Jun
16
Posted under
Flower bulb care
If you find yourself too impatient to wait on the spring to bring flowers, you can get spring flowers earlier by forcing bulbs indoors. It is wonderful to have tulips and crocuses blooming in your windowsill as you watch the snow fall outside.
Tips for forcing bulbs indoors:
#1. Garden centers begin selling spring bulbs in the fall since the bulbs need to be planted then to produce flowers outdoors in the spring. The best bulbs for forcing are tulips, hardy narcissus, hyacinths, crocuses and daffodils. Purchase your bulbs and while planting outdoors in fall, save a few of each type to force indoors.
#2. The bulbs need to be kept at a constant temperature of around 40 degrees for a 15 week period. This mimics winter. You can store your bulbs in your outdoor sheds, freezer or refrigerator for this 15 week period as long as the temperature remains at a constant 40 degrees or so. If you use the freezer method and if you have a frost free freezer, the air is much drier so check often to make sure the bulbs are moist. You do not want the bulbs to be too moist to cause rot, but drying out will damage or kill them. If you have room in the refrigerator, you can store bulbs in a paper bag with some moistened peat moss.
#3. After the 15 week winter period, you may plant the bulbs in small pots filled with potting soil or you can use small clear glass bowls filled with marbles. Place several in the potting soil so that the tips of the bulbs are sticking out from the dirt. Pay attention to the shape of the bulb when planting. The tip end where the stems and flowers emerge should be showing through the dirt when planting. If using marbles in a glass bowl, anchor the bulbs so when you add water on the bottom tips get wet. As the roots form, it may be necessary to change the water frequently. Make sure to keep the roots in water and the bulb resting out of the water.
#4. After sticking the bulbs in dirt or marbles, place the containers in a bright window sill. Keep the soil slightly moist until you see the shoots are about 3 to 4 inches tall. Do not fertilize. After the shoots have reached 4 inches, move the pots to a bright sun filled spot and wait until the buds form. After the buds start showing color, move them out of the bright sunshine and back to a bright indirect location. Keep the soil constantly moist during the flowering stage.
#5. After your flowers are spent and the leaves are yellowing, you can transplant them into your outdoor garden. They will not flower again outdoors until the following spring. If you want to save the bulbs to force inside next year, you need to reduce the amount of water. Only water enough to keep the leaves from wilting as they continue to die back. Cut and discard the flower stems and store the entire pot in a cool dry area. You can dig the bulbs back up and store them individually. Make sure these bulbs have enough air circulation to prevent rot and mold. You may wish to store them in dry peat moss in a cool dry area.
Forcing bulbs make very good Christmas gifts. Allow the 15 week period to coincide with the holidays. You can give as a kit, with the bulbs already planted and ready to sprout or give the container with the shoots already forming. Make sure to enclose a small card with the type of bulb and directions for taking care of it during and after blooming. Hyacinths are generally larger and will look good as a singular plant, although some people do not care for its highly fragrant odor. Tulips, crocuses, daffodils and narcissus look best when several bulbs are planted together. You can mix and match for a variety of colors and flowers.
Apr
22
Posted under
Flower bulb care
Autumn is the time of year when the weather cools, the tree leaves turn vibrant colors and we gardeners need to think of the Spring. What? Think of spring in autumn? Why? Well, Autumn is when we must plant the bulbs that will give us those early flowering beauties which herald the growing season.
Before summer is through the garden centers are already bursting with possibilities. There are great displays of Tulips, Daffodils, Crocus, Snowdrops, Grape Hyacinths and Alliums among others. My mailbox is full with mail order catalogues which offer a greater variety of these old-time favorites plus others you might never see in stores. I defy anyone to look through a few and not fall in love with something new and different every Autumn. Those catalogues are a danger to wallets so pace yourself. In general you won’t spend a single cent without it giving you endless payback. Bulbs multiply readily with some naturalizing quite enchantingly.
When wishing to create a dazzling Spring flower display one needs to prepare the planting sight which should get ample sun exposure. Remember that in early Spring there are no leaves on trees to shade out the sun so planting under trees is usually all right. Ridding the intended space of weeds and fortifying the bare soil with compost tilling it in well is the best thing you can do to ensure wonderful productivity. Good rich, well draining soil is a must. This has to be done first because once planted these bulbs need never be disturbed except for dividing.
