Here come the bulbs
Finally some colour in the garden
January and February are long old months, aren’t they? But here we are, edging into March, and finally some proper colour is appearing. I’ve gone all out with pots on the steps - some I planted last autumn, some I’ve bought ‘in the green’ this year. I’m a sucker for a pot of bulbs and there seems to be loads more about this year; in particular I’ve gone a bit mad for the pre-planted fritillarias Waitrose are selling just now.
Anyway, the result is a bit of a mishmash, so I’ve been mulling over how I could refine my efforts next year. Here are some of my initial observations:
The pansies and violas I planted as pot toppers last autumn got a bit tatty after a while. On the other hand the moss-topped pots still look good. So maybe a better plan would be to top with moss to begin with, and then replace the moss with hardy bedding plants as the bulb shoots start to appear.
Muscari ‘Azureum‘ are brilliant. Great colour - super saturated in the thin light of late winter. Unlike other muscaris the leaves are quite short and insignificant so they don’t hide the flowers, and they seem to be lasting well in the shallow bowl I planted them in.
In contrast, the dwarf irises are going over quite quickly. I thought these would be the stand out stars but they haven’t excited me as much as the muscari. Of the varieties I tried, I think the pale ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ was my favourite.
Another longer lasting bulb is Scilla siberica, which I definitely want more of next year. Super super blue - I bought the ones I have in the green for making kokedamas, and I’m going to plant them out in the grass when they’ve finished flowering in the hope they’ll start to naturalise. A carpet of them would be amazing.
I think I need to consider hyacinths next year. I have just a couple of pots this year - latecomers to the party - which I’ve been pleasantly surprised with. Although they’re a bit blousy and showy close-up, you can’t really beat them for solid colour from a distance. I think next year I’ll lasagne my pots more and have hyacinths in all colours as the early layer. I bought a bunch of different coloured pastel ones recently and the combination was totally divine. Big pots of them dotted around might be just the thing when I’m craving colour this time next year.