Can you suggest bulbs for a beginner?

I was lurking around the bulb forum and suddenly became overwhelmed. There was lots of chatter about big fall sales and buying thousands of bulbs ... things I never heard of. So I thought, someone in my neck of the woods could give me some suggestions on which bulbs work best in our area and would be easy enough for this first-time gardner.

Welcome, Michael!

Start with something you love... daffodils? globe allium (those big purple balls)? tulips? (tulips may only do well for a few years before petering out, but they're still lovely)

Bulbs are easy because almost no matter what you do, they will give you a good show next spring. With a little care in choosing where to plant them etc., they will return and multiply to be better yet as the years go by.

Find a spot that has good drainage, gets sun (at least in spring, so under deciduous trees is fine), and stays fairly dry (not a low spot or a bed that you water a lot).

If you're planting larger bulbs like daffodils, put in some smaller bulbs like crocus or muscari (grape hyacinths) while you're at it. The rule of thumb is to plant bulbs at a depth equal to 2 or 3 times their diameter... so the big bulb goes into the hole, you fill in some dirt, then you put a few little bulbs over and around the big bulb and finish filling in the hole.

An easy planting plan? Use a garden hose to outline a curving, blobular shape that you like (either in a dormant part of a garden bed or make a new little planting area in the yard under a shade tree). Plant daffodil bulbs, spaced an average of 6 inches apart... randomness is good, don't line them up like little soldiers. You'll want to dig the holes 5 or 6 inches deep for 2 to 3 inch daffodil bulbs, and a sprinkle of bulb food in the planting hole is a good idea. Add crocus bulbs (C. tommasineanus or the little snow crocus do really well for me) as you fill in the daffodil holes for some early spring blooms. A curving border of blue grape hyacinths (Muscari) will set the daffs off beautifully.

Does that give you a starting point, or did I just muddy the waters further? ;-)

Perfect bulb planting 101 ... thanks critter, for taking the time to explain. I'll have many more questions. Like this:

When is the best time to plant bulbs? Am I too late this year?

critter- I think you need to put 'blobular ' in the dave's gardenology . Really. I love it.

I like my daffs in a wooded setting. If you have tree areas with just mulch, leaves, whatever not much under, I stab a trowel in there, wedge a hole, and stuff a daff. Didn't someboy have a thread recently about good daff varieties?

Grape hyacinth are foolproof although pretty small in bloom. Crocus are great, early. small. but a large flower in relation to the foliage.

I think you can still plant bulbs.

This message was edited Nov 6, 2007 10:02 AM

If your just starting and don't want to spend a lot of money. They sell some fairly inexpensive starter kits that come with a nice mix of several different bulbs.

Now is a great time to plant! After the first frost is good (you don't want the weather to still be so warm that the bulbs sprout up and then get killed back), and any time that the ground is not too frozen to dig is fine. Early February is even fine. People have been known to pry up a frozen layer of dirt, loosen soil underneath to plant bulbs, and place the frozen "lid" of soil back on top. :-) Many spring blooming bulbs need at least a few weeks of cold temps to form blooms inside the bulbs, so March is too late.

I think the biggest mistake people make is planting too few bulbs, or scattering them too far apart. Plant in clumps, sweeps of color... you want masses of blooms (especially with little flowers like grape hyacinths) so they'll have an impact. Buy muscari and crocus in lots of 100, not 20 at a time. Sam's has some nice boxes of bulbs this time of year, including a combo of blue grape hyacinths and little yellow Tete a Tete daffs that makes a lovely border...

So that's why people were talking about ordering 1,000 bulbs in the bulb forum ... their garden must be beautiful.

Sam's, as in Sam's Club, or Costco? Or is it better to order from an online bulb company?

I have neighbors who have the best garden in the neighborhood if not the whole town, and he works at Waterloo gardens. I almost fell over when one of them told me he buys his bulbs at walmart! I've bought the occasional bag of daffodils there, but you can get a better deal through the co-ops and clssifieds here at dave's.
Usually the box stores won't have much in the way of named varieties or species, but I guess you never know what they'll have - and neither do they!

A thousand bulbs isn't as many as it might sound like. I have a small yard, and after this year there will be several thousand bulbs in there. The small bulbs like crocuses and grape hyacinths can get planted fairly close together, and a hundred doesn't go very far.

I never tell my girlfriend how many I bought. If I say I spent $150 on bulbs, that's okay, but she freaks at the actual numbers, so I don't tell her. She won't help plant them, anyway. But she's happy to see them in the spring! I try to be really frugal with everything else, by growing most things from seeds and cuttings.

Do you have major deer issues there, michaeljo? I've never seen more deer in my life than there are near you, around Valley Forge, etc. I see them occasionally here, not too bad.

Exactly. I'm "only" planting 200 larger bulbs (daffodils) this year, but I've got a zillion little crocus, muscari, anemones, etc to put in. I'm deluding myself, thinking they'll be no effort at all to plant... but it won't be like trying to plant 1000 daffodils, at least!