After the sight is prepared one needs to decide what flowers to plant. The best Spring displays I’ve seen in Botanical gardens (and I’ve seen plenty in my many travels around the US) are those with a long blooming time. To achieve this a good mixture of bulbs is required. This doesn’t mean you have to have Daffodils with Tulips or Hyacinths with Crocus unless you like that look. Combinations look amazing when done with contrasting color and shapes. Experiment and you might surprise yourself. Most people, however, seem to prefer a bed devoted to one flower. The look is stunning I must admit but I find it limited. Once they flower, mostly all at once, you’re left with bare ground again. How boring it that?
What I see as the good alternative to the sole flower approach for the home garden is layering the bulbs this way you have a continuous display which can last for over three months if properly thought out. When purchasing these bulbs they are usually labeled
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Mar
29
Posted under
Spring flower bulbs 
Product Description
OverviewVariety of bulbs for sun and shade. Excellent cut flowers. Available in select Clubs with Floral departments.SpecificationsSummer flowering Excellent cut flowers Low grow varieties for borders Varieties for sun and shade… More >>
Spring Flower Bulbs
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Jan
02
Posted under
Flower bulb care
Planting spring bulbs is a fairly easy project. You dig a hole a little deeper and little bigger than the bulb you are planning to put in the spot and put a little plant food in the hole along with the bulb then place the bulb with the biggest part down and the point of the bulb up.
Most bulbs come with fairly complete instructions on the package about the depth and the conditions you need to provide for the plant to flourish. Often the directions include a chart or drawing which makes it very clear to the new gardener.
It’s a good idea to put some fertilizer in the hole as you plant. Any hardware store or garden center will stock the general fertilizer you will want to give your bulbs a good nutritious start on their life in your garden.
Bulbs can be planted with a special tool which takes just the rights size plug out of the ground or with a standard trowel or shovel. The spot can be quite shady and can be in the middle of a lawn because in the spring the sun will warm the soil before the leaves come out on trees and the bulb in the lawn will come up and bloom before the grass is very tall. When it fades and you can mow over the spot with no worry for the bulb which is tucked in under the lawn.That is called naturalizing.
Bulbs can be layered also with several planted in one spot one above the other so that they bloom successively. They can also be put into pots and planters and even window boxes in the fall so that there is an early show which is movable and can be enjoyed wherever you decide to place it in the spring. The containers can be wintered over in any out of the way spot in your yard and moved in the spring to a showy spot to be enjoyed. They can even be brought in to the house for an early show of color or the flowers can be cut and displayed in a vase.
Sometimes people decide that after the plant has bloomed they don’t like the looks of the leaves which remain behind. If you feel that the leaves of your faded tulip or daffodil annoy you don’t cut them off. Either tie them in a knot so that they are a bit more inconspicuous or just leave them alone until they fade. You can plant something else in front of the fading leaves to mask it a bit if you want to distract the eyes of the viewer.The leaves do a special job of gathering the sunshine to nurture the hidden bulb.When the leaves have faded to brown and shriveled you can safely clip them and put them in the compost heap.
Whether you choose to plant in a carefully arranged flower garden,naturalize your bulbs by scattering them among your grass or pot them, bulbs can provide a beautiful spring show for a few dollars and a small amount of effort. Most bulbs will give you years of enjoyment and when they multiply you can give their offspring away to your family and friends so that they can share your pleasure.
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Dec
13
Posted under
Flower bulb care
Want Spring Color This Winter? Just Force The Issue
Spring is but a distant memory. What sticks out in our minds is what kind of spring it was. The bulk of spring, April, is a wet cold miserable time to be in the garden. Crops in out gardens and in the fields of farmers were ruined. But oh what a month May is. Beautiful warm temperatures and the most co-operative nature has been to gardeners in along time. As the leaves fall in colored splendor they remind us that spring is just around the corner. Around a cold dark sometimes snowy winter though. However if we just look back at May and see how nature cooperated and made up for the rains of April we can have spring spring up a little early indoors. The trick is to plan now and plant now.
A visit to any garden center in the fall will give you great ideas for spring bulb gardening. Tulips in rainbows of colors, daffodils and narcissus that deer refuse to eat. Crocus and snowdrops defy their dainty stature by poking their heads up through the snow. And watch out for hyacinths! They give many gardeners an itching reaction almost as strong as their fragrance. In fact in Holland employees are paid extra to work sorting hyacinths!
With all that beauty displayed on the package who can wait until spring for all that color?
Well it turns out that nature is beat Madison Avenue to the marketing game when it comes to the “I want it now” consumer. While you cannot have spring now you can have it in a few weeks if you simply force the issue. Spring bulbs can be coaxed to bloom indoors well before St. Patrick Day arrives.
