Divide and dig now for spring blooms
We’ve arrived at the perfect time to plant — and dig up — the plants growing in your garden.
Confusing? Not really. You plant spring flowering Holland bulbs and new perennials, shrubs and trees … and dig up the established perennials growing in your garden to divide and spread around your yard — or give away.
This stretch of October, heading into early November, is the best time of year to do both jobs. Plant: Tulips are crowd pleasers. The spectrum of colours, colour combinations, petal formations, single- and double-petal varieties make the decision a bit difficult. But when you get to the retailer, you will have no trouble making up your mind — you know the colours that you like.
If there is a colour combination you favour for your home, chances are there are tulips to match.
Be sure to plant all bulbs three times as deep as the bulb is thick.
Tulips are among the most winter hardy of all bulbs, so you can plant them anywhere that the sun shines for at least four hours a day and the soil is reasonably loose. Note that no bulb performs well in clay soil.
In our opinion, there is only one downside to tulips. They last up to three years but poop out after that. We encourage you to dig up tired tulips bulbs after the leaves turn yellow in late June or early July, remove the small “baby bulbs” that crowd the base of the bulb and replant at least three centimetres apart in good, compost-rich soil.
To overcome the rigorous replanting schedule of tulips, plant narcissus instead. Daffodils are members of the narcissus family and the predominant colour is yellow, with a wide variety of orange/orangey-red and white flowering bulbs to choose from. What narcissus lack in colour selection they make up for by flowering early in the season. They are squirrel- and rabbit-resistant and most of them bloom for five to seven years before they begin to decline. Consider your investment in narcissus on a “bloom per year” basis and you will agree that they are about the best value out there.
All spring flowering bulbs, including the ever-fragrant hyacinths, early blooming crocus, snow drops and blue bells or scilla are best planted now. If you go to your retailer in spring to buy bulbs, they will point you to the much more expensive bulbs growing in a pot, in full bud or bloom. And those are hardly the same thing. Planting bulbs now vs. planting pots full of bulbs in the spring is like comparing fresh, homegrown tomatoes with those they mass-grow in Texas mid-winter.
á Dig: The No. 1 secret of the resourceful gardener is digging and dividing. Take hosta for example — one of the most popular perennial plants in the Canadian garden.
After it has grown in your space for four or five years, the roots have developed a nice mass that will support a plant ready to be shared or planted elsewhere in your garden. A hosta will grow even when you dig the whole thing up, roots and all, and split it in half using a sharp spade or serrated dividing knife.
While the permanent plants in your garden are not yet entirely dormant, or “sleeping” in preparation for winter, they are kind of dopey. Digging them up now and replanting the divisions around your garden is like having your mouth frozen at the dentist while they fill a cavity. Your hosta will never know what happened.
You can dig and divide all kinds of perennials that have either a fleshy root — like peonies or day lilies — and those plants that spread by their roots. The following perennials lend themselves to digging and dividing this time of year: Bee balm ( monarda), shasta daisy ( leucanthemum), Black-eyed Susan ( rudbeckia, all varieties), mint, chives, oregano and all ground covers including lily of the valley, pachysandra and vinca periwinkle.
Over the next couple of weeks, planting Holland bulbs and dividing plants that you have established in your garden will go a long way to creating the spring garden of your dreams.
Mark and Ben Cullen are expert gardeners and contributors for the Star. Follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkCullen4