Kitchen Garden Forum

When is the best time to plant spring bulbs? I always end up shoving the daffs and tulips in sometime in January or February. They come up OK, but I wonder if they really need to be up in earlier?

And are there any other bulbs to recommend? In particular I would like to have some colour in a shady spot with clay soil.

I think anytime from now on is recommended.

Dear Marge, you can plant any daffs from now, tulips you should really wait until the end of october.
Theres quite a big selection that you could plant in the shade, bluebells, snowdrops, aconites and some of the fritillarias, there are lot of others to.
When you plant them, make sure they are deep enough, as rule of thumb, plant them three times the depth of the bulb.
With the bulbs in the clay you can put some sharp sand or grit in the planting hole first and this will stop the bottom of the bulb from rotting.
Hope this helps.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

fanks for the info </off to look at bulb catalogue>

Hi Marge. It really is important that you plant your bulbs well down, this helps in the future when you may be hoing the beds. I have just been relocating Blubell bulbs for a lady as she said she had too many, some were at least more than a spade depth down, I felt I was mining for them at times.
Arthur