The easiest to force are paper whites. I fact these pungent flowers will not survive outside at all. Paper whites do not need soil to bloom just a vase with a narrow neck to hold the bulb. Below the bulb water should be place just to be low the bottom of the bulb. Warm rooms will encourage the roots to descend into the water and green shoots to emerge from the top. Paper whites can also be grown in shallow bowls that do not have drainage holes. Line the bottom of the bowl with stones, place paper whites in odd numbers close together on the rocks. Fill in between the bulbs with more rocks. Add some water to the bottom of the bowl and the bulbs will be gin to grow. These indoor blooming narcissus also come in yellow.
Many other bulbs can be forced indoors as well. Tulips planted in shallow containers filled with lightweight soil can be planted now. After planting water well and place
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Oct
19
Posted under
Flower bulb care
There is nothing quite as welcome as those beautiful spring flowers that seem to emerge from nowhere to welcome the arrival of spring. Bulb type flowers are really unique plants, because they spend most of their days resting quietly beneath the surface of the soil. Then right on schedule, up they come, full of bloom and vigor, and then almost as fast as they came, they go. Except for the green leafy part of the plant that tends to linger longer than we would like them to.
Despite their short bloom time and unattractive foliage after the blooms are gone, they are still a wonderful addition to any landscape. But how should you care for them? First lets talk about how to use them in your landscape. Flowers of all kinds are best when planted in groupings. Many people buy 25 or 50 bulbs and just go around the yard planting helter skelter. Thats fine if thats what you want, but when planted that way they tend to blend in with the landscape and really dont show up well at all. When you plant them in large groups they are a breathtaking showpiece.
In the early spring start thinking about where you would like to create a bed for flower bulbs. Prepare the bed by raising it with good rich topsoil, and if at all possible add some well composted cow manure. Do this in the spring while you are in the gardening mood; you may not be in the fall. Over the summer fill the bed with annual flowers to keep the weeds down, and to pretty up your yard for the summer. Come fall all you have to do is pull out the annuals and plant your bulbs to the depth recommended on the package.
If you think you could have a problem with squirrels digging up the bulbs and eating them, you can also wrap the bulbs in steel wool, leaving just the tip of the bulb exposed so it can grow out of the little wire cage youve created. Or you can just plant the bulbs and then cover the bed with chicken wire or plastic fencing until the bulbs start to grow in the spring.
When the bulbs come up in the spring and start blooming, you should clip off the blooms as they start to wither. This keeps the bulb from producing seeds, which requires a lot of energy, and you want the bulb to use all of its available energy to store food in preparation for the bulbs resting period. Once the bulbs are completely done blooming you dont want to cut off the tops until they are withered and die back. The million dollar question is how to treat the tops until that happens.
Many people bend them over and slip a rubber band over them, or in the case of bulbs like Daffodils tie them with one of the long leaves. This seems to work because it is a very common practice among many experienced gardeners. However, Mike is about to rain on the parade.
I strongly disagree with this theory because back about 6th grade we learned about photosynthesis in science class. To recap what we learned, and without going into the boring details, photosynthesis is the process of the plant using the suns rays to make food for itself. The rays from the sun are absorbed by the foliage and the food making process begins. In the case of a flower bulb this food is transported to the bulb beneath the ground and stored for later use.
So basically the leaves of the plant are like little solar panels. Their job is to absorb the rays from the sun to begin the process known as photosynthesis. If we fold them over and handcuff them with their hands behind their back, they are not going to be able to do their job. Its like throwing a tarpaulin over 80% of a solar panel.
In order for the leaves to absorb the rays from the sun, the surface of the foliage has to be exposed to the sun. On top of that, when you bend the foliage over, you are restricting the flow of nutrients to the bulb. The veins in the leaves and the stem are a lot like our blood vessels. If you restrict them the flow stops.
You decide. Ive presented my case. Bending them over seems to work, but Ive spent a lot of money on my bulbs. I want them running at full speed. What I do is clip the blooms off once they are spent, and just leave the tops alone until they are yellow and wilted. If they are still not wilted when its time to plant my annual flowers, I just plant the annuals in between the bulbs. As the bulbs die back the annuals tend to grow and conceal them. If one shows through I clip it off. It seems to work well for me.
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Sep
20
Posted under
Flower bulb care
At Ultra Growth we like to plant our bulbs without much fuss or expense, using as few gadgets as possible. We prefer a garden shovel and pointed trowel. Most gardeners do not plant enough bulbs to make much of an impact in their early spring flower beds.