I've been putting in at least 1000 bulbs a year for the past several years, and it's starting to make a nice spring show. At least 2/3 of the bulbs have been "little bulbs," and most of the rest have been daffodils (DH's favorite), plus a few oriental hyacinths and a handful of tulips. I'm also a huge fan of the little "species" tulips (like T. humilis hybrids) that return and multiply from year to year, unlike their bigger cousins.

The boxes of bulbs at Sam's (yes, Sam's Club, and I'm sure Costco has them too) aren't a bad deal, and their crocus and muscari bulbs are a decent size. Their daffodil bulbs were pretty small last year, but you couldn't argue with the price, and they'll get larger each year. I put in a bunch of them at my MIL's last year.

I've mostly been ordering bulbs online. Regular prices are a little more than at the box stores, but bulbs are generally bigger and healthier (and if there are any problems, you get refunds or replacements). The late season sale prices can be pretty wonderful.

Blooming Bulbs has snow crocuses now on sale for $20 per 1000 (plus $7 shipping, I think). That's fabulous. And crocuses are wonderful to plant all through your lawn... just lift a flap of sod with your shovel, put the crocuses down into the soil, and press the sod back into place.

Yes I have major deer issues, rabbits too. I used to think they were (I hate to say this, but) cute -- until I started gardening. Now I loathe them. I must be doing something right in my garden, they love it. I try to find "deer-resistant" plants ... I wish someone will tell the deer that they're "deer-resistant".

calypa - Waterloo Gardens is my favorite nursery. Thanks for the co-op/classified ads tip.

Daffodils are fairly deer resistant. My folks have a big deer herd passing through nightly, and their daffodils do fine. Dad says they left the daylilies alone, too. Daylilies are a great thing to interplant with daffodils -- as they sprout up in spring, their leaves hide the dying daffodil foliage.

This is what I bought this year (so far...haha). You can see that some of the smaller bulbs aren't that expensive. Last year I planted 50 crocuses here and there, I hardly noticed them.

200 Puschkinia libanotica - $8

200 Tulipa tarda - $16

200 Crocus sp. - $8

500 Red Darwin hybrid Tulips $35

100 Narcissus cyclamineus 'Jack Snipe' $36

500 Muscari armeniacum $60

Bear in mind, I have a new bed this year, about 40 feet by 6 feet, and it has no bulbs in it yet, and I'm a 'nutjob'. Or so I'm told. And like I said, I really don't spend much on other stuff for the garden, so it's easy for me to rationalize spending whatever that adds up to. These will grow for years and years.

I saw the Jack Snipe Narcisus/Daffodils (same thing) at Longwood, they probably have millions of them. Grape Hyacinths / Muscari are a must have, extreme blue for weeks. Any species Tulips are very tough, as are the Darwin hybrids.

Check the source if you buy bulbs from Walmart. I bought from them for years with great results, but our Walmart is now getting their bulbs from Van Bourgoundien and they're horrible. Only a tiny fraction of the ones I got from them last year even came up.

Maybe this is just in Virginia though. It's a Virginia company.

I've gotten very nice bulbs from Costco for a great price. Last year I got bag of 75 named daffodils for around $12. They might be starting to clearance them by now too and they mark them way down then.

I added 200 daffs and tulips one year put them in groups of about 5 to 7 and scattered them around the yard. Put a few by the lamppost, near the front walk at the bases of my stone wall, split rail fence and trees. I swear the yard just sucked them up. They all came up in the spring but it was just a drop in the bucket. Some of them will produce more bulbs with time. I started out with just a few Easter Bonnet daffs and now I have some pretty large clumps.
Hart, Thanks for the warning Ric just came home with a few Crocus and Tulips that are Van Bourgoundien.

This message was edited Nov 6, 2007 4:04 PM

Holly, if you don't want to take them back now, save your receipt and your package label. Walmart will give you a refund if they don't come up.

I have to say the ones I got were without a doubt the worst bulbs I've ever seen. Of three packs of bulbs, only one had anything come up at all. That was a pack of six cannas, only one emerged and it never bloomed. Got about a foot tall all summer.

Already planted, tulips 16 each red and orange. 10 each giant yellow and purple crocus. I put the receipt in my file. He brought them home to put in the little beds at the corners of the gazebo we put up this summer.

Critter - thanks for mentioning the daylilies, I was going to ask you what to plant with the bulbs to high the spent foliage. 1,000 bulbs a year for several years -- do you have pictures you can share?

Wow! 1,700 bulbs for $163, that's less than 10 cents a bulb ... Claypa sounds like a good deal. Cheap - that's for me. And they come back every year, even better.

I'll check out Walmart, Cosco and Blooming Bulbs-- any specific quality names I should look for?

Warning michaeljo, everyone here is an enabler. You'll soon be racing out every time someone mentions getting a good deal somewhere! Welcome to our world :)

I was just online searching for places to buy bulbs ... Walmart and Costco are closed for the evening.

