Tips For Planting Flower Bulbs
By Sandra Dinkins-Wilson, Tue Jan 10th

Flower bulbs can produce some amazing flowers throughout thewhole year for little care and effort once planted. This yearlydisplay can start with the earliest flowering bulbs in thespring such as snowdrops and crocus and proceed into winter withbulbs forced indoors to bloom. These you can see available instores around Christmas time.

For this article we will discuss flower bulbs as being most ofthe group of flowers that grow from enlarged underground massesthat store food over the winter for the plant. In anotherarticle we will address the actual differences among all such"bulbs".

Flower bulbs, if planted in a bed, need a soil that has gooddrainage. A sandy loam soil is ideal but bulbs will do well injust about anything short of cold clay soil, soggy spots andvery rocky ground. Even amongst the rocks you can find pocketsto plant some of the smaller flower bulbs. Adding plenty oforganic matter always helps your soil as we have mentioned inother articles.

Some expert gardeners suggest a flowerbed where the bulbs willbe planted should be prepared to a depth of two feet. Thisallows you to plant even the largest of bulbs to a good depth.But if the location is a low spot to which all other areasdrain, and it holds water, this will not be a good spot to plantyour bulbs regardless of how well you prepare the soil. Flowerbulbs will readily rot where the soil holds

water and is soggy.

Whatever spot you pick be sure it allows your flower bulbs to bein full sun. As most spring-flowering bulbs come up before thetrees have their leaves, it may not be as great a concern forthem. It is certainly a consideration when plantingsummer-flowering bulbs. Keep this in mind when planting nearevergreens and man-made structures.

Some flower gardeners prefer to use bulbs to "naturalize" anarea. To do this, you simply dig a hole big enough and deepenough for the bulb you are planting. You can also dig a holebig enough to hold four or five bulbs at a time. Put a littlebulb fertilizer in the hole, place your bulbs in, replace thesoil removed and cap with the sod you removed in making the hole.

And lastly the rule of thumb for planting flower bulbs is threetimes as deep as the bulb is big. You may wish to considerplanting some bulbs even deeper. Barbara Damrosch of ThemeGardens fame prefers to plant her bulbs, especially tulips anddaffodils, deeper at ten inches. She prefers this to keep themfrom sprouting in the fall, being worked out of the ground bythe freezing and thawing of it, and also to help protect thebulbs from being eaten by animals.

© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson

About the author:Find more Gardening Tips at our informative website,http://flowergardenlovers.com/ for Flower Garden Lovers. Readabout rose, shade, butterfly, water, and wildflower gardens andgarden rooms.