In fall when the garden is still full of foliage from the summers perennials and annuals, it is hard to remember how stark the beds can look in early spring. The following is a sure fire step by step guide to planting your spring bulbs.
1) Spring flowering bulbs thrive in full or partial sun. Good drainage is a must for healthy bulbs. Do not plant your bulbs in soggy or low lying areas of your garden as water will pool in these areas during spring thaw.
2) Once you have chosen a site, prepare the soil by adding some compost and/or peat moss mix. This is also a great time to add Ultra Growth Compost or Ultra Growth Soil Conditioners. You really want to make sure you have good drainage and healthy soil at this point.
3) Bulb size will dictate how deep to plant them, i.e. large bulbs 8 – 12 inches (20 to 30 cm) deep and smaller bulbs 4 – 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) deep.
4) When spacing your bulbs size also matters, i.e. large bulbs should be spaced 3 – 6 inches (8 to 16 cm) apart and small bulbs from 1 – 2 inches (3 to 6 cm) apart. Always plant your bulbs pointy side up. If you are confused as with tubers like windflowers just lay them sideways and they will right themselves as they grow.
5) Now that you bulbs are planted, cover them with soil and water well. When the soil starts cooling later in the year apply 2 – 3 inches ( 6 to 12 cm) of some type of a mulch as this will help to prevent the soil from drying out as well as help stabilize the temperature of your bulbs throughout the winter.
By following these basic steps you will have great blooms from your bulbs year after year . When buying bulbs you want to look for healthy bulbs that are firm with no soft spots or white mold as these are signs of poor quality bulbs. Do not forget your bulbs are an investment in your garden and a part of your home.
Bulbs do not require any fertilizers at the point of spring planting but for really vigorous growth you can apply Ultra Growth Plant Food and a bulb booster rated at 5 – 10 – 10.
Make sure you do not allow any of the actual bulb booster fertilizer to come in to contact with the bulbs as the fertilizer will burn the bulb. By using Ultra Growth Plant Food and soaking the bulbs prior to planting will give you amazing results once your flowers poke their heads up and start their growth.
If you follow these steps you will have a beautiful spring display of bloom. After the flowers have faded, deadhead the plants so that they are not wasting energy producing seeds. Leave the foliage in place to allow the plant to recharge itself for next springs performance.
This will take some restraint as leaves may not look that presentable. Another idea is to look at your bulbs like annuals and simply pull out the clumps and put them into cold storage until next spring or even that fall. This can help you decide the perfect place to for a particular set of bulbs as you can experiment throughout your garden.
Hopefully this information will help you to ensure great results at a time when nature is just starting to show her colors, Spring. Personally we can not wait to get back to our outside gardens.
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Sep
02
Posted under
Flower bulb care
Flower bulbs need a good, long, winters sleep. Like some people we know, if they wake up before they are fully rested they get kind of cranky, and then they dont bloom well at all.
Actually what happens is during a mild winter, the soil stays too warm and the bulbs begin to come out of dormancy early. They start to grow, and once the tips emerge above the soil line, they are subject to freezing if the temperatures dip back down below freezing. And thats usually what happens. After the bulbs have emerged, they freeze and then dont bloom at all, or if they do its a very sad display.
Another reason this happens is because the bulbs are not planted deep enough. They may have been deep enough when you planted them, but as the soil goes through the freezing and thawing process, the bulbs can actually work their way up in the ground. One way to keep your flower bulbs sleeping longer, which will protect them from freezing, is to mulch the bed.
In the fall just apply a 3-4 layer of well composted mulch. This layer of mulch will do a couple of things. It will maintain a higher moisture content in the soil, which is good as long as the soil isnt too soggy. Well composted mulch also adds valuable organic matter to the planting bed. Organic matter makes a great natural fertilizer.
A 3-4 layer of mulch also acts as an insulator. It will keep the soil from freezing for a while, which is good because you dont want the bulbs going through a series of short cycles of freezing and thawing. Then when the temperatures drop below freezing and stay there for a while, the soil does eventually freeze. Then the mulch actually works in reverse and keeps the soil from thawing out too early. Keeping it in a frozen state is actually good because the bulbs remain dormant for a longer period of time.
When they finally do wake up it is spring time, and hopefully by the time they emerge from the ground the danger of a hard freeze is past and they will not be damaged. If you can keep them from freezing, they will flower beautifully. The extra organic matter will help to nourish the bulbs when they are done blooming, and the cycle starts all over again.
