Real gardening, where you actually grow something rather than buying and planting it, is all about deferred gratification. It’s about believing in future possibilities rather than simply focussing on the here and now.
It can be a metaphor for life, demonstrating that patience is indeed a virtue and that good things come to those who wait. With some plants, the reward can take years to become apparent, decades even, but usually we only need wait a matter of months to enjoy the results of our endeavours.
When tasked with writing about garden produce and various displays throughout the year, whether it’s tasty fruit and vegetables or beguiling flowers and foliage, the different times for planting and savouring presents a minor dilemma.
Do you give a particular topic coverage when it’s in the planning stage or when it comes to fruition? Can the advice be acted on immediately or does the reader need to make a mental note and carry out the recommendations several months down the line.?
Spring flowering bulbs are a case in point. If chosen as a topic for this column next March or April it will instil two contrasting emotions in two distinct camps.
On one side there’ll be smugness from those who planned ahead and planted a load of bulbs the previous autumn, knowing what a great sense of satisfaction it would bring on the other side of winter.
Then there’ll be those with a sense of regret, the ones who missed the boat and lost out on great display of crocuses, daffodils and tulips.
If you want to be in the former cohort – the one that celebrates deferred gratification – you need to act now. However, it’s worth caveating this advice by pointing out that some spring-flowering bulbs, such as snowdrops and bluebells, are best planted soon after they’ve flowered.
This is known as planting ‘in the green’ and leads to a greater success rate with the immediately aforementioned bulbs, which would have their green stalks still attached.
For crocuses, daffodils and tulips, along with hyacinths and alliums, the coming weeks is the time to plant, before the ground gets too cold. In recent years, because it’s been relatively mild, it’s been possible to extend the bulb-planting season into November but to be on the safe side it’s best to act soon.
Bulbs are a straightforward yet effective way of bringing colour to your garden, whether it’s in containers, beds and borders, or even on a lawn. Generally they require no maintenance once established and may even augment their numbers of their own accord over the years.
A compact, self-contained plant package that contains all the genetic information that will bring it to life at just the right time every year, the generic ‘bulb’ family includes corms, rhizomes, tubers and true bulbs. Their common characteristic is winter dormancy and spring flowers.
Select only firm, healthy bulbs that are of a good size, avoiding anything squishy or with visible signs of disease, decay or mould.
Avoid symmetrical patterns as a no-show by one bulb could ruin the entire display. Instead go for naturalised planting, gently tossing a couple of handfuls of bulbs into the air and planting them where they fall. Bulbs should be planted in free-draining soil with a fistful of bone or fish meal at around two-and-a-half times their own depth.
