Planting autumn colour
Better late than never – and just think of future years!
IN an ideal world a garden contains something to catch the eye all year round, but sometimes things start to drop off when summer comes to an end. An easy way of creating seamless colour is to plant autumnflowering bulbs – and this is your last chance to do so this year.
There are bulbs for every situation and soil. Autumn crocuses and Sternbergia, plus cheerful yellow winter aconites look stunning naturalised in lawns and under trees. Borders can easily be brightened by brilliant dahlias, tall nerines with their clusters of trumpetshaped blooms in shades of pink, and hardy Cyclamen coum that take over flowering duties in the New Year.
My favourite autumn flowering bulb is the elegant Gladiolus murielae, with its white flowers with blotched maroon centres. It grows well in pots as well as borders, though the corms do best if lifted after flowering and stored somewhere frost-free and dry through winter.
Bulbs do best in freedraining soil, so if you have heavy clay dig in plenty of well-rotted manure or compost to increase drainage and nutrients. Bulbs in containers for more that one season should be planted in John Innes
No3 mixed with multi-purpose compost. Be prepared to lift and divide the bulbs
after a few years.
Plant bulbs at two-three times their own depth and a bulb’s width apart. The exception is nerines (see below), which should be planted with their tops just protruding from the soil. We are pretty late in the season for planting now, so if you don’t get the results you
were hoping for this year don’t despair. The bulbs will mature in the ground and put on a stunning show next year.