawn to create uplifting displays that are guaranteed to beat the winter blues. Daffodils and tulips are excellent companions for spring bedding plants such as wallflowers, bellis daisies and polyanthus. Crocus especially can be used to put deciduous shrubs such as forsythia in the spotlight.
Simply surround the shrub with a pool of sunny yellow Mammoth or create a moonlit glow with Jeanne d’Arc or Snow Bunting, which have white petals.
Bunting
Carefully select the bulbs to match the blooming dates of the shrub and for maximum impact scatter them liberally so that they appear unplanned.
Grape hyacinth or scilla and crocus, winter aconites, snowdrops, bluebells and early maturing daffodils are useful for planting in established gardens as they all tolerate the dry, shady conditions found beneath trees and shrubs and will grow to look like a carpet. These miniature bulbs are perfect for planting through low- growing ground covers such as ajuga, violets, Vinca minor and English ivy. Just keep in mind the height relationship between the ground cover and bulb flower so they do not get swamped. As a rule, the ground cover should be no more than half the height of the bulb flower. In herbaceous borders mix informal drifts of bulbs with perennials or snake them through the border to give ribbons of colour. Summerflowering perennials will camouflage the dying foliage of spring blooms.