November is the month for planting spring-flowering bulbs. This can be a daunting task if you have trees and shrubs crowding your beds with roots that prevent you from digging easily in the soil. You can still enjoy a season of spring bulbs, however, following the simple trick of layering them in containers. This allows you to double or quadruple the blooms in a given area.
Some things to consider are:
- Container size: The first consideration is choosing a container that is both wide enough and deep enough. For example, a 10-inch-deep container can only hold two layers of bulbs and a 14-inch-deep container will hold three layers of bulbs.
- Drainage: Remember that bulbs need very good drainage to survive and thrive. Make sure your container has holes in the bottom to let excess water drain, and elevate the container off of the ground with bricks or pot feet. A pot sitting directly on the ground does not drain properly and can stain concrete or wood decking.
- Coordinated or sequential blooming: Decide if you want all of the bulbs blooming at once for a spectacular show or if you prefer to extend your bloom season with a succession of blooms. The popular spring bulbs such as tulips and daffodils have early-, mid- and late-season bloom times. The so called “minor bulbs” like snowdrops, crocus, windflower, squill and grape hyacinths have less variation in bloom time.
- Color: The bulbs you choose should have colors that go well together if you are interested in a coordinated bloom. Even in sequential blooming you are likely to have some blooms that overlap.
- Light and moisture requirements: Because the bulbs will be planted together, it is critical to have bulbs with the same light and moisture requirements. Clearly when planting a shade lover with a sun lover one plant will suffer based on where the pot is located.
- Height: You will want your earliest bulbs to be the shortest in height since once the blooms fade the foliage will continue on gathering energy to feed the bulb for next season’s bloom. You want to make sure that the next sequence of blooms will rise above the persistent foliage of the earlier blooms and the fresh foliage will hide the earlier foliage as it begins to fade. Tulips and daffodils are available in a variety of different heights, while the minor bulbs tend to be more diminutive with little height variation.
- Planting depth: Follow the information provided with your bulb. If you have lost it, a rule of thumb is to dig a hole three times as deep as the bulb’s diameter.
When you have chosen your container, cover the drainage hole with a piece of landscape fabric and put a layer of potting mix into the bottom. The level should be approximately where the normal planting depth is for the largest bulb or about six inches below the top of the container for large daffodils.
Place the largest bulbs upright (pointed end up) on the potting mix. As you place your bulbs, think about their position relative to your plans for the next layer. You may wish to stagger placement to make it easier for your shoots to emerge.
You can place your bulbs fairly close together because the built-in nutrition in the bulbs along with good potting soil/compost and bulb starter will provide ample nourishment. Cover the first layer of bulbs with more mix.
Place smaller, earlier blooming bulbs on the new, higher surface and cover these, too. Add some small bulbs to the top of the container and finish with a layer of mix that is one inch below the rim of the container to allow room for watering.
You can plant violas or pansies in the top layer as well to provide winter color until the bulbs break dormancy.
Layering example:
- Top layer: Muscari, Crocus, Scilla, Chionodoxa, Puschkinia, Tritelia, Ixia or Freesia
- Middle layer: Tulips, Hyacinth or Galanthus
- Bottom layer: Daffodils, Allium, Fritillaria, Camassia, Lilies or Ipheon
You are not limited to containers and can follow the same process planting directly in the ground.
You can also try layering your bulbs with herbaceous perennials. For example, consider layering daffodil bulbs with daylilies. The daffodils emerge first with their slim foliage and sunny spring blooms. As the blooms fade, the foliage of the daylily comes through, disguising the fading daffodil and producing loads of colorful blooms late spring through fall. Daffodils and daylilies share common light and water requirements.
Need bulbs? You can choose from 50 varieties of daffodils at the MidSouth Daffodil Society’s annual Daffodil Bulb Sale and get advice from experts. The event will be 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Nov. 9 at Dixon Gallery and Gardens.
Layering suggestions
Minor bulbs that work well in layering include:
- Grecian windflower (Anemone blanda), 3-8 inches tall and available in white, blue or pink.
- Snakes-head lily (Fritillaria meleagris), 8-12 inches tall with distinctively checkered maroon blooms. There is also a white cultivar, “Alba.”
- Striped squill (Puschkinia scilloides var. libanotica), 4-6 inches in blue, bluish-white or pure white.
- Grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum), 5-6 inches tall with dark-blue flowers. Its close relative, fringe hyacinth (M. comosum ‘Plumosum’), has feathery plumes, and there are also white and paler blue cultivars of the more typical grape hyacinth.
- Crocuses, such as Scotch crocus (Crocus biflorus), snow crocus (Crocus chrysanthus), and others, around 4 inches high in yellow, white, blue and bicolors.
- Dogtooth violet (Erythronium dens-canis), 6-12 inches in white, pink or purple.
- Glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa luciliae), a very early bloomer with 4- inch lavender and white flowers. The species C. sardensis is vivid blue.
Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), 5-8 inches tall with winged white flowers. - Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica), 15 to 20-inch spikes of pink, blue or white bells.
- Turkestan onion (Allium karataviense), pale-rose flowers in 3-inch-wide clusters on 4- to 10-inch stems.
- Winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), stalks of three to four inches reaching through the snow to support yellow buttercup-like flowers, each wearing a collar of green, leaflike bracts. Most bloom even before the crocuses emerge.
- Spring starflower (Ipheion uniflorum), featuring grass-like foliage and solitary star-shaped flowers ranging from almost white to violet blue on 6-inch stems in early spring. Each bulb produces multiple flowering stems.
- Large Camis (Camassia leichtlinii), star-shaped flowers that are 2- to 3-inches wide in upright terminal racemes (20-80 flowers per raceme), opening sequentially from bottom to top on stout, naked flowering stems that rise above the foliage clump to a height of 2.5- to 4-feet tall in late spring. Flowers in this species may be white, cream, blue or purple, all with attractive yellow anthers.
November to-do list
Other outdoor garden activities for the month include:
- Plant: Evergreens, trees and perennials. Spring flowering bulbs after November 15. Start paperwhites in late November for Christmas flowering.
- Lawn care: Remove fallen leaves so they don’t smother grass. Shred fallen leaves for mulch or compost. Time for the first herbicide application to control wild garlic and wild onion, if you have them in your yard.
- Other: Remove spent annuals. If still blooming at first frost, leave flower seed heads for the birds. Mulch beds with shredded leaves, aged compost or pine needles. Stop fertilizing indoor plants until spring.
TOM RIEMAN of Bartlett is a Shelby County Extension Master Gardener and secretary of the Bartlett City Beautiful Commission. Keep Bartlett Beautiful is among the activities of this commission. Contact him at thrieman@aol.com.