Did you see this?

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/787296/

Yes, Bleek (eflowergardens) is a highly recommended source! :-) I've also had some great bulbs (and good bargains) this year from Van Engelen (the wholesale branch of John Scheepers -- meaning they sell larger lots, and you have to spend at least $50, which isn't too hard to do, LOL) and Blooming Bulbs. I love Brent and Becky's, also... their big half off sale doesn't start until usually the Sunday after Thanksgiving (but it includes amaryllis!). I've bought from Dutch Gardens and Brecks in the past also and been pleased, but the above vendors have become my mainstay "suppliers." :-)

OMG, there is so much to choose from out there... no wonder you can plant 1,000 bulbs a year. Thanks for all of the tips and advise, so far.

Dear Michael, THIS is all the advise you need to know:

Buy bulbs, LOTS of bulbs. As many bulbs as you can afford, and then buy more!!! Plant them according to instructions and be prepared to buy TWICE as many NEXT year!!!

There, that's it in a nut shell!
Pat

I don't think anyone ever saw their yard in spring time and said,"I planted too many bulbs." But lots of people wish they had planted more!

Got it ... buy lots now, and a whole lot more every year after that ... never too many bulbs.

I think I found a good spot to start my first bulb garden --underneath a weeping cherry tree. The area under the tree is about kind of "blobular" shaped (about a 4ft diameter) and planted with lamium maculatum (Spotted Nettle?). Good spot for the bulbs or will the lamium get in the way?

I'm unfamiliar with the lamium so I'm no help there! Does it die back to ground and then come up from roots later in spring? If so, other than disturbing the root system of your lamium, I can't imagine why that would not be a great place to START... hehehe

I'd be more concerned about the tree's roots. Is it a young tree? That would be the ideal scenario.

Sounds good to me, especially if you can plant far enough out from the trunk that you're not disrupting the tree's roots too much. The lamium will be fine -- it's pretty tough, and if some of it comes up while you're planting, just plant it back into the ground. I'm trying to remember how quickly my lamium grew up last spring... I know it hid some of the intermediate bearded irises blooming in early summer (the lamium grew more enthusiastically than I'd anticipated), but I think daffs or tall alliums would show up fine... not so sure about crocus or other small flowers, however. But you could still do a nice little border of grape hyacinths or squill or whatever catches your fancy.

Have fun! (it sounds like you're having a ball already!)

Not sure how old the tree is ... looks fairly young. The previous owners planted it.

Having a ball! See how long that lasts when I start plant all those bulbs ...

Let us know what you decide to get! :-)

I will and pictures in the spring.

I am sure you will love daffodils. We have thousands in the field and we cut and sell them on the roadside stand in the Spring. We also have Iris, so easy too, and glads (they take some care) but they are so lovely and are great for cutting.
Here is a picture of a couple of rows of the older bulbs. We have pink, white, yellow and orange. They keep dividing each year as they get older. Brecks have excellent bulbs and they guarantee they bloom or they replace them. Be sure your bulbs are fresh when you get them. Now is a good time to plant before the ground freezes. We just put in a few hundred more Iris and they are coming up which is not good. Our weather is too warm for this time of year. I know you will enjoy your bulbs as much as we enjoy our.

The problem is I like all of the things I've seen on line, especially the Calla lilies. Any reason no one mentioned them?

Callas like it more wet and less sunny than conditions in most of my yard, plus they are tender... I've always heard they have to be dug up in fall, but there's an entry in PF that suggests heavy mulching might do the trick... Maybe they'd do well in a pot?

In the area I am from, I know people who do not dig them up and they have mutliplied like crazy. Although the area is also a zone 6, it is relatively dry. I don't know how much extra water and care she has to give them.

Well, now you've got me thinking... perhaps I've been unfairly ignoring them in the catalog listings, LOL. :-)

Callas ar OK in ground for me and my dad, in Linthicum, same zone or close enuf ,no special care. His bloom well but probably get watered more, and are an older more established clump. Mine had one bloom from the big bulb, rest were small and with drought besides... I don't know why nobody around here seems to grow them.

I love callas, but don't have any either. I think one of the co-ops had them last year but I missed it. I did have one a few years ago as a water plant in my pond but it didn't overwinter. Also check out the Hardy Cyclamen.

I have hardy cyclamen, about four bulbs from three years ago. They are hardy but so small ther'es not much to them. Flowers are about an inch long and pointing at the ground from a three inch stem. Neat foliage. They need a special place or you'll just forget you ever got them.

I ordered a few last year but the chipmunks dug them up and none of them came up. Sounds like I might have been disappointed even if they had survived. I may still get a few if I find them at a good price. I've just moved out my stone path that goes around from the front door to the side driveway so my front flower bed is a good bit bigger now and Ric redid the flower bed around the lamppost so that is much bigger too. I'm going to need more bulbs next year. BTW Sally I planted the daffs you gave me at Spring swap.