The gardener decides to go for it, plant all her flower bulbs in one session. Shaking her head, she thinks, what a pipe dream, but she sets off to get the task
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done, regardless. Arriving in the garden, she notices some plants need dividing, the soil needs amending and there is precious little space for her bulbs. Therefore, she does not plant all her bulbs in one session. The gardener will be extremely lucky if she manages to plant each and everyone this fall. What was I thinking when I ordered a gazillion bulbs last summer? Sighing, she wonders where the time went. She thought there were six weeks to prepare the garden for the incoming bulbs, but Procrastination, her life-long friend, came to visit. The work was set aside.
How many of us find ourselves facing the garden, trowel in one hand, and bags of bulbs in another, without a clue where to plant them? It has happened so often to me that I've had to find ways to overcome being overwhelmed with bulbs. Just the commitment of planting those precious bulbs was enough to make me feel I may need to be committed for buying more than I could handle! Caught with bulbs on my hands, I think that the toss them and plant them method came to be when someone else was overwhelmed with not enough time or energy to plant. It sounds romantic and purposeful to plant the bulbs so that they look naturalized, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a natural look was not the only reason this method came into practice.
I imagine someone ran out of time or was too tired to plan another bed of bulbs carefully . In frustration, they tossed some bulbs. As they plopped to the ground, they thought, good enough! They dug in each bulb where it fell, talking to themselves, “I can explain this away. Naturalized, my bulbs are naturalized.” If someone comments about the placement, the gardener could say, while secretly laughing, “Oh I like the look, don’t you? Isn’t it natural looking?” Perhaps that is how the naturalized method of toss them and plant them came to be.
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I have an alternative method. When facing the dilemma of too many bulbs and not enough time, I will give bulbs away to other gardeners, who will give them a good home. I do not mind being generous, and it is one good way to not waste bulbs that will otherwise rot in their packages. However, I would like to use all the bulbs. Whenever there are leftover bulbs, I grab some black gallon pots, decorative pots or any pot I can find. In the black gallon pots, I pot up many bulbs of daffodils or tulips as many as I can place in the pot side by side, but not touching each other. For plants like lilies, plant only one to three bulbs per gallon pot. In addition, I place bulbs in large or small decorative pots. Whichever way I choose, I get them planted and worry about replanting them or staging them later.
I keep on hand some nice decorative pots that hold the black, plastic gallon size pots, and larger. I use these to toss a nice looking plant in, for an instant display that disguises the ugly plastic pots they come in. When the display is over, I take the plastic pot out and replace it with another plant in bloom. This works well with perennials that bloom for a couple of weeks. When the show is over, I can plant the perennials out in the garden. It also works with bulbs. The decorative pots on my front porch mean I can stage an ever-changing plant show, with smaller pots surrounding some of the larger pots that have more permanently planted displays.
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Anyone can do this, whether purposely or like me, in a panic of what to do with excess bulbs. Plant gallon pots with one type of bulb. Five or six daffodils, or tulips, more or less depending on bulb size, will look great when all are blooming at the same time using larger pots you can put in more varieties of bulbs. While the bulbs are developing over winter, keep the potted ones in a protected place, buried in the ground, under leaves, or an unheated cloche or greenhouse. When they are ready for staging, clean the dirt off the pot, and place them inside the decorative pots.
Debra Teachout-Teashon
Photographed in author's garden.
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