Bulbs give you best bang for your buck
When it comes to early spring colour in your garden, gardeners can get the best bang for your buck by planting bulbs.
“Planting bulbs stretches the gardening season,” says John Duncan, greenhouse manager at Greengate Garden Centres in Calgary.
“Because they flower so early in the spring, you can have colour in your yard months before you can start to plant everything else. It makes winter a little shorter.”
Planting bulbs in oddnumbered groupings will typically provide the best results, with a minimum of five bulbs per planting, and always odd numbers; for example, five, seven or nine bulbs, planted in a group.
“Odd numbers are more attractive,” Duncan explains.
Plant bulbs to the appropriate depth — usually four times the height of the bulb. For example, plant a one-inch bulb four inches down.
Mix a bit of bone meal and/ or bulb fertilizer together with the soil at the bottom of the hole you have dug for each bulb. Then mix a bit of compost with the soil you just pulled out of the hole — “one of the best that I recommend is Sea Soil,” Duncan says — and plant the bulb pointy side up.
Backfill half of the hole with soil and water it in well. Backfill the rest of the soil into fill up the hole, and water again.
To deter squirrels, which like to dig in freshly planted soil and will eat or remove bulbs, Duncan recommends putting down pieces of fine mesh chicken wire. Cut the wire so it will cover the holes you’ve dug, and sprinkle blood meal on top. As the ground freezes, remove the chicken wire. Removing it is important. Otherwise, the plants will end up growing through the wire come spring.
Mark where your bulbs are. Even something as simple as putting a Popsicle stick in the ground with a label will help you remember where you planted your bulbs.
Bulbs should be planted by late September or early October. Some bulbs, such as daffodils or hyacinths, should be planted a bit earlier because they need more time to root in. In addition to the splash of colour, bulbs will provide a food source for beneficial predator insects. Bulbs are “something for them to eat early in the spring,” says Dun- can. “They stay and lay eggs, and they and their larvae eat pest insects.”
Good soil is essential to getting a long-term run out of your bulbs.
“Everyone needs to improve their soil,” says Donna Balzer, a Calgary-based consulting horticulturist and author of No Guff Vegetable Gardening. “Try to improve the soil as you plant by adding extra organic matter.”
Soil quality is often a problem in Calgary, in both new gardens as well as old gardens, since there is so much clay in the soil. Over time, the garden will burn off organic matter which you will need to replenish.
Compost and fine bark mulch are a couple of examples of organic matter that can help improve soil.
As for what to plant, “the easiest bulb of any kind to be successful with over the long term is the Asiatic lily.”