Planting Bulbs in Containers

Tulip ChinatownOur garden has plenty of color now with late perennials including Phlox and the low growing Lysimachia ‘Candela’ full of flower in the back garden, along with a beautiful white Buddleja which is being enjoyed by plenty of insects and of course butterflies. The front garden is a tawny mix of seed heads and grasses punctuated by the glowing yellow Evening Primroses and Achiilea ‘Lilac Beauty’. There is still plenty of color to come with berries and autumn leaf tints yet to show their hand before the winter form of evergreen shrubs and bare stems take over. We are enjoying the warm, sunny days but I am surprised at how cool the nights and mornings are – ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ seem to be coming early this year! Cool nights mean that there is plenty of early morning dew and this adds its own dimension to the garden, with grass flowers and seed heads shining like jewels in the soft sunlight.

That autumnal ‘nip in the air’ that means we can sleep more easily and are not so jaded through the day, but also turns my thoughts to autumn jobs in the garden. The allotment is still yielding plenty of produce and chutney making has begun so that I spend evenings playing ‘match the top to the jam jar’ as yet more jars are sterilised in the oven before filling! The tops have been bent over on my onion crop and I have ‘eased the bulbs’ by forking underneath them to break some of the roots and encourage them to dry off even more before I lift them. We try to store the white variety ‘Sturon’ but the red varieties do not seem to store as well, so Mrs McGregor makes onion marmalade that can be used like chutney or as a base to savoury flans and casseroles.

Autumn also means bulb planting time and this year I am going to plant more into pots to replace the summer bedding that has done so well this summer. I will shortly make a visit to our local Notcutt’s garden center to choose some dwarf Tulips and Daffodils, as well as buying more for the borders and Mrs McGregor’s cutting garden – both Tulips and Daffodils make very good flowers for arrangements.

In previous years, we have had trouble with mice eating Tulip bulbs in containers but I will persevere. It’s difficult to know how to control mice out of doors - traps are far too indiscriminate - but I will cover the pots with netting until the shoots appear to deter them.

I mix peat and loam based composts together when planting bulbs in containers and also add some coarse grit to ensure good drainage, along with plenty of ‘crocks’ at the base of the pot. It is difficult to plant bulbs to the correct depth in containers but I like to layer them so that the lower layer comes up through the top one and gives the pot a fuller look. Once they are planted, I keep the pots in a sheltered spot and check them for water regularly, moving them to their flowering positions when the shoots appear in spring.