Planting Bulbs

It’s not too late to plant bulbs. On Saturday, we planted a whole slew of them and fingers crossed, we’ll have some beauties sprouting in the spring. After non-stop rain all week, at the first reprieve I made my way out to the garden to work.  It was only a slight reprieve because we were soaked by the end of the day. I didn’t care; I’ve been so eager to get things going after the move and the rainy days made me crazy wanting to just go outside and get going.

The upside was that I had all my bulbs and plants lined up and ready, so I didn’t have to make a trip to the nursery and plant in the same day.

Bulbs make the prettiest cutting flowers. When planting cutting flowers, I like to put them in an area that is a little off the beaten path, so I can snip them for arrangements and not feel bad about bald patches in the garden.

I picked Anemones and Ixia because they’ll come back every year.

We cleared all the pine needles...

Then we had to mix the mulch with the sandy soil beneath.

First, we raked the area, clearing the pine needles that had accumulated. We lightly loosened up the soil with a shovel and then basically “kneaded” the soil with our hands, mixing the sandy earth with the mulch/top soil.

After that, we were ready to dig holes. You can use your hands or a bulb planter, like we did. My daughter loved using the tool, so she was my go-to hole digger.

We put the bulbs in, but didn’t cover them with dirt. This way we could see where we’d already planted and where to plant the next row. I used the flowers’ bag tag to demarcate what was planted in each row.

I noticed that bulbs are on sale everywhere—from the home improvement store to the boutique nurseries. Right now, you should be able to get a good deal pretty much everywhere. Even if you’ve never tried planting bulbs before, there’s no time to start like the present. There’s something magical about bulbs, you stick ‘em in the ground, and then in a few months they spring up. It was a nice way to spend time with my daughter, it was easy, and it’ll be fun and exciting to watch the first sprouts with her in the spring.