We also plant annual flowers in the same beds with our spring bulbs. By the time the danger of frost is past and its time to plant the annuals, the top of the bulbs have died back and are ready to be removed. The mulch that is added in the fall also helps to nourish the annual flowers, as well as improve the soil permanently. Any time you add well composted organic matter to your planting beds, you are bound to realize multiple benefits. The key words here are well composted. Fresh material is not good.
Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips and hints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques, and insights pertaining to gardening and gardening implements, do please browse for more information at our websites.
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Aug
25
Posted under
Flower bulb care
Although spring is upon us there’s still time to get your snowdrop bulbs in the ground ready for next year. Snowdrop bulbs can be planted right up to the end of September so if you are thinking of starting a garden then this is one plant worth considering.
Not only does it flower early in the spring but to me the Snowdrop marks the end of the winter, when I see the snowdrops up I know that it won’t be too long before the weather starts to get better and the summer will be on it’s way.
There are different types of Snowdrop you can plant and these can be bought from the garden centre in nets for around 2.50. At boot sales or in garden shops after the summer you can often find nets of snowdrop bulbs on offer at a really low price.
You can get autumn flowering varieties but it’s usually the white early spring varieties which are the one’s seen most in gardens and at the road sides.
The snowdrop will grow in any good soil, they also grow well in grass and it’s nice to see snowdrops popping up in little clusters around the lawns of some houses as your passing. They brighten up the wintery days and seem to signal the coming spring.
You can also grow them in pots but you might find that they don’t last as long as when they are in the ground, I have no ideal why this seems to be the case but if you haven’t a garden you can get a little bloom of snowdrops in a large pot to brighten up your patio or window box.
There are a few varieties to choose from.
Galanthus Elwesii as it is known is slightly larger than the snowdrop we see in spring, it’s flowers are still white but the inner segments are a rich green colour.
The G.Ikarie which flowers in March also has white flowers but these are more glossy than the other varieties.
The one we all know is the G. Nivalis, other known as the Common Snowdrop or Old English snowdrop and this has little white flowers. This will double if left in the ground so that the year after flowering you will have double the amount of flowers than last year. This makes it a good variety to plant and to forget about, it’s low maintenance and you if you plant it in the right place and don’t want to move it the year after it will come up year after year doubling in amounts of blooms each year.
There are a few other varieties to look for and you will be able to find them at the garden centres, the names of the bulbs will be written on the little sacks for purchase, quite often you will get a picture of the bloom on the pack which gives you more of an idea of what you will be getting.
For me the Snowdrop is on of the best plants around, it has great significance marking the end of winter and ever since I was little I can remember looking out for the first Snowdrop in the garden, then the thrill of seeing one cheers me up as I know that soon the weather will be warmer and the days will be longer. Barbecues, Relaxing, Holidays and everything good which follows the winter blues.
Have fun x
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Jun
26
Posted under
Flower bulb care
I often notice when visiting gardens the great quantities of Daffodils and other early bulbs that we plant to herald in the spring. But how do we ensure we have a great display each year?
The early flowering bulbs
Quite a few seasoned gardeners have had their first horticultural experience by the planting of a few Daffodil or Tulip bulbs, thus spurring them onto more adventurous plantings. At the end of April the very early flowering bulbs will come to the end of their blooming season. This group of early bloomers includes Daffodils, Hyacinths, Bluebells, Crocus, Snowdrops and early Tulips. All these bulbs will flower well for any gardener the first growing season but for them to bloom well the following seasons we must give them some care.
Dieback not tieback
All bulbs leaves must be allowed a minimum of six weeks after flowering to die down, so if these bulbs are planted in a lawn that area of lawn must remain uncut for six weeks. Refrain from tying your Daffodil leaves in knots to neaten their appearance, also avoid folding them over and securing with rubber bands. If the bulbs leaves are naturally allowed to die back then they will take in the energy for next years flowering. I would also recommend nipping off the spent flower heads on bulbs once flowering is finished, this will prevent the bulb using vital energy for seed production instead using all that energy to bulk up its food store for next season.
Don’t forget to feed
The final tip for blooming bulbs next spring is to feed your bulbs, this is especially important if you have a hungry soil. Apply a foliar feed to the fully emerged leaves before the blooms start to form. Choose a general purpose purpose liquid feed.I would also advise you to feed your bulbs just as the blooms have faded with a granular bulb fertiliser applied around the bulbs base. This is the most important feed they will receive. Ensure this feed has a higher potassium or potash content than nitrogen content. Apply according to the manufacturers instructions and heed safety warnings.
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