Yesterday, we planted 250 flower bulbs in the garden. I use a technique called layering for continuous spring color. It’s fairly simple, but requires you to do a little bit of thinking about when each of the flowers bulbs is expected to bloom. You plant the ones requiring the deepest planting hole at the bottom and layer other bulbs over them, like making a layer cake or a lasagna. But the bulbs that you choose to plant in the same hole should bloom at different times. Early spring bulbs include snow drops (galanthus), crocus, Glory of the Snow, some types of hyacinth, early spring species tulips and several others. Think small, woodland, natural-looking flowers. The mid spring blooming flowers are usually daffodils and certain types of tulips. The late spring blooming flowers are almost always the large, showy tulips that most of us love. I’m also quite partial to Dutch iris, and planted 100 more yesterday (okay; I guess that means I’m a tad bit more than partial to them!). The Dutch iris bloom the latest, flowering here in my zone 7 southern Virginia garden in late May to June.
The way that I planted the bulbs yesterday should mean that we’ll see crocus and snow drops first, followed by the Easter Joy Darwin hybrid tulip mixture. Lastly, as the tulip flowers fade and the green stems and leaves are left, the Dutch iris should take over and complete the show. By the time the spring flowering bulbs are done their work, it should be time for me to plant annuals. In the area of the garden where I planted the bulbs, I hope to add more sunflowers next year of varying heights, and more zinnias.
