The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Time to plant spring bulbs, and they are as tough as nails
NO spring is complete without beautiful drifts of early bulbs carpeting the grass in shady spots or in corners of the lawn. The nodding heads of snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis, paint the ground a splendid white, while the yellow cupshaped flowers of winter aconites, Eranthis hyemalis, are like a sea of early buttercups. Then English bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, add blue to the palate.
And make no mistake: these little beauties are as tough as nails. When necessary, snowdrops force their way though the snow and, like their mates, take Dudley, Eunice and Franklin in their stride.
If you plan to start a display or divide some well-established plantings, when do you do it? We plant most bulbs in autumn, when the soil is still warm and moist. This lets bulbs establish a root system before winter. While this works well with larger bulbs such as daffodils or tulips, it may not be as successful with small-bulbed species. So an alternative with bulbs and tubers of the likes of snowdrops, winter aconites and bluebells is to ‘plant in the green’.
These tiny bulbs easily dry out completely, often with fatal consequences. So by planting in spring when the bulbs are still moist and foliage hasn’t died back, you prevent this desiccation.
Planting in spring rather than autumn seems a great idea and has been adopted by many gardeners.
But in a recent trial by Which? Gardening, the results didn’t show any significant difference between the two methods. On closer examination however, the researchers noted huge variations between different suppliers. They found that with one group of suppliers of bulbs ‘in the green’ 76% of bulbs emerged successfully, while another recored a pathetic 12%.
Freshness was the key difference here. Because these bulbs dry out so quickly, they not only need to be lifted before foliage dies back completely, but customers must get their consignments immediately
afterwards. When buying at a garden centre, check these bulbs are displayed to keep them in good condition and aren’t just spread out on open shelves with withering leaves. If choosing mail order, make sure that they’re despatched at the beginning of the week, so they won’t spend the weekend in a sorting office.
You want to see the flowers easily, so when planting, choose a spot where the lawn is fairly closely mown. Stems would be leggy and spindly in longer grass. And, especially for aconites which are harder to get established, make sure the soil will always be moist but not soggy.
If possible prepare the ground or planting hole before receiving the order so the bulbs are planted promptly, preferably within 3 days. As a rule of thumb, plant 60-70 snowdrops per square metre, 60-75 aconites and 40-50 bluebells.
It’s essential that you plant English, not Spanish bluebells as the latter spread prodigiously and outcompete or cross with local specimens, threatening their purity. In the Which? trial, researchers
found bulbs from one supplier were English/Spanish crosses so greatly outperformed everything else. This batch had to be excluded from the final tally.
‘In the green’ is a confusing description for the bluebell bulbs as the foliage will be yellowing, not actually green. But don’t be tempted to remove any foliage at this stage. As they die, the leaves nourish a developing bulb, so premature cutting weakens the bulb. This also means you shouldn’t cut the grass till all the leaves have died back.
Plant at the previous depth of the bulbs. You’ll quickly see that the parts of stems beneath the surface are white, while those above are green turning yellow. So the original soil surface is easily